Sometimes the irony detector kicks in inappropriately. No I wasn't thinking you were being inflammatory, Icklee Dorrit, qyuite thebnreverse. I was trying to say that, since in fact you were being conciliatory, you had got your metaphors mixed up.

It's quite a common misunderstanding with the expression "oil on troubled waters" - I suppose because while the image is in fcat of pouring the oil as a way of calming down the choppy water, the image people have of it is of pollution and of someone putting a match to it.

Mind you when we do set out to be conciliatory, sometimes that is just what seems to happen.