What is it with zips? Ask someone who knows about these things how to fix the zip on your coat, and they’ll pull a licked lemon of a face. Gravely, a head will be shaken. Very difficult, if not impossible. But why, you demand. It just is, you are told.

Early in the last decade, when I had more money than sense, I bought an absurdly expensive coat by mistake. I was at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 flying somewhere to cover a Champions League football match for ITV. Making my way to the gate, which was showing last call, I realised I hadn’t brought a coat. I think it was Basel we were off to, in late autumn. I’d need a coat.

I thumped my forehead with the heel of my hand, ran into the Harrods concession, tried on a coat, paid for it and fled. It was made by Dunhill out of some technical fabric and had a detachable inner bit to keep it relevant all year round. Just the job.

It was only........

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