Marie Antoinette’s notorious remark when told the French masses were revolting because they had no bread to eat, was to say, “Then let them eat cake”. Not only was it the zenith of arrogance, but demonstrated the most reprehensible detachment from the realities of her people’s suffering. The idiom of having your cake and eating it (meaning to enjoy consuming something and yet to preserve it, like a never-emptying bottle of single-malt Scotch) is only a slightly different ...