Divorce legislation differs from state to state in the USA. In a minority of states there still exists on statute books claims, not just for alienation of affection, but also for engaging in criminal conversation – shy, early American nice speak for adultery. North Carolina is one such state. Others include Hawaii, Utah, Illinois, Mississippi, New Mexico and South Dakota. If a divorce court jury in such states can be persuaded that a spouse’s affections were alienated by he or she engaging in criminal conversation with a cited defendant, that defendant is liable for financial damages, sometimes punitive, that in recent years have exceeded a million dollars.

There are many law enforcement agencies that consider the phrase ‘identity theft’ to be nice speak for today’s fastest growing crime in the developed world; dismissed by those who have not yet been affected by it to be a victimless crime because banks and financial institutions most often bear the cost of those against whom the fraud is committed. The US Federal Trade Commission has estimated the annual profit of identity thieves in America to be $53 billion a year. British fraud protection services dismiss as a gross underestimate a 2002 Cabinet Office study estimating the UK cost at?1.3 billion a year.

Harvey Jordan always chose an aisle seat, disinterested in looking out at ploughed clouds at 35,000 feet, so it wasn’t until the plane banked over the sea for its customary descent into Nice that he got his first sight of the boat-sailed-and-propeller-spumed Mediterranean and, coming rapidly closer, the regimented squads of private jets parked at ease on their parade ground. As always on his arrival in such a familiar, welcoming environment, in which he could, unusually, be Harvey Jordan, there was the immediate and professional recognition of the easy and openly available opportunities spread out before him even before getting off the aircraft.