“Boris Johnson told us that we might as well go and play a game of bingo and get a steak for our lunch. It’s going to take ages for them to sort out the photography” said my contact.

Boris had a point. Even though they had plenty of advance notice of my arrival, the suits were clearly unprepared for me. There was a dodgy moment when I couldn’t stop my iPad mini bleeping, but other than that all responsibility for the chaos was theirs.

Meanwhile TPR was making a feeble effort to help clean the flat. I was astonished at the filth that students were willing to tolerate. One didn’t even bother to get out of bed as we attempted to remove years of grime from the surfaces of his room. I was so keen to see the job done that I risked my hands on the strongest detergent that I could find buried deep in the cupboard under the sink.