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.