Nine hundred people talking animatedly online about brown clinker – a cement ingredient – doesn’t sound much of a vision. But it may be exactly what computer visionaries had in mind when they first envisaged computerised collaboration between workers midway through the last century.

Colourful opportunists are characters from the M&A world’s myth of combat. Here, acquisitions – and not only the hostile ones – follow weeks of hand-to-hand skirmishing, first between bullish chief executives and their more cautious boards, then between the company and its investors, and finally between the merging groups. This tale and its romantic corollary, the myth of true love – clashing armies, or blushing brides – are the stories on which the media thrive.

Whatever the reason for Michael Woodford’s abrupt exit from Olympus (of which more later), everyone can agree that if the board’s chosen chief executive leaves prematurely, something has probably gone wrong.