Anyone who falls foul of their respective culture’s values can expect the full weight of its condemnation, as if there was no other possible perspective, writes Margaret Hickey

SARAH BAKEWELL is the author of How To Live, in which she mined the essays of Montaigne to create a self-help manual for the 21st century. 

THE comedian Jenny Éclair wrote recently of the five ages of swimwear. The bikini, the tankini, the one piece, the one piece with sarong, and finally, being buried up to your neck in sand. Chronologically, I am probably somewhere between the sarong and full burial.