Perhaps the least necessary piece of advice ever given to a Hanif Kureishi protagonist comes in 2014’s The Last Word. ‘Harry,’ a wise old writer tells the main character, ‘always put your penis first.’

It’s a suggestion, needless to say, that Harry has no trouble accepting — not least because, like so many Kureishi protagonists, he shares the belief that ‘the body of the young woman is the world’s most significant object’.