It isn’t every day you sit in a tycoon’s boardroom (complete with a terrifying set of Gothic, lion-clawed chairs) and receive a challenge:

The commission is yours (the tycoon growled) if, within seven days, you can forge me a convincing piece of ancient-looking painted glass. It would be nice if it were beautiful, but above all else it must look old.

The boardroom was littered with other makers’ samples – wallpaper, curtains, rugs, table-tops etc.

I could see the tycoon’s problem.