Born a bastard in Wales and raised in a workhouse there, he denied his humble beginnings, changed his name from John Rowlands to Henry Morton Stanley and claimed the United States as his birthplace.

ECONOMIST: An African adventurer

The untutored bastard son of a French-Haitian merchant, he saw first-hand that the nascent United States, deficient in so many ways, was rich in wilderness, hosting creatures that even the most erudite mind could never conjure.

FORBES: Birds Of America... Untamed? J.J. Audubon's Original Watercolors Alight At The New-York Historical Society

It is only when words on the walls start appearing, admonishing the player or offering backhanded encouragement after yet another violent explosion into giblets at the hands of a laser-equipped turret or murderous robot, that you realise the bastard is the game.

FORBES: Capsule Review: Stealth B_stard Deluxe

Hublot, which gave the world the now de rigueur rubber strap, came back from the brink with the brilliantly conceived Big Bang series, unmistakably the bastard child of the Royal Oak, only edgier and probably aimed at wearers who would choose a Lamborghini over a Bentley, or a Black Russian over a glass of Masseto.

WSJ: This Sporting Life