Unlike Toshiba, which pioneered the laptop computer and has learnt to live with the jittery pace of development and capital expenditure of the computer industry, Hitachi still saunters to the 20-year product cycle of heavy-electrical machinery.

ECONOMIST: Hitachi��s snail-like progress

Centrica's 20% share of the pre-development expenditure will be written off as an exceptional cost in the group's 2012 results.

BBC: Centrica pulls out of new UK nuclear projects

If it developed an indigenous population, looking after that population its elderly, its unemployed, and so on would be a new expenditure, probably for the department of international development, which deals with such issues on St Helena.

ECONOMIST: Day five: The many greenings of Ascension

Small firms account for only a small proportion of the economy and a correspondingly small proportion of investment and of research-and-development expenditure.

ECONOMIST: Go forth and multiply | The