I never thought I’d be able to say this, but I was kettled. I don’t mean hemmed in by three celebrities at a Marc Jacobs show, either. This was the real thing, outside the Bank of England, police spouting ploddledygook and linking arms in passive aggression. Admit it, you didn’t expect gritty topical realism on these pages, did you?

At this juncture, I could say that sometimes fashion has to get serious, but I was meant to be somewhere else – in the office, since you ask. But I was passing, it looked interesting and well… I’m a journalist.

What happened has been well documented, I’m gratified to say, because at the time I wondered whether my shock at the police’s behaviour was the over-reaction you’d expect from someone who works in fashion (although anyone who thinks this life is pampered has no concept of what it’s like to get into a hot show when you’ve lost your ticket). But when I got home, my husband agreed it was yet another appalling incursion on our liberties. Mollified, I skipped off to the Gucci party.

But, on reflection, I’m not mollified. I’d say 99.9 per cent of the protesters weren’t contravening any law, unless you count playing the bongos and wearing Protester Chic, which surely to God went out in 1979. That didn’t stop the police imprisoning everyone without water or basic utilities until evening. I got out after two hours because I went up and down the police lines showing my ID and enquiring whether, what with being a fashion writer and everything, I looked like someone hell bent on bringing down the edifice of capitalism.

They all said they were only following orders, but eventually I found a humane-looking policewoman. She called her Super over. After a Spanish inquisition about why I didn’t have an NUJ card and a phone call to the Times’s news desk (although they only pretended to ring the number), they let me go.

What a squandering of resources and goodwill. If the police were encouraged to exercise discretion instead of ploddle-ing on about orders, they could have distinguished the troublemakers straight off. Clue: they were wearing black masks. I’m not saying the occasional anarchist doesn’t sport Prada and try to pass herself off as a fashion editor, but that’s where sixth senses come in. But maybe profiling, CCTV and making it impossible for people to pee in private, then arresting them for doing it in the gutter, is more butch.

Which brings me to the patronisingly fake and, to be fair, compellingly sentimental Britain’s Got Talent, another area of life where we’re told it’s sinful to go with your gut instinct. And where gut instinct is shamelessly manipulated. Honestly, who apart from a reality show producer believes that being able to hold a note is the sole preserve of people who look like Beyoncé? If Susan Boyle had been auditioning for Britain’s Next Top Model, the audience’s mocking (and subsequently contrite) expressions might have seemed credible. But they were whipped up to play the role of baying mob. Bring back the much maligned skill of judging books by their covers, because, exercised carefully, it has some evolutionary merits. A bit like common sense.

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