When the Greek hero Theseus returned to Athens after turning the Minotaur into half a tonne of fillet steak that tasted oddly of chicken, the ship he sailed in became something of a national monument. Planks grown salt-water fat were instantly stripped out and replaced, ragged sails were patched, and any empty bottles of Ouzo in the executive cabin minibars were silently refilled. Within a few years, the cosmetic surgery had grown so extensive that a popular theme in the letters pages of Athenian philosophy periodicals was to question whether it was still the same ship of Theseus. (Well played, Perplexed of Ephesus, well played).

My mother likes to tell a story about my first diagnosed pathology of the competitive spirit. I must have been no more than 10, and playing in a regular chess league whose influence upon my present-day ability manifests itself only in my tendency to lose to anyone over the age of 11.

This week, I put a volleyball into orbit.

It wasn’t even that hard. All I needed was for our team to be in the semi-finals of our weekly league, for us to go match point down with one final opportunity to stay in the game, and then – and this bit was crucial – for it to be my turn to serve.

When I was a child I discovered that there was a cheese that shared my name. It was described in our well-thumbed edition of the Encyclopaedia of Cheese as fatty and full-bodied, which felt less like an informed tasting note and more like a hint.