There was a time when funding for internet start-ups was so easy that what came to matter was not how much you could get but where it came from. And if you got it from Sand Hill Road, Wall Street regarded that much as Catholics regard a benediction from the Pope.

“Come here to me,” said yer man, leaning conspiratorially closer, the smell of turf smoke and poteen potent in the air. “Have ye been up to see the Magic Road?”

I'll have a chance next year to meet some more people who are acknowledgely gay, and that will be good […]

The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.