I AM informed by a reliable source – my nine-year-old grandson, George – that in China special walkways are being built in some cities exclusively for mobile phone users. The idea is that if these keyboard junkies are going to run into someone as, eyes down, they text and re-text, that someone will be another addict. His source: a children’s TV channel – and who would dare question its accuracy?

I passed on this information to Bernard, retired driving instructor and irascible Lancastrian of many wet summers (he was born in Manchester), after he had collided in quick succession with two absorbed phone users in George Street.

“Did you vent your spleen?” I asked, using this idiom to encourage Bernard to express his annoyance. His reply was a surprise.

“Certainly not,” he said. “They were young ladies – probably freshers – keeping in contact with mum back home. I was happy to apologise.”

“That wasn’t what you said when you walked into the scaffold pole seconds after they passed,” said Ginny, his no-nonsense wife of 53 years. “It served you right for checking skirt lengths rather than the placing of metal posts.”

I considered asking why he hadn’t checked his rear-view mirror, but thought better of it.

IT is to my lasting shame that until I wandered into the Town Hall exhibition of his work, I had never heard of James Allen Shuffrey, the Wood Green artist.

In defence, the world of canvas, brushes and easels is in a distant galaxy (bottom in art four years on the trot in my grammar school days) but what I saw, I envied and admired. His paintings of the Oxford scene of almost a century ago are outstanding.

Not bad for a chap who retired with bad health from his work in a bank before he was 40 and lived until 1939, only handing in his paint pallet at the ripe old age of 80.

Which proves that handling money isn’t everything and if you enjoy your work you’ll defy the undertaker.

WHILE on the subject of the Town Hall, may I congratulate the management of the cafe on its reasonable prices? In particular the pot of tea was excellent value for £1.30. At least two and a half large cups from a generous sized teapot, brought to the table by a smiling attendant. The cost of the food was also reasonable. I might regret these words when the moneygrabbers in the finance department hike the prices in the name of reducing the city’s budget deficit.

DEFLATION: being told at the start of an interview that she wouldn’t dream of missing John Chipperfield’s Memory Lane and then asking me to repeat my name. Such is life.