My husband has been growling: ‘You cross-legged hartichoak.’ He tries it on obstructive pedestrians hypnotised by their mobile phones. He thus hopes, optimistically, to utter insults while avoiding any ism that could get him into trouble.

This imprecation hartichoak he took from the mouth of Young Tom Strowd, a Norfolk man, in The Blind-Beggar of Bednal Green, a play from 1600 by John Day (a Norfolk man) and Henry Chettle (in and out of debtors’ prison).