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Along with The Third Man, this is a great British noir, the compulsive, concentrated morality tale of Harry Fabian, a spivvy American hustler in London who wants to make it big, played magnificently by Richard Widmark – volatile and paranoid, giggling insanely.

By contrast, PR has made it on to the screen with spivvy chancer Tony Curtis being clapped in irons in The Sweet Smell of Success, a morally bankrupt Colin Farrell going into meltdown in the little-remembered 2002 movie Phone Booth, the absurdity of Absolutely Fabulous's Edina, and the sociopathic rages of Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It.

TalkSport seems to have decided listeners in the north won't tolerate spivvy southerners, and listeners in the south don't have much patience with northerners, whom they suspect of being covered in woad.

Why spivvy Sidney was worth resurrecting isn't entirely clear.

While some policymakers believe the UK can be both ethical and spivvy, at home and abroad, there is a choice to be made.