“After thunder comes the rain”

It’s not clear to me if the Ancient Greeks had a word for punctuality, so I’ll use my time off last week in Athens as excuse for the late publication of this column. 

But in truth the efforts of my colleagues — see the Friday Workout and Excess Spread — inspired me to type away furtively in the National Archaeological Museum on my own thoughts until my partner realised what I was up to and said there was no place on our holiday for Thames Water. The irony being that the theme of my column was to have been the lessons from Greek philosophers about the importance of listening to one’s wife.