All the while, shopping bags are being delivered to the desk by puffed-out delivery boys. First Prada, then a small one from Gucci, then D&G, then Jimmy Choo. The order in which these bags arrive corresponds to the order in which the shops are laid out up Sloane Street. From this, we can deduce that the guest in room 3001 can’t be fagged to carry her own shopping, that she is heading north and that she is burning some serious cash. She’s only got Harvey Nichols to go and that’s a full set. This, apparently, is normal.

So far, I have avoided almost all direct contact with guests. I have smiled at a few, but they haven’t smiled back. They are too important. I have practised my upside-down map-reading and I have pretended to bark orders at a porter down my walkie-talkie, but I have not done any real concierging.

Then comes my chance. The others are all engaged with guests when a perfumed women in a catsuit approaches, holding a large box.

“Morning, madam, how may I help you?” I inquire in my smartest concierge voice, smiling what I imagine to be a winning smile.

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“Do you know what I’m going to do with this box?”

I have already upset her.

“No, madam,” looking politely at her box, then nervously at my shoes.

“Well, then,” she replies, and edges away from the desk before vanishing backwards through the revolving door. Richard explains that I have just met Ms Smith. She has issues. Normally, she comes down in her underwear, and has to be marshalled sensitively back to her room.

This seems the right time to broach the subject of a concierge’s limits. I am told they won’t do anything illegal. Drugs are out, as are hookers, though of course they’ve been asked. Just in case you need to know, there’s a coded way to ask for a prostitute. You phone the concierge and say: “Can I have another pillow?” This is embarrassing, because my wife is quite partial to an extra pillow. Which means I’ve often called down and asked for a prostitute to help her sleep. Having said that, they’ve only ever sent a pillow. Which is probably for the best.

Although the concierge doesn’t arrange extra pillows, call girls do find their way into the bar. Only last week, Richard tells me, a cleaner discovered a guest and someone who wasn’t his wife at it in the restaurant toilet.

“How does a five-star hotel handle that sort of thing?” I ask.

“We waited until the couple had finished, then we suggested they might prefer to use a room next time.”