Size matters. Or, at least, that is what the big players like to think. Here in Ireland, we have been more aware than most that size is relative. More than most too, we have taken sides when the little streets have hurled themselves against the great. Unlike the Swiss, we don't do neutral terribly well. Almost always, our sympathies are with the small player, the one who is outweighed and outgunned, and we take more than a little pleasure at the prospect of seeing the lumbering giant brought to earth with a crash. But such an outcome is by no means inevitable. The playing field is littered with the bodies of the diminutive and the gallant and for every David who stands triumphant over a fallen Goliath, there are dozens more who lie beaten and crushed in the wake of a rampaging giant.

In the Irish context, Jacob Fruitfield is one of the big players. With sales projected to hit