I am currently reading a book on the elements called The Periodic Tale by Hugh Aldersley-Williams. It’s pretty good. One thing that I have learnt is that gold has an E number – as in the number that all food additives permitted by the EU are assigned. It is E175. It strikes me that if someone just offered you a kilo of E175, you’d probably say no.

This would be a mistake, I looked it up and a kilo of gold, aka E175, is worth a bit less than £30,000. I think this may be telling us something: don’t judge things too rapidly, or because you don’t like their name. The list of E numbers is here. It includes ascorbic acid, aka vitamin C. You can’t live without vitamins (by definition) and so none of us can live without E numbers.