Come Friday, from 3.30pm, you couldn't find anybody in their offices, Ratan Tata complained to the Times last week in a moan about the lazy attitudes of British managers. Before the Tata group arrived, he said, nobody was willing to "go the extra mile" at Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) and Corus, his two big British purchases.
Now JLR has produced an annual profit of £1bn, up from £32m a year ago, as exports boom. It just shows what you can do when you try, Tata might conclude. And he may have a point. The turnaround in profits during the Indian group's three years of ownership is impressive; Tata's investment and management have clearly been a major factor.
But it would be nice if the billionaire conceded that at least a few of the seeds of success may have been planted before his arrival. Many of the new Jaguar and Land Rover cars now being sold in huge quantities to India and China will have been designed under Ford's ownership by those supposedly feckless engineers who sloped off early to enjoy their weekends. The story is probably not as simple as Tata makes out.