Attempts at fusion can be deadly. But when it comes off, a great light is shone.

“It is the story of a vast superiority, sacrificed through stupidity, shortsightedness, and wanton insularity. It is a story of shamefully wasted talent, extraordinary complacency, and infinite self-deception.”

Here we are, back again to those regular bedfellows, the bantz and the ‘controvassy’.

“He has something really big going on now,” Quinny warned us, as Big Sam gyrated provocatively across the Stadium of Light pitch, yanking off his jacket and threatening, for a terrifying moment, a celebratory full monty.

As the celebrities of the world stampede one way in cowardly dereliction of responsibility, the county men march heroically against them, their hands up for duty.