Flair and invention were very much at a premium, suffocated by the relentless pace and often fractious nature of proceedings. The absence of James Morrison from the centre of Scotland’s midfield, the West Brom man ruled out on the morning of the game by illness, had already diminished the creative capacity of the home side in that department.

[…] the music of the duet is flexible and sweet, and the bass and tenor progress with it not in the ride-and-tie fashion but marking time with the title-syllable.

Her one discernible flaw is her hyperextended arms, but while occasionally distracting, they also lend her elegance a youthful, gangly charm.

[…] he saith that some Jasper stones are found having in them the livelie image of a naturall man, with a sheeld at his necke and a speare in his hand, and under his feete a serpent: which stones so marked and signed, he preferreth before all the rest, bicause they are antidotaries or remedies notablie resisting poison.