Here in the media, meanwhile, much of what used to be called journalism has morphed into angertainment, which is to say a bunch of shouting over who's to blame for this future of less.

And our march is regulated, said Mailey. There is a gradual release to accommodate it to the receptivity of mankind.

By then too Mozart's opera, from Da Ponte's libretto, had made Figaro a stock character in the European imaginary and set the whole Continent whistling Mozartian airs and chuckling at Figaresque humour.

Is International Women's Day today little more than an excuse for 'femvertising' as brands co-opt messages of equality and empowerment as means by which to flog us stuff?