How is humanity served by the e-scooter?

In Hatchards for the launch of Andrea Rose’s catalogue raisonné of Leon Kossoff’s oil paintings. It’s bad for the morale of writers to frequent bookshops: too many shelves without their books on them. But I’m here to talk about Kossoff, not me. Whether he shunned galleries that showed him scant respect — one of the country’s greatest painters, yet for many years one of the least-known — I have no idea. But he was a modest, principled man who put the making of art before making a name or a fortune, so I choose to believe he didn’t care. He reminds me, in his quiet refusal of flamboyance, of Wordsworth. Like Wordsworth, he found his inspiration in ‘everyday appearances’ and the fleetingness of things. Nobody ever made a diesel train appear so touching, or a demolition site so exhilarating.

I almost didn’t get to Hatchards, having come close to being turned into a demolition site myself by an out-of-control e-scooter — not that there is such a thing as an in-control e-scooter — mounting the pavement at the speed of light, as much to the surprise of its rider as anyone else. E-scooter riders invariably wear an insolent ‘Who, me?’ expression. My expression is a simple question mark. ‘Why?’ To what end or to whose advantage has the e-scooter been legalised? Some inventions justify the dangers they pose. The aeroplane. The motor car. Maybe — I only say ‘maybe’ — the television. But how is humanity served by the e-scooter when we have buses? Next you’ll be telling me that Facebook is a good thing because it fosters informed debate.

Fans of BBC One’s Fake or Fortune? have learnt to dread the verdicts of authors of catalogues raisonnés, those jealously possessive gatekeepers of artists’ reputations who, at the 11th hour, dash any hope that the painting found in a cardboard box outside an Oxfam shop might just be a Titian. Kossoff’s catalogue raisonné doesn’t have a whiff of that cold proprietorship. It is massive, bold, beautiful, generous, not only exquisitely illustrated but compendious in its inclusion of reminiscence and reviews, a gorgeously produced labour of love that tells you all you need to know about Kossoff and demonstrates his greatness beyond all dispute. All right, you could buy 20 novels for the price, but which novels? And if you walk the streets with it pressed to your chest, its heft will protect you against killer toys powering silently towards you on the pavement.

Speaking of toys, my heart didn’t go out to children when I read there might be shortages this Christmas. Let them read books. But when supply-chain problems start to impact on the availability of business shirts in Marks & Spencer, you sit up and take notice. However many Etons or Brionis a man has in his wardrobe, it is an open secret that he will still periodically pop into M&S to check on its selection of day-to-day shirts. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call myself a collector, I am an avid peruser of these myself. But where there were entire rooms of them in every style and colour, we’re now down to a single aisle of three-pack easy-irons. Somewhere in Dover a teal-green cotton and linen Oxford shirt, in my size and retailing at under £30, languishes in a container.

I have been considering installing a lift from my kitchen to my study. I don’t mean a stairlift (that would be too drastic and premature a concession to old age) but an actual elevator, big enough to take me, a glass of wine, and a bowl of olives. Wine, if I am to be frank, is what’s behind this. Three times in the past year I have fallen upstairs — not down — while carrying a fullish glass of Malbec. The grape oughtn’t to matter but the colour does. Fall up the stairs carrying red wine and you leave a Jackson Pollock-like stain, the shape of a giant squid, on the wall, the stairs and even, if you fall dramatically enough, the ceiling.

Seeing the pile of lift brochures, a friend asks why I don’t just keep an extra bottle of wine under my desk? My mouth falls open. Such moments change lives. Were it not for Covid I’d embrace him. Today, I can climb the stairs hands-free, blithe in the knowledge that I have Malbec waiting for me at the top. How to get the empties down is a problem I’m still working on.

An anti-vaxxer I know tells me vaccine passports are the thin of the wedge. ‘What’s the thick end?’ I wonder. I know what he will answer. ‘Authoritarianism.’ ‘For that don’t you need a government capable of showing authority?’ I ask. ‘It’s a slippery slope,’ he says. I throw him a philosopher’s smile. Everything’s a slippery slope to something else. But since he loves a metaphor, I answer him in kind. ‘What’s birth,’ I say, ‘but the slippery slope to death?’