“Hey, have you heard the latest about Paul Morgan?” leered my colleague P. He was clearly intrigued by Matt Crawford’s mission to warn his love-rival off his long-term partner Lillian Bellamy.

Professional as ever, I was not going to join in this gossip. Then it struck me that we were talking about fictional characters, so this was hardly an issue.

However, the irony was that P’s own wife was actually involved in an affair of her own. P knew precisely nothing of this. Across the room I noticed how she was shifting uncomfortably in her chair, the pained expression on her face desperately pleading with me to change the subject – fast.