He sat down with his elbows upon the desk, his gorilla hands clasped together, his beard bristling forward, and his big grey eyes, half-covered by his drooping lids, fixed benignly upon me.

Kieran Tierney did not want to risk a challenge on Pulisic, who darted on to the ball with far greater purpose, and the dink over Emi Martínez bristled with composure.

The employees bristled at the prospect of working through the holidays.

Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.

If only the industry could be honest and explain why it has been forced, owing to government policies, to increase fares over the quarter century since privatisation. Instead, it is defensive and clearly bristles with annoyance when someone merely states the facts.

Bristle

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