Lanchester, who grew up in Hong Kong and whose father worked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, is not a banker himself, but he has a wonderful gift for explaining complex things in a simple way. He says that, if money were alive, it would always be looking for ways to get bigger. Reading this made me see that as mere human beings, we are its servants; we are here, it seems, to facilitate the process.

Why did the crisis happen? Lanchester says that it was because of a climate, a problem, a mistake and a failure. When he was a kid in Hong Kong, he says, he lived in a climate of pretty much unfettered capitalism. But Britain and America were different – the capitalism in western countries was softer and gentler. Why? Because the west was always aware of the communist world. The guys on the other side of the Iron Curtain kept us on our best behaviour.