The hidden value of notes
‘You asshole,’ was my friend’s cheery greeting when we met in Ludlow. I’d mucked up the time. Reconciled, we walked to his place and on the door was a note he’d left me, scrawled on a card with an image of him mimicking Philip Larkin proudly sitting on a border stone: ‘Just a note that you are an asshole. Call.’ Stuart, a collector of manuscripts, showed me a recent acquisition, a note by Sir Edward Elgar, graced with a self-portrait featuring, my friend is sure, an immodestly large penis. I think it’s his coat tail. We debated the iconography while listening to ‘Nimrod’. Notes are often discarded – who hasn’t
