There's an essential difference between a collection and an accumulation. If I said that I used to have a tie collection, one might imagine a large number of brightly coloured strips of cloth in some kind of presentation case, perhaps grouped by colour or style or material. So what I actually had was an accumulation of ties - a knot of them, combined with scarves and braces in a plastic carrier bag, stuffed in the back of the wardrobe.

In September 2007, I decided I'd like to wear ties an awful lot more often than I had been doing (that is to say, never), and I went in search of the accumulation, only to discover that I no longer had an accumulation of ties, I had a moth farm.

Now I no longer have a moth farm, either.