I learnt a lot of history, and other things, from the admirable 1960s Ladybird series of slim hard-bound children's books with bright painted illustrations. One of my favourite pictures showed the chainmail-clad English King Richard I (the Lionheart) hacking at an iron bar with his broadsword while his somewhat effete Arab adversary in the Third Crusade, Salah-ed-din Yusuf-ibn-Ayyub, popularly known as Saladin, sliced through a silk scarf with his curved and cunningly inlaid scimitar.

On the one hand this seemed to illustrate a clash of cultures with different emphases but equal validity, one reliant more on force, the other on finesse; after all, the broadsword would have made no impression on the silk scarf, while the scimitar would have been shattered by the iron bar. But one couldn't help registering other messages: was the devilishly subtle Arab the sort of fellow one would want to have as a member of one's club? Could you count on him in a crisis? This was a message which the illustrator partly subverted, or deconstructed, by highlighting the clumsiness of Richard in his armour, and making him seem humourless and leaden compared with the quicksilver Saladin.