Back in the late 2000s, I undertook a weekly pilgrimage. Each Saturday, I would catch two trains to the opposite side of Melbourne, walk for 30 minutes along a sun-baked main road, then stand sentry for several hours in an airconditioned room as still and silent as a chapel. The task was equal parts dull and stressful: nothing ever happened and the minutes crept by with agonising slowness, but hypervigilance was required as at any moment priceless artwork could be destroyed on my watch. All it would take was a single errant toddler or pen-wielding vandal.
