Recently I was having a water-cooler conversation with my colleague, the Arts Guru. We weren’t gossiping about our new Star-Trek-like newsroom, which comes complete with red “hot” seats for news editors, but about an article AG had just written on a man called John Myatt. Myatt is a master forger – he makes Monets, Picassos and Modiglianis – whose works have become eminently collectable. I wanted to know what AG thought of this development. He pulled a face, then said: “The people who buy them can’t possibly think visitors will think they have real Monets in their house ... can they?”

We looked at each other. Can they? It depends. If I had a Monet on my wall, no, but if Bill Gates had one ... Put another way: I know plenty of wealthy women who carry fake Hermès bags or wear fake diamond jewellery, but because they could buy the real stuff if they wanted to, their friends assume it’s genuine. And though, if asked straight out, they wouldn’t deny the provenance of their goods, they don’t exactly advertise it either.