The icebergs close-up, even quite far away, were not daydream white at all. Blue. Icebergs are blue. At their bluest, they are the colour of David Hockney swimming pools, Californian blue, neon blue, Daz blue-whiteness blue, sometimes even indigo. They were deepest blue at sea level, and where cracks and crevices gave a view of the inside of the berg, where the ice was the oldest and so compacted that all the air had been forced out.

I feel a sense of proprietary pride about Jenny Diski using the word “Californian” to describe the adjective “blue.” That’s right.