The average snake sticks to a diet of eggs, mice, insects and small birds; it does not recognise a small deer as a challenge. A python sees a small deer and thinks: Right. One minute there are two objects: a python and a small deer. Three hours later there is one object: a python with a deer-shaped bulge. A week later there is a rather larger python without the bulge.

Well, we all know about nature red of tooth and claw, but there are limits. Only thing is, somebody forgot to tell the python. And whatever it is they forgot to tell the python they also forgot to tell the Python. Rache approached mathematics the way a python approaches an animal of awkward size: with a mean look. She would open Topological Vector Spaces and glare at the page. Three hours later it would all be over: you’d be looking at someone with a text-shaped bulge in the brain. Then she would look up and smile. The kind of smile that says ‘Deer? What deer? Now how could a little old 25-foot python like me eat a deer, don’t be silly.’ The kind of smile that reminds you that the female of the species is more deadly than the male.