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though. ‘Where have you come from?’
    ‘A Greek restaurant on the other side of the Uxbridge Road.’
    ‘How far is it?’
    ‘Past the church and two blocks along. It’s called the Vine Leaves.’
    ‘And why didn’t you make use of the toilet facilities provided by that establishment?’
    ‘I didn’t want to at that time. The pill’s demands are instantaneous. You have about ten seconds at most between the pressing need and its fulfilment; unless of course you prefer to wet yourself.’
    He stood in thought for some time, a silhouette against the street lamps behind him. Then he passed judgement. ‘Well, sir, this time we’ll overlook it, but next time try not to choose the wall of a police station.’

4. The Oldest Living Surrealist in the World
    … and can’t remember who called this morning…
    Philip Larkin
    He looked at us from his hospital bed, mouth gaping, eyes open so wide as to indicate both bewilderment and mild panic. From time to time he would emit a sound that was almost a word. Before his stroke he’d known us both very well. I’d always thought then that he resembled a small lizard, full of compact energy, liable at any moment to run rapidly up the wall and across the ceiling. No lizard now.
    In the pub across the road we discussed this metamorphosis. My friend Michael suggested that he was more like the unfortunate mouse turned up by Robert Burns’s plough (‘sleekit’ and ‘timorous’ certainly). This comparison seemed to me all the more accurate because of his very large ears. He’d always had them, I suppose, although it is when they grow older that some people’s suddenly do a Dumbo, and I’d never noticed his before. Now they seemed not only large but permanently cocked, like a small animal listening nervously for the pad or slither of a predator.
    Unrecognized by him, I was glad that his daughter was at his bedside and that her small affectionate attentions (mopping his forehead, holding his hand) seemed to calm him at any rate for a time. I was pleased, not only because of this but also that she would presumably tell Ms Mogg thatMichael and I had come here on this baking day to visit him. She it was who had written to say that he had had a stroke, given me the address and asked me to go and see him, so here we were.
    I’ve always liked and admired Ms Mogg, collector of horror films and the quiet but determined companion of our friend’s later years. Early on in their relationship, given her slightly androgynous and somehow nautical air, I’d named her ‘the Cabin Boy’. I felt now, after so long, loyal and devoted service, she should be promoted to Commander’s Runner at least.
    He was not in a single room. In the other bed was a stout old gentleman in a white gown. He wore a small black skull-cap, so I presumed he was Jewish. I whispered to Michael how closely he resembled the Pope. As we were leaving, some nurses were getting him out of bed and leading him gently but firmly out of the room. By the terrible smell he had obviously shat himself. Extreme old age seems to enjoy demeaning us, destroying what dignity we once had.
    The confused old person in the hospital across the road was Conroy Maddox, so far as I know the oldest living surrealist in the world. Although already in his nineties, until his stroke he had continued to paint, make collages and create objects.
    Since his refusal to participate in the great 1936 Exhibition on the grounds that too many of the British contributions were not surrealist at all (he had been quite right in this), he had stuck to his guns through the war, and afterwards through the dismissal of the movement as ‘old hat’, until its return to favour in the late sixties and seventies. He had even begun to sell well and been able to give up his day job, as semi-pro musicians call it (he was, so far as Iknow, a highly skilled technical draftsman), and paint full time.
    I don’t intend here to go further into his life or his art, as there