Yes, I know that Hercules performed 12 labours. But he also had a heck of a lot more time to complete them. The Greek strongman, laggard that he was, took a year just to chase down the Ceryneian Hind. Then again, he didn’t have shareholders.

Antony Jenkins, who will (probably not) celebrate his first 100 days in charge of Barclays this coming weekend, has only until the bank's strategy day on February 12 to fine-tune the programmes he has dubbed Transform - short for Turnaround, Return Acceptable Numbers, Sustain Forward Momentum - and Project Mango, a review of the investment bank.