Why worry about overspend? Public relations only. The Derby winner had already left the stable before the door was bolted. But the firms have to live and while they live on public money it's as well to make themselves sound reasonable.
You differ in some ways from those three, aog. Jerome K Jerome's short pieces are not funny at all, though intended to be; his masterpiece, however, took a real journey, three real people and a dog as factual, which they were, and then distorted and exaggerated the facts until they bore little resemblance, in print, to the true story. Francis Bacon wrote excellent short essays, sprinkled with Greek and Latin. Lewis Carroll wrote engaging nonsense of a world that didn't exist though appeared strangely real and logical when he wrote about it.
You bear comparison, aog.