The delayed, fraught Tokyo Olympics were well underway when the Milanese publishing house Adelphi announced the death of Roberto Calasso. He might have nodded mordantly at the timing. Few writers have spun their work so confidently out of a belief that the old cultural totems of Olympian gods and heroic fervour remain not just valid reference points but ubiquitous and hungry presences.

It seems that the usually irresistible force of Foster + Partners, architects, may have hit an immovable object in the form of the London Stone. Minerva, the developers who commissioned the Walbrook Building from Foster’s firm, have applied for permission to move the stone from its present location in Cannon Street in the City of London to a ‘purpose built display’ in their new complex, thereby getting it out of the way of the 35,000 square feet of ‘retail and restaurant accommodation’ they have planned for the ground floor. The case remains undecided but there are a number of significant objectors, including English Heritage and the Victorian Society.