Mr Kingbeganhiscareerin 1976 as a trainee accountant with Marconi, a defence-electronics subsidiaryofArnoldWeinstock's GEC, Britain'sbiggestindustrialconglomerate.
Simple clinical diagnosis would probably trace the condition back to 1896, the year of the first modern Olympic Games, when a traineeaccountant from Melbourne called Edwin Flack headed to Greece as Australia's first Olympian.