Scottish independence: A yes vote will produce a leaner, meaner Scotland

The no campaign offers merely stasis. Even with devo max, Scots would remain in political shackles. It’s time to break free

He gives her a watch from the late Tomi as a memento, and advises her to remarry.

Chen holds that there's little reason to doubt Beijing has calculated everything thoroughly and calmly. One the one hand the Chinese leadership recognizes that Ma's hallmark mistakes could ruin his campaign on any given day and on the other that Soong is a reliable friend of Beijing and regarded as very competent by the Taiwanese, according to Chen.

"To Beijing, Ma Ying-jeou's re-election is of course the favored outcome; but Tsai Ing-wen with James Soong attached as a shackle is the best possible backup plan," Chen concluded.

There are many reasons for still reading Marx in our turbulent times, but this is not the least of them. He is, Hobsbawm suggests, an essential memento mori – the shackled slave who reminds capitalist generals that even they are mortal.

Memento mori is a Latin phrase translated as "Remember your mortality", "Remember you must die" or "Remember you will die" - literally " [in the future] remember to die", since "memento" is a future imperative of the 2nd person, and mori is a deponent infinitive. It names a genre of artistic creations that vary widely from one another, but which all share the same purpose: to remind people of their own mortality. The phrase has a tradition in art that dates back to antiquity.