Chipping Norton has been making the headlines again, with one of its locals telling the Sun of a tattoo in his pubic area proclaiming: “To women, from God.” In explanation he adds: “It’s because we are God’s gift to women. There is a thin line between cocky and arrogant — we’re definitely arrogant.” You will gather that on this occasion it was not of its columnist Jeremy Clarkson that Sunday’s Sun was writing, nor of any other member of the so-called ‘Chipping Norton set’.

No, the subject of the story was 18-year-old Chippy lad Jake. He has been on holiday to the resort of Kavos, on the Greek island of Corfu, with a group of his mates. I hardly need name their travel company: antics on Club 18-30 holidays are as much a staple of the tabloid summer as the price of strawberries at Wimbledon and the dismal failure of the British hope there (over which this year there has been a pleasing variation).

Jake is about to start training as a fireman and is already eager, it would seem, to bolster the reputation for concupiscence for which this gallant service is, rightly or wrongly, known. For team spirit, too — as the headline above would suggest.

None of this bothers me in the slightest. Far more worthy of concern was a prominent newspaper appearance this week by Emily Clarkson, also 18, the daughter of the aforementioned Jeremy. She joined dad in the Sunday Times’s motoring supplement with her account of a 3,000-mile drive across Africa with a friend called Tom. He also served as cover girl. 

Nepotism used to be bashfully hidden but easily discoverable. Now it flaunts itself.