A colleague tells me of a quick way to make cash for anyone who wants to. His neighbours discovered a pile of old taps and central heating pipes they had lying around had more value than they thought. A scrap metal merchant gave them £75 for them. ”It’s a bubble,” the merchant said.

It may be a bubble, but it’s proving a lasting one and one that’s causing problems in unexpected quarters too. In my salubrious part of Surrey, local churches are struggling to keep their roofs on and it’s not because of the volume of their congregations’ singing either. Thieves are stripping lead roofing and flashing to melt down and sell on.

It’s become a multi-million-pound problem across the country. Police have urged residents to call them if they ever see someone climbing on church roofs. And the churches themselves have decided they can’t afford to turn the other cheek. They’ve tried stake-outs and security patrols. Now, some are investing in special coatings that leave a unique lasting chemical impression on anyone who comes into contact with them.

It doesn’t solve the crime immediately, the police still have to find and arrest suspects for that to happen. But it’s a hefty deterrent - if they catch anyone climbing on roof tops they can carry out a quick check to discover if they have any traces of the chemical on them - if they do they can then be linked to specific offences and prosecuted.

There’s a line in the Old Testament of the Bible where Moses warns the Israelites, “Be sure, your sins will find you out.” I’m not sure he had this kind of technology in mind. But perhaps churches ought to be putting it on warning signs.