Nice story, Odysseus, but no one is possibly going to believe it - Susan Morrison

We did some Greek, too, in an effort to render us completely useless to future employers.

I adored the tales of gods and goddesses. They squabbled, fought and were outrageously promiscuous. Practically everything Zeus did was a shaggy dog story. Literally, since he regularly shape-shifted to romance the ladies.

As a result, I’m familiar with the current screen blockbuster, The Odyssey.

Ten years it took Odysseus to get home. Ridiculous. Check out Google map. You can walk it in four days, including a ferry crossing. The good news is these are Greek ferries, so they run.

Odysseus had his own ship. Hit an average of 5 to 6 knots, back in 14 days max, mate.

We can, therefore, forgive his wife, Penelope, for being short tempered when the bold boy finally rattled home. First question was probably along the lines of “what time do you call this, then?”

No Greek hero worth his salt would tell the truth, but it's obvious. Odysseus and the boys went a bit post-match radge after the Trojan game. They partied hard, lost track of the time - easy to do since no-one is wearing a watch - fell into a karaoke bar somewhere, Eurybates wouldn’t leave until he got the chance to sing “Disco Inferno’, then Alkimos and Lycaon got into a fight in the kebab shop and everyone wound up in jail.

He thought fast and created an epic tale of vengeful gods, one-eyed maneating monsters and Calypso, the sex-mad nymph who used magic to hold him in her thrall. Yeah, right.

Well, spinning stories came easy to the man who conned the Trojans into thinking that giant wooden horse was a farewell present. Should’ve looked closer. Greek warriors were packed inside tighter than an Easyjet flight to Ibiza.

Fortunately, no-one needed to go pee-pee, or worse, had scoffed a bucketload of bean and garlic stew. Now that wind could have blown him home to Ithaca. Wouldn't have made a good film, though.