Demetri Martin once joked that life vests protect you from drowning, bulletproof vests protect you from gunfire — and sweater vests protect you from pretty girls.
(Tolkien is, however, rumoured to have charged his offspring all their pocket money to hear the end of the tale, having already got them hooked. This “first hit’s for free” technique he learned dealing heroin to CS Lewis, who only began the Narnia chronicles in order to have a reason to meet his supplier every week in the Eagle and Child pub. Anyone who has ever tangoed with Sister Brown Eye will recognise immediately the safe warm feeling of falling into a wardrobe full of fur coats. And then having tea with a man with goat’s legs.)