Humility

Tim Ecott has always been drawn to islands, and the seas that surround them: ‘I once ran away from England to live in the Seychelles so that I could scuba dive obsessively in the Indian Ocean,’ he writes at the beginning of Eva and the Island. ‘The tropical humidity and seductive blue water drew me into its spell.’ Gradually his love for what he calls ‘the torrid zone’ faded, and he found himself attracted to ‘the higher latitudes’. He decided to spend time on all the inhabited islands in the Faroes, including the smallest, Stora Dimun, ‘a frayed and crumbling chunk of basalt’ covering ‘just over one square mile’, which has ‘the qualities of a secret kingdom’. What better way to spend an evening in good company than eating sheep’s heads and singing?

Even the greatest have setbacks. It is how they respond that makes them great. Take your chances, forget the lapses. The triumvirate who ruled men’s tennis this century – Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer – each won just 54 per cent of the points they played. It was about turning it on when it counted. No one could turn it on like Nadal on Parisian clay. The orange brick dust of Roland Garros on which he slid and scampered so well seemed to inspire the Spaniard with magical powers. From 19 visits to the French Open, he returned to Mallorca only five times without the Coupe des Mousquetaires – and once was due to injury. No performer was so suited to a stage.