A decent beard has long been the number one must-have fashion item for any fugitive from justice.

You might think that religion was the one area in which professional jealousy would take a back seat. But no: ecclesiastical memoirs are as viperish as any, though their envy tends to cloak itself in piety.

Somewhere in the back of their minds, hosts and guests alike know that the dinner party is a source of untold irritation, and that even the dullest evening spent watching television is preferable.

Historians are the consummate hairdressers of the literary world: cooing in public, catty in private.