If bidders pay £111m for Damien Hirst’s latest works is the art market immune from the decline in other forms of asset values?
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Orange is a distinctive colour that has attracted the attention of marketing men at many companies. In Britain the RAC car breakdown service repainted its blue vans orange and the British School of Motoring has adopted its bright tones. EasyJet has tried to lay claim to it as a colour to apply across all its brands – and a mobile phone company uses the name as well as the hue.

It is in your face, but it works as a marketing technique. Yet, as viewers of the European football tournament have been reminded, the colour has been hijacked as a country branding as well as a corporate branding. The Dutch team is decked in orange from neck to toe and its supporters wear the same colour – not just a scarf or replica shirt, but a whole uniform of orange so that the fans become a phalanx in the stands.

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