As well as home repossessions, unemployment and wittily named chocolates, a more unexpected consequence of the credit crunch is performance art. A couple of days ago I wandered past the Royal Exchange in the heart of the City (opposite the Bank of England in fact) and bumped into these gold-sprayed folk being questioned by a policeman. They had a grannies shopping trolley piled high with plaster gold bullion, and passersby all allowed to take bars.

I got chatting to one of their number who asked me if I preferred money or art. “How about both?”, I replied. “If you want to go to the theatre [to Ivanov for instance] or the movies, you have to be able to pay for a ticket.” That’s true, she had to admit. But then perhaps I’m just a irredeemable bourgeois consumer.