Although Stone shares many of Nixon’s resentments, his own tastes have always tended to more Rabelaisian pleasures than “champagne music” and Salisbury steak. Not long ago, Stone went to the Ink Monkey tattoo shop in Venice Beach and had a portrait of Nixon’s face applied to his back, right below the neck. “Women love it,” Stone said.

Stone has honed his black-arts legend for 40 years. A notorious dandy in bespoke suits and two-tone suede spectator shoes, the 64-year-old is as proud of his hair plugs and body-builder physique as he is of his vast, expensive tie collection. He also boasts something else that, I must admit, gave me a moderately unprofessional and ridiculously juvenile reason for wanting to meet the man behind the legend. I badly wanted to get him to remove his shirt so I could photograph the tattoo of Richard Nixon on his back.

He has boasted that the tattoo is a hit with the ladies. “You’ll never meet another man with a dick in the front and a dick in the back,” he offered, as we descended the stairs and rounded the corner to a local diner.