All this is rich fodder, which makes the second section disappointingly flat. Emmott seems at a bit of a loss among his band of female politicians, entrepreneurs and artists. The long white-varnished nails of one business boss, he imagines, are used as symbols to emphasise her clean recycling business. (Memo: sometimes nail colour is just nail colour.) Another plays the piano for her male colleagues after board meetings. “But this,” reckons Emmott, “may well make them feel subservient to her . . . rather than the other way round.”