I’m interviewing Peter Walton, the general manager of the new Professional Referees Organization, in his office in New York, and something’s nagging at me. He’s reminding me of someone, or something, that I can’t place. It’s not as simple as his accent — a flat, slightly nasal, Midlands English — though that’s what first alerts me. Nor, having focused on that, is it quite the tempo of his speech: precise, clipped phrases, words chosen with a tidy economy — and always at a pace with which there’s no danger of conversational momentum carrying him into dangerous territory. It’s around the time that Walton says “this year is about evolving, understanding, and collecting data” that it hits me — he’s reminding me of the Health and Safety Executive.