Schadenfreude is one of those words for which there is no simple direct English equivalent. What in German is a delightful tongue-rolling, lip-stretcher of a word, needs to be ploddingly spelled out as “the delight in the misery of others”.

While a simple one-word translation may be elusive, measuring the degree of Schadenfreude in English is easy. Usage of the word among Britain’s national newsprint media is up 29 per cent this year with 543 mentions in the period to December 15, compared with 422 in the same period in 2007; in the US news media it has risen 30 per cent (223 against 171).