***

Someone recommends to me a recent book by Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature, Penguin) which claims that the human species is getting nicer and that incidents of violence are decreasing. Eager for good news, I rush out and buy it. True, the author has to get round the difficult corners of two world wars, but I allow that. Far more ridiculous is the book's contention that it is hard to produce lasting art in societies in which museums and culture are in peril or transient.

It occurs to me that this is exactly wrong. The population of Florence in the Renaissance was akin to that of the London Borough of Croydon. Indeed, modern-day Croydon could be said to be more advanced, and is surely less dangerous, than Renaissance Florence. But is it remotely difficult to judge which civilisation produced the better art?

***

Wealth — if not civilisation — is on some display when I take a brief break in the south of France and decide to visit Monaco. I spend an evening there and throw myself into the private rooms of the casino at Monte Carlo. It is hard to think of a bleaker place.

Though I am incapable of gambling any money myself, watching other people doing so is grimly fascinating. One man spends his time constantly flitting between tables, spreading bets all over the place while making tiny inscriptions in a pocketbook. He has clearly developed some sort of system and sticks to it even though it brings no success, nor, seemingly, any happiness. 

An Italian gentleman of a certain age plays with €5,000 chips. His elegant wife sits beside him, looking bored. He loses almost ceaselessly. Just once, he has a small win. There is a flicker of relief, but no enjoyment. It occurs to me that gambling is one of those occupations in which the sadness of losing (amply indicated by the pawnbrokers beneath the casino steps) is not proportionate to any happiness in winning.

This is not an original discovery, but Monaco is a shady place. I overhear a lady on the phone at the hotel pool. For the first (and I hope only) time in my life I am in the vicinity of someone who namedrops Saddam Hussein.