Consider again that unlovely image of the president-elect and Farage: their smugness, their schoolboy brio, their confidence that common sense has at last prevailed.

I’m sure that many articles look better than at first—Slate had an unlovely digital adolescence—but others seem haggard with the passage of time.

Chinese officials call that policy “One Belt, One Road”, though they often eviscerate its exotic appeal to foreigners by using the unlovely acronym OBOR.