’Horace, sweetie, pass me that there whadyacallit, that pointy little gizmo,’ said Percy Bysshe, ’yes, the inky thingy . . . in my pendulous bursiform leather vade mecum’ he continued, curiously no longer quite so lost for words; and then, while thrusting a hand into the dark interstices of his manly manbag, he piped up enthusiastically: ’Of a sudden I’ve come over all epigraphic, don’t you know, and if you think it’s not too, too infra dig to be looking again to sell something I absolutely must jot down a poem, perhaps inspired by some far-flung reportage about a fallen statue, and perhaps under the working title "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below" - that is, unless you want to have a shot at it first.’