Himself has a Barbour jacket that has finally met its end with the ignominious parting of one side of the zipper from the front panel of the garment. Barbour jackets are sinfully expensive, but this one owes us nothing; it was purchased in 2003 and has been resealed and repaired several times, but it is now so worn that the canvas shell looks as if Himself might have gone turkey-hunting with Dick Cheney.

So the mail-order crap shoot begins. The best hope is something called the Upland Shooting Coat from LL Bean, and Himself spent the morning in correspondence with a Freeport minion over the precise measurements across the back at shoulder level and from the back collar seam to the hem. The great virtue of the Barbour was that it went on comfortably over a Harris tweed jacket dating from the long-skirted 1970s (no bum-freezers for us), so the replacement must do the same.

The Barbour will end its life in the Stratford landfill, though I think it deserves a Viking funeral.