I was in Luxembourg for a conference of European Supreme Auditors, talking about how to interest national parliaments in EU fraud and error. I escaped for a couple of hours for a walk around the old city. I took refuge from the cold in the Eglise St Michel and sat for a time in front of an amazing vision.

I see I’ve typed ‘vision’ by mistake – I meant ‘version’ of a statue of the Virgin Mary – but it was like a vision. It was a Medieval or Renaissance painting and she was strangely elongated. The effect of sitting in front of her for so long was so calming that I went to sleep!