The company constantly walked a tightrope between operating on little money and filling orders quickly.

It followed that however orthodox the Emperor might desire to be, he was forced, if he was a wise man, to take account of the strong bodies of monophysite opinion, which were to be found in Constantinople, in Mesopotamia, in Syria and in Egypt.

Martin Amis famously saw off the cult of personality in tennis when he defined it as “an exact synonym of a seven-letter duosyllable starting with ‘a’, ending with ‘e’ (and also featuring, in order of appearance, an ‘ss’, an ‘h’, an ‘o’ and ‘l’)”.

With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass