A few years ago I went to the world’s largest vinyl fair in Utrecht in the Netherlands. I am not a collector of the “black crack”, but was with a friend who is and was curious to see it for myself.

Record stalls stretch over an area the size of several football pitches. It is the type of place where you see men — and it is 95% men — sitting on the floor listening intently to portable record players; wheeling around suitcases full of their loot; pointing at £2,000 “wall pieces”; or earnestly discussing Argentinian jazz while eating hot dogs. I even saw a few people flicking through crates in serial killer-esque latex gloves.