It was the National Painting and Decorating Show on the 15^th and 16^th of November. You knew that didn’t you? Well it was. I went. It was fascinating. So read on.

Thanks to the Sat Nav I ended up in Tesco’s carpark, scrambled down a muddy bank, under the train tracks, past a discarded trolley, and at last into the doughnut. (The Ricoh Arena, Coventry)

As happens with these things, as soon as I walked into the exhibition hall I was turned into The Prisoner – barcoded, scanned and conge...