I agreed to take on a fellow academic from another institution as my PhD student. He had told everyone that his name was Bernard, but I knew that he was really an Italian national and, as such, his real name was far more exotic than this.

I insisted that he move from his tiny bedsit so that he could start afresh in a new life dedicated to his doctoral studies. This upset him, especially since this would oblige him to take apart his computer and he had no idea where he’d filed the instructions for this. They were perhaps in the attic, but he could not be sure.