They are wonderfully good, though, at lifestyle and this book offers a Vanity Fair of Russian oligarchy. Abramovich’s best friend in Britain, apparently, is Mohamed Fayed, partly because the Russian’s wife, Irina, is among Harrods’ best customers. We are taken on a tour of his mansion in Sussex, Fyning Hill, and of the Villa de la Croe, on Cap d’Antibes, once owned by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and later by King Farouk. We are given a straightforward explanation of just why he needs five helicopters and three yachts. It annoys him when another Russian buys a bigger boat than he possesses, so one acquisition was the 378ft Pelorus, a Dr No-type yacht with bullet-proof glass, a missile defence system, a couple of helicopter pads and, in case of extreme emergency, its own submarine.

Why did a Russian billionaire buy Chelsea FC? The authors do have an intriguing and plausible answer. Although Abramovich has been on good terms with Putin, he has witnessed the fate of his peers. Many are in exile. Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once the richest of all the oligarchs as boss of Yukos, has been in jail for a year on tax avoidance charges. Owning an English football club may assure him of asylum here if ever the need arose. Even at a couple of hundred million, the authors argue, it could work out as a cheap insurance policy.

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