Yes, yes, we men. As soon as you put a Porsche or Ferrari in front of someone’s nose, their mind implodes and their eyes get bigger and bigger. That’s roughly how the tale of a wooden horse at the gates of Troy works. Back then, horses were probably something like objects of ostentation to their neighbour – the bigger, more beautiful and faster, the more ostentation – like the Porsches and Lambroghinis of today.

Sure, an oversized wooden horse like that, right in front of your nose, is quite something for us men and that’s exactly what the story says. But if you take a wink and think a metre further about how and what and why, then there are some minor inconsistencies with this horse, which we will be happy to resolve here.

Why a horse and not simply a somewhat oversized barrel – around 2 metres in diameter – full of wine? There could be 3 or 4 men in this barrel if you don’t fill it to the brim and still have some air to breathe. And this barrel is then rolled in front of the city gate and awaits what is to come.

You can imagine that the Trojans, after seeing that the besiegers are leaving even though the barrel is in front of the gate, roll the barrel into the city and start a big party with this wine, because of the departure of the enemies. At night, when everyone was drunk, the warriors sitting in the barrel could get out and open the city gate.

So quite unromantically, without a horse – although the story with the horse is really the better one. I wasn’t there and I don’t feel like rewriting all the history books, all by myself. That’s why the story with the horse is fine with me.