Even to the most boot-faced developer, this makes sense.

A boot-faced Jackie Smith looked down from the row behind.

Boot-faced Calderwood was never the most communicative of chaps.

Perdita grew increasingly boot-faced when every pony she tried to cuddle cringed away with terror.

Meet the most boot-faced old grump and when you ask to see pictures of his grandchildren he turns into a burbling amiable love-stricken old sweetie.

She had to struggle not to laugh because I was boot-faced throughout, which makes me laugh now, so yes, I was really quite serious and probably quite anxious and shy.

Both the Top Gear Tendency, which bangs on about obnoxious feminists, and the PC lobby which wants the commission to be a strident, boot-faced, politically correct thought police are now just hanging on at the fringes of public life.

Then I remembered that Royal Mail is going through one of its 20th-century moments: wildcat strikes in Stoke, boot-faced soundbites by the Communication Workers Union, million-letter mail mountains, backlogs, national strike threatened for Christmas, all the old Spanish practices.