“Non passibus aequis” was my mother’s favourite phrase from Virgil’s Aeneid. Literally “not with equal paces”, it describes Aeneas’ son Iulus as he escapes Troy with his father, and immediately brings the scene to life. Who hasn’t seen a parent hurrying with a small child, after all?

Thought brought to you by a section of Travis Baldree’s “Bookshops and Bonedust” where our protagonist’s dwarf friend is walking “two strides to every one of Viv’s”