The patient was almost certainly saved by his zipless zoot suit, said a genial surgeon.

Consider your mobile phone. Before it was assembled in a Chinese factory, the coltan in its capacitors may have been dug by miners in the Eastern Congo, where millions have died in a series of wars over ‘conflict minerals’, though we give this no more thought than previous generations of Westerners gave to the Congolese origins of the ivory in their piano keys, the rubber in their tyres, the copper in their bullet casings or the uranium in their bombs.

The child neither cried nor seemed to breathe, but he could be given no succour until the womb was freed of its afterburden; and all efforts were centred upon this.

“… At first I thought he was trying to ungay me or something.” Monty laughed.