mr

I am told by those readers who live in the more pleasant parts of our region that if you cut a worm in half you finish up with two perfectly functioning worms. I have checked: it is true.

In the early Middle Ages, a large part of the economy of western Europe was based around the buying and selling of religious relics. Nothing, from the shinbone of a saint to his tears, was without a value. No doubt the venture capitalists of the day could ascribe an expected internal rate of return to the thigh bone of a notable crusader.

In February 1942 Singapore, the great Asian fortress of Great Britain, meekly surrendered to a smaller and less well-equipped Japanese force. Defeat had seemed inconceivable.

Those who had bothered to read this column with the diligence its author deserves would not merely have seen the recessionary clouds gathering before most other people, they would have realised that the storm, when it arrived, was going to be brutal.