Ward je in dieser Laun’ ein Weib gefreit?’: ‘Was ever woman in this humour wooed?

That idea of the state as a ship and its ruler as the helmsman or captain is a very old one in European culture. It is frequently used by Cicero, and indeed our word ‘governor’ comes from the Latin for ‘helmsman’ – gubernator. Even more enticingly, the root of gubernator is the Greek kubernetes, which is also the origin of our word ‘cybernetics’; so the notions of ruling, steering and robotics all coincide in our language – and in this galleon.

Johnstoune’s copy of the First Folio is now in Meisei University in Tokyo, but I can read it in London on my smartphone.

It was in fact the British who first produced Beetles after the end of the Second World War, for their occupation forces.

Seventeenth-century Europe was still largely illiterate – even in the cities no more than a third of people could read – so prints with images and just a few key words were the most effective means of mass communication. Even today we all know a well-crafted cartoon can be lethal in public debate.

Napoleon famously said that, to understand a man, you need to understand the world when he was twenty years old.

Elizabethan Twitter feed; they carried news quickly, spread it widely, and their relationship to the truth was similarly easy-going.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Objects are better than text at conveying narrative.

Objects let you tell a narrative that encompasses everybody. Texts don’t.