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As you may have gathered, I don’t understand the stock market, because it’s so boring my brain refuses to get to grips with it. Say the word “economics” and I reach for my pillow. But even I know enough to realise it’s largely an imaginary construct: abstract numbers given shape by wishful thinking. If the traders suddenly stop believing it’s healthy, millions of people lose their jobs. Maybe one day they’ll stop believing in it altogether; they’ll collectively blink and rub their eyes, and the entire global economy will vanish, like a monster under the bed that turns out never to have existed in the first place, or an optical illusion you’ve suddenly seen through. And on News at Ten that night they’ll say, “Business news now … and, er, there is no business news. It’s gone.” At which point we’d better come up with some kind of replacement barter system, pronto. Let’s hope it’s not based on sexual favours, or a simple trip to the supermarket’s going to be downright harrowing.

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