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“From the leather and chain looks to the queens in long black and yellow spiral dresses to the woman dancing on a speaker in a gold sequin romper outfit, everywhere I looked people felt hot and haute and danced with abandon,” he says.

Take the early 17th century, when the humble salad was unexpectedly sweet — before French haute cuisine banished sugar firmly to the dessert course.

Northern Ireland isn’t known for haute cuisine, or even for soulful peasant dishes like haggis.

“But the move is hardly insignificant, since this group is more than just interchangeable hot babes in haute couture. Robinson contributed greatly to the sizzling look and sound of En Vogue, and her absence is sure to have some effect. ... The loss of Robinson is a blow, but En Vogue still looks unstoppable.”

Will this acrid-tongued, 69-year-old multimillionaire, a child of the rural Catholic haute bourgeoisie, turn out to be a latter-day Churchill, standing astride the tides of history?