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Some time ago, Douglas Adams wrote a short story entitled ‘The Private Life of Genghis Khan ‘ which lifted the curtain on the legendary conquerer’s civilian existence to humorous effect. The Great Khan breaks into a woman’s yurt, forcing her to treat him with all the banality of a middle-manager arriving home after a long day at the office. Later in the story, the Khan is pestered by his son to commence World Domination who in turn is treated to an endless litany of prior engagements that dissapointingly have nothing to do with conquering the known world. In the end (and I hope I’m not spoiling anything - skip ahead if you’ve not read it) it is only after being insulted by Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged that Genghis Khan is motivated enough to storm his way to Europe.

While Adams’ story is, on the face of it, preposterous it does raise an interesting question - what exactly did Genghis Khan do with his free time?

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