The art groupies who descended on London last week have departed. During the frantic week of the Frieze Art Fair it is a non-stop social whirl. The Vanity Fair party at Christie’s; the rival Sotheby’s party; the opening of Zoo (the contemporary event hosted in Shoreditch); the Pavilion of Art and Design in a tented Berkeley Square; Damien Hirst at the Wallace; the American embassy party. The list is endless and I thrust myself forward, knowing most buyers at my end of the market are from continental Europe and America, and a lot of them are art groupies.

The funny thing is that most of them are not really interested in the art; they’re interested in it as a social currency. Who is on which board – the Serpentine, the Hayward, the Wallace, the holy grail of the Tate? Who is sponsoring which event? Who is intime with the latest artist? Who threw the best party? And, for some, who has turned the greatest profit on an unknown who has become a sensation? As I walk around these events I move past clusters of French speakers, then Italians and then detect transatlantic drawls. There are warm embraces, fuelled by sips of champagne and nibbles of tuna tartare. I do not feel the recession.