In recent months I have found the comments below THG stories in the Times to be quite useful as they have been in dramatic contrast to the recycled PR puff pieces above the line – indeed many of them pointing out the until recently utterly uncritical coverage of Magic Matt Moulding and his friends from Softbank.

We have felt obliged to comment in the past on the curious beast that is The Hut Group, or THG as it is known, not least because it seems to defy every aspect of corporate governance that any one caring about the G in ESG might consider important, but also because of its relentless PR onslaught in the UK financial press and its (in our view egregious) use of a ‘tech status’ to persuade UK retail investors that an online e-tail business was worth 7x sales.

The story is that a developer took over a site that had not been completed by the previous developer and was forced to knock down the buildings and start again.

Like a lot of people over a certain age, I remember exactly where I was this day 20 years ago, on the trading floor of Commerzbank Securities in London, having interrupted preparations for a delayed marketing trip to New York when one of the traders called out that a plane had hit the World Trade Centre.

As the twittersphere morphs from being experts on infectious diseases to experts on Geo-politics and ‘The Great Game’, it is worth remembering that it is an assessment of what policy will most likely be enacted by those in a position to do so rather than what we ourselves (or any other armchair experts) think should be done.