The old-fashioned way is to use tequesquite, the naturally occurring form of sodium bicarbonate (sold in many Mexican markets). Because tamales don't contain strongly acidic ingredients, tequesquite's leavening is gentle, producing a lovely but less fluffy texture.

In this virtuous voyage of life hull not about like the ark, without the use of rudder, mast, or sail, and bound for no port.

Back in 2010 those comparisons seemed absurd: how could the writer-director of classy-but-overthought superhero movies, as well as middling oddities such as The Prestige, be seriously thought of in the same bracket as the lambent mind behind Dr Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon?

He petered out under Pitty's savage look: Do you speak Jap? Do you understand the world from inside those bastards' slanty-eyed little head-lopping poem-writing minds?