Confessions of an anorak

Am I an anorak? An uncomfortable thought, like discovering that some feature you had never noticed in yourself — your Adam’s apple, perhaps, or your ears — is what people always remember about you. I wore an anorak, long ago during my teenage motor-scooter period. That comprised Lambretta 1, which cost £8, was a slow starter and died of engine seizure, but not before it had caused my motorcycle test to be abandoned by an impatient examiner known locally as Failer Fowler. (That in turn provoked me to remove my L-plates and ride illegally for the rest of my brief two-wheeled career.) Lambretta 2 cost £3 and ran faultlessly until I sold it for £8. The anorak ended up as the thing I used to lie on during the many hours spent beneath my first car.

But now the term is most often used to refer to collectors of anything not thought to be high art.