I think again about her David Attenborough text, and suddenly feel a very strong urge – a physical need – to see her. I desperately want to turn around, walk straight back out of the door and go and find her. But Jonno thwacks me on the back and keeps me moving forwards.

The team flops down collectively onto one of the big oily couches next to the main stage. Jonno remains standing in front of us, chewing his bottom lip and gyrating his hips to ‘Hot in Herre’ by Nelly. The strip club is so clearly Jonno’s natural environment that it’s hard to believe he wasn’t raised in one.

‘Here we go, boys!’ he shouts over the music. ‘Here. We. Fucking. Go!’

‘Shots?’ someone else yells, but Jonno’s already up at the bar ordering them, his arm snaked around a scantily clad redhead.

A very tall, Viking-esque woman wearing only a see-through nightie approaches me and squats down by the edge of the sofa.

‘Would you like a dance?’ she asks. Her accent is eastern European, and weirdly, even though I haven’t thought about this moment in ten years, I remember her straight away.

‘No, honestly, I’m fine, thanks,’ I tell her, adding, ‘I don’t think I can afford it,’ because it seems a simpler excuse than ‘I’m ideologically opposed to it.’

She shrugs. ‘You can just buy me a glass of champagne, and the dance will be free.’

‘How much is a glass of champagne?’

‘Forty-five pounds.’

‘Right. No, thanks, honestly, I’m fine.’

First time round, I tried – unsuccessfully – to engage this woman in a highly patronising conversation about her hopes and dreams, and how she’d ended up in a place like this. It was partly to assuage my guilt about being here, but also – if I’m totally honest – probably to indulge some lame knight-in-shining-armour daydream, in which I could imagine my words compelling her to quit this awful job immediately and start flirting outrageously with me – but because she actually wanted to, not because I’d just bought her a glass of horrifically overpriced champagne. And let’s face it, that makes me just as pathetic as every other bloke in here.

I don’t bother with my patronising interrogation this time, so the Viking girl just wanders off to find another punter. I’m left sizing up my disgusting tequila shot and watching as Jonno and another Thump staff member get wriggled on by two near-naked blondes in front of me. Strangely, they seem to be looking at each other more than at the actual girls; swapping child-like grins and thumbs-ups every time a nipple comes within a few centimetres of their faces.

I feel a buzz in my pocket, and find myself hoping that it’s Daphne. But it’s not. It’s an email from Clare Rodway, at Rodway Cohen Associates.