Thesis: “As soon as you stop wanting something you get it.” Andy Warhol says that he has found this rule to be “absolutely axiomatic.” He was always lonely and desperately wanted a friend, until one day he decided he was better off alone, and suddenly he had crowds of people chasing after him to share their problems.

He has to choose between professional psychiatric help and television. Television works better. It’s reliable: you switch it on and there’s the sounds and colours to distract you. Psychiatrists are human and so sometimes they disappoint you by failing to understand or not calling back.

“In the 60s, everybody got interested in everybody else.” And this is the problem: you can’t be a loner when everyone is interested in everyone else. Especially if you’re Andy Warhol.

It’s not just his television that saved him. He has a tape recorder too. If someone comes up to him with their problems he can just flick the tape recorder on and their appeal for help and advice, however heartfelt, becomes just a performance for the tape. And listening back to the tapes gives Andy a certain perspective on himself and on the other voices on the tapes that finally kills off emotion for him. “I think that once you see emotions from a certain angle you can never think of them as real again.”