Last week, I was at a workshop in Kathmandu which put us up in a fancy hotel. So there were flowers everywhere, but especially my favourites, lilies, sitting full frontal in lush arrangements.

After a particularly exhausting day, needing a pick-me-up, I purloined one stalk off the conference room’s flower arrangement. Being a good middle-class person, I justified my felony with “who will notice if I take one stalk among the dozens?” Such a posh place surely chucks them at the first spot of discolouration. And anyway, is it really stealing if it stays on the premises?