Does anybody who is honest ever buy a Lamborghini? The only time the car rates a mention in the pages of this newspaper, it seems, are in stories written by the crime reporter. The person in question often also owns a Rolex watch. And a gold chain. Perhaps the police could triangulate the owners of all three and arrest the lot on “suspicion of … well, just suspicion”.

Conspicuous consumption, of course, is back in fashion: witness the Bezos wedding. As sequels go, Jeff in Venice was even sadder than Death in Venice. A man notorious for underpaying his workers – and for making them walk at a near-jog called “Amazon pace” – wanted to show off the wealth that had resulted. He also made sure it was in sight of the cameras, so the world could see his triumph.

Meanwhile, there were reports this week about the funeral, some months ago, of a Melbourne criminal. It’s emerged that his body was transferred, at the last minute, into a golden coffin. His friends, apparently, thought the wooden one in which he’d been delivered sent the wrong message. Appearances are everything, it seems, even when you are dead.

The wealthy didn’t always behave like this. Many decades ago, as the Herald’s correspondent in the UK, I had the chance to interview the occasional member of the aristocracy. Over time, I developed what I called “the threadbare carpet index”, which enabled me to guess the wealth and status of my subject to the nearest fraction of a baronet. The more threadbare the carpet, the larger the estate. If you could see the floorboards through the holes, they’d own half of Scotland.

They all drove beaten-up Land Rovers, right up to and including the Queen. If I were lucky enough to score a cup of tea, the accompanying biscuits would be a supermarket own-brand. The blokes had patches sewn onto their jackets to cover the bit where the elbows had worked their way through.

I guess they were just saving up to pay for new plumbing in the east wing, but I still found the attitude refreshing. You had the feeling they’d rather drop dead than buy a new shirt. Maybe they agreed with Henry David Thoreau: “Beware all enterprises which require new clothes”.

This was long before the era of the $100,000 handbag, but had I predicted its existence, they’d have laughed out loud. They would regard such an object as “vulgar” or “ostentatious” and, moreover, a sign that the purchaser had lost their tiny mind.

In fact, the more useless watches have become – superseded by our devices – the more they have become a signifier of wealth.

I wonder, sometimes, whether those so keen on ostentatious consumption are aware that not everyone is cheering them on in the manner they so keenly desire. When an expensive sports car pulls up next to you at the traffic lights, a young man at the wheel, what’s your first thought?

He’s imagining, of course, that you’ll glance over and suffer a sharp twinge of jealousy. “Oh, he’s done well. He must be so successful.” Or maybe even: “I should have tried harder in life, then I could have afforded a car like that.” Perhaps some occasional people feel that hoped-for envy, but my instinctive reaction, as I glance across, is always: “Oh, look! There’s another drug dealer”. Or maybe: “That guy must have rich and indulgent parents.” Either way, my second thought is: “Poor bastard. Who’d want to be like him?”

Of course, if the driver is my age, it’s different. In that case, I think: “Poor bastard, imagine having a midlife crisis that cost that much. Couldn’t he get into the sky-diving course?”

At least the fancy motorcar offers an experience superior to that of the base-level model in which I sit, having these mean – albeit accurate – thoughts. But the guy in the car is also likely to be wearing a fancy watch, and here I really am at a loss. As I understand it, the fancy watch costs maybe $50,000 and – stay with me here – allows you to tell the time ... It’s a feature, I notice, available via the cheapest watch. And also on your phone.

In fact, the more useless watches have become – superseded by our devices – the more they have become a signifier of wealth. Are there other, now useless, objects which could similarly be offered as status symbols? Perhaps people could carry around gold typewriters, or a diamond-encrusted copy of Gregory’s Street Directory.

There was once a whole critical language around conspicuous consumption, particularly in Australia. A fancy bit of clothing, or an overpriced car, would have you described as “flash as a rat with a gold tooth”. We’d talk contemptuously of people who were “trying to keep up with the Joneses”, and derided the ostentatious as spivs and dandies; show-offs and lairs.

Those phrases now sound a bit archaic, but in an era of the Bezos wedding, of gold-coffin funerals, and Rolex-wearing crooks, we may need to bring them back. Here’s the advice I want to whisper in their ears: “If you are lucky to have some money, for God’s sake’s shut up about it.”

Or as we used to put it when I was a kid: “Mate, no one likes a big-noter.”

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