So our plucky thieves switch to a “cash business,” which Gaston doesn’t mind but Lily does. Lily is an amateuse, and it takes the heart out of her work to steal something she can’t wear.

[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

At the foot of the garden, behind a clump of gooseberry-bushes, stood an arbour formed of a yellow buddleia.

I beat off at work all day; I didn't get anything done.