Low life | 5 February 2011

I was invited to the local garage’s postponed Christmas party this year not just because I’d been a good customer. Perhaps more importantly I’d spent a good deal of time in the tiny office, leaning on the counter, chatting to Jim, the owner. It’s warm in Jim’s office if you keep the door shut, and his arthritic old lurcher, dozing fitfully in his basket, adds a homely touch.

We’ve been talking books, Jim and I. Jim has read only one book in his life, he says: Michael Schumacher’s head mechanic’s biography. Recently, he’s embarked on a second, Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. He ordered it after seeing it at the top of an online bookstore’s bestseller list.

So I was invited to the postponed Christmas party for social as well as for business reasons. I might be only a self-employed columnist, but I was proud to be accepted and embraced as a valid and valuable member of the local business community.