In 1974, following the publication that year of his ‘self-portrait’, Another Part of the Wood, I did a feature on Kenneth Clark for the BBC World Service. This involved interviewing him at his ‘set’ in Albany, off Piccadilly, the austerity of which was mitigated by what I took to be a small fortune in paintings and miniatures on the walls. In the book Lord Clark, as he became, described his life (1903–83) as ‘one long, harmless confidence trick’, a reference to what he called his freak aptitude, apparent from the age of 9 or 10, for responding authoritatively to works of art.