The Art Newspaper mocks Phillips de Pury’s figurehead for a press release promoting an exhibition of his photographs in Berlin. They point out that the well-traveled auctioneer is also DJing at the opening party, which brings to mind this gossip item from The Independent ran that ran over the weekend.

So there is some tittering among his clients about a YouTube video he has bizarrely recorded, a Euro-pop rendition of the song “If I had a hammer”. To the background of a tinny little beat and some sub-Cheeky Girls warbling, De Pury whips an auction room into a bidding frenzy, with punters breaking out into teenage dancing as the bidding reaches £4m. Smartly dressed Sloanes are seen grinding to the music.

We couldn’t resist looking at the video but we’ll save you the trouble. It’s not worth watching. Worse, it looks to be something that was filmed long ago: