And it's not just a question of how the command to "Brace yourself, Bridget" progressed to the perhaps more sophisticated invitation "Will you come into the field, Bridie?" posed in William Trevor's The Ballroom of Romance.

The stated reasons for the no-cash-no-pill policy are financial. But the effect is to remind many impotent men that on the measures which seem to most reflect a man's sense of identity - sexual prowess and economic value - they are doubly so.