The one landing strip in the Matsus, and good for light aircraft only, was on the second largest island, Peikan. Between Nankan and Peikan lay the Matsu Straits, a twisted riptide-torn channel, boasting freak winds and bouldered shores.

Capello mystifyingly left Ashley Young out despite a match-winning display in the Euro 2012 qualifier win in Wales in March and he only underlined the folly of the decision by emerging as substitute at half-time and striking a fine equaliser six minutes after coming on.

[…]from Anglo-Saxon times there had been a deep conviction that to receive the viaticum was a virtual death sentence which would make subsequent recovery impossible.

The reckoning need not be genuinely computative (intellectual); it may take the form of motor adjustments