Kevin Chenais, a 36-stone Frenchman, recently spent two weeks trying to get home from New York. British Airways said he was too big to use his return ticket, so he tried to sail across the Atlantic – but the owners of the Queen Mary 2 said they couldn’t have him on board. Eventually, Virgin offered to fly him to London, but when he tried to catch a Eurostar train on to Paris, officials denied him entry, saying his weight posed a safety risk.

Too many long lunch hours? We don’t know. But what Epicurus would probably want to say to Mr. Chenais is, “Portion control, Monsieur, portion control”. Epicurus was the high priest of moderation, except that he didn’t approve of high priests.