It is certainly that, but it is also a wonderful story which deserves a wider audience and carries a wider message. The Jaipur foot is the key element of the Jaipur limb, an artificial leg developed over the past 20 years by Dr PK Sethi, an orthopaedic surgeon in Jaipur. There it stands, alongside Forties television sets, hideously uncomfortable chairs made out of steel and plastic, and a series of Fifties cars. It is on show because the cognoscenti have deemed it a wonderful design. There are more than 100,000 of them walking around India, Thailand and Indonesia, but if you want to see one in London you go the Design Museum by Tower Bridge, where it went on exhibition this week.

Between you and me, it’s chilling.”Between you and me, I think he’s right.. I have just been to see the Jaipur foot. You get along a celebrity, and the press, and a brass band, and you tie a ribbon instead of cutting it and you declare this factory well and truly closed. You won’t believe this, but there is an increasing demand for closing ceremonies, which are the exact opposite of opening ceremonies.

I have found recently an unhealthy interest in deserted villages, abandoned settlements, places that used to be occupied and now are ghost towns.”Yes, but surely there aren’t places like that any more?”Oh yes, there are. But now they are called closed-down factories and abandoned mill buildings. To our amazement, we received unquestioning payment of at least half of them, to the tune of about £20,000. Can you imagine that? Danegeld, still being gladly paid in the late 1980s!”It does worry me sometimes, this defeatist attitude on the part of the British. They thought this was a good wheeze, so we issued several thousand demand notes for Danegeld, on forms not unlike the poll tax, just to make it more sinister.