The American girl at the next table wasn’t the only young lady in trouble in the Oxford coffee shop last weekend. For, sitting next to the window, were an older couple – early 60s, well-spoken – and a pretty young thing with an eastern European accent.

The arrangement was obvious: they were retired academics, who’d taken in a student for the summer to help her to prepare for the local equivalent of her A Levels. They’d be taking her out on tours every day, talking to her incessantly, immersing her in the English language and culture.

She looked miserable, though. For last night she’d stayed out late – well past the 10pm deadline that had been agreed both with her hosts and her own parents before the trip. She’d forgotten her house keys; the smell of alcohol on her breath when they let her in had confirmed their suspicions that she’d spent the night in the pub rather than the cinema.

They’d taken her into the drawing room; she’d stood before them whilst they talked to her about her behaviour. They’d explained how these matters were dealt with traditionally in England, and would have made her take down her jeans and knickers, before bending over the gentleman’s lap for a sound hand-spanking on her bare bottom.

Afterwards, she’d been told to stand. He’d warned that if there were any repetition, he’d have no choice but to take off his belt and make her touch her toes to be punished. Hard. And only then had she been allowed to pull up her clothes, and been sent upstairs to bed.