I suppose the reason this story came to mind was that I overhead somebody in a bar comment that ‘they’d got away with it.’ One thing increasing maturity has taught me is that ‘The Lady’ is not to be slighted. Whether you think of her as ‘fortune’ or ‘luck’ or even ‘fate’, to me she will always be ‘The Lady’ and I will not knowingly cross her. Claiming that ‘you have got away with it’ is merely asking her to take a personal interest in orchestrating your downfall and humiliation. My experience is that she might occasionally smile on our attempts to deceive, but there are some things she will not countenance.

As an aside I don’t want anybody to think I write this out of jealousy. I realise that too many in the artistic community revel in the downfall of their more successful peers. The thought would not cross…