Cocteau, like Picasso, took the line seriously. His mark, undeniably his, a committed gesture: a signature.

I’m not one for football, probably because of everything that surrounds it, but catching up on what happened when some England footballers were unable to score goals in the final of Euro 2020, I feel more contempt than ever for most of our politicians.

What does it say that some very young men commit themselves to a course of action that will mark them for the rest of their lives, never able to shake responsibility for what they do in the name of a game that appears, for a little while, to a lot of people, to mean something, when people like our prime minister seems incapable of ever taking responsibility for decisions that really shape our lives?

Let’s respect people who take responsibility (Saka, Sancho, Rashford and Southgate) and cast off the ones who don’t (Johnson, Patel, Javid and Coffey – and Johnson again: he’s twice as bad). Nothing will improve if it’s administered by cowards and liars.