Marie Kondo is immaculate. Tidy hair, pristine cream jumper, lit by the Los Angeles sun streaming through a huge glass window. Behind, a light breeze ripples through the leaves of a verdant tree.

By contrast, I am surrounded by teenage posters and Harry Potter paraphernalia, talking via videoconference from my stepdaughter’s bedroom.

The 35-year-old tidying guru is diplomatic. “It’s your home and personal space,” she says through a translator, though suggests I might use the coronavirus lockdown period to try her KonMari organisation method. This encourages people not to tidy room by room, which ends up shuffling things around. Instead, we should organise by category — books, toiletries, sentimental keepsakes — and only keep those items that spark joy.