For 20 years now, Swords' house in Camberwell, south London, has had a copy of Hokusai's Great Wave (or Under the Wave off Kanagawa, to give it its actual title) painted across its back.

A surfer in California might have beaten the world record for the biggest wave ever surfed on December 23, with one estimate placing it at 108 feet tall, substantially above the current 86-foot record ...