A puzzling painting

Ric Hyde is a long-established living British artist. He lives in the West Country, and is presently one of the guest artists currently being exhibited in the Willoughby Gallery at The Castle in Bude. The exhibition opened on 1st April. I was there on 4th and 7th. On the 4th, this picture of his was on the wall:

As you can see, it's quite eye-catching. And clearly has a deep meaning, to which we'll return in a moment. I found it both admirable and puzzling. I took a careful photo of it (reproduced above). I neglected to shoot any information card stuck on the wall next to it, so I came away not knowing the title of the painting. Driving away from Bude, I thought little of the omission. I was pretty sure I'd seen this painting before, possibly on TV, possibly in something I'd read. The expression on the young girl's face in the right half of the painting - the girl with pony-tails - seemed familiar. Anyway, I thought I'd have no problem identifying the name of the painting and learning more about it from a well-informed art source, if not in something published by the artist himself.

But I was wrong. Searching Google did not turn up an image of this painting. So I couldn't follow anything up. Well, I could go back. I was minded to revisit Bude anyway. I could take another look, and this time note down the title of the painting.

So on the 7th I walked in, and...oh!

The Castle, the former home of Cornish inventor Goldsworthy Gurney - whose clever and efficient large-building heaters in cast iron were installed in many a cathedral around the country during the nineteenth century (and have been mentioned more than once in these annals) - is Bude's best local venue for exhibitions, and events like weddings. And since I'd  seen it three days before, the Willoughby Gallery had been prepared for a civil marriage ceremony. Where was the painting I'd come back to see? They'd put a mirror where it had been, over the fireplace.

The mirror facilitated a great shot of the room from the officiator's viewpoint - necessarily showing myself holding up the camera, of course!

So far as I could see, they had left all the other paintings in place, including one of teenage boys in bathing costumes frolicking about (the painting above my head in the photo). But a painting of nude women and girls had clearly been thought inappropriate for the ceremony. They'd taken it down, and put it away somewhere. Well, no doubt it might have distracted the onlookers somewhat. Nudity tends to. But then I saw this:

Ah! So it had been a same-sex wedding - two men. Oh well, a parade of nude female flesh definitely hadn't been the right backdrop then. The ceremony had taken place just two and half hours before. The guys had done the deed, and were now presumably enjoying their reception at another spot. They clearly couldn't have lingered, nor their guests, because the place was completely tidy. There was nothing to suggest that a boatload of people had come and gone. You could in fact have held another wedding there straight away.

But no painting, no card to say what it had been called. So it was hardly Mission Accomplished.

On the side walls of the gallery were two other Ric Hyde paintings, more typical perhaps of his work, showing slightly insalubrious scenes. Adjacent was a card with some information about him:

One of the paintings showed two lissom, nude girls sunning themselves at what seemed to be a sewerage farm. One was actually dipping her hand in the sludgy water:

I couldn't see a card next to this painting, to say what its title was (so maybe the tidied-away painting of nude women and girls hadn't been identified either...?).

This was the other painting:

It showed a lurid party scene inside industrial premises. Some of the participants were sick and green-faced with too much self-indulgence. People had paired off in ill-matched ways. Sexily-clad women abounded. Sex was happening here and there. There even seemed to be a hanged man. It could have been a weird and out-of-hand office party, and yet there were some children there too. I'm thinking it was all an allegory of the Human Condition, painted with a wry sense of humour.

This time there was a card next to the painting:

So! If you 'get' the painting, like it,  and have £3,500 to spare, it's yours. The exhibition is not yet over, and 'Factory Dance' may still be available. (I didn't buy it myself)

By the way, this wasn't a 'Ric Hyde exhibition'. They were showing selected examples of half a dozen North Cornwall artists, the main one being in fact Irene Jones. A similar exhibition, also with her work as the major component, was put on in 2016, entitled Not of our Time.  So this was Not of our Time II.

Irene Jones had been inspired by stylised medieval representations of women. The girl just above with her arms protectively around a red steam engine is in a painting titled 'A Train for Bude'. Here's the shot of it I took myself on the 4th April (sorry for the reflections):

The protective posture, as if the red engine were her baby, and the Cornish-flag pendant around her neck hint at a proud local enterprise much desired when first proposed. As indeed it was, although in real life the railway took a very long time to reach Bude - as late as 1898. It did not have a long existence. Dr Beeching closed it in 1966, and ever since Bude has been difficult to reach, if you do not drive. Perhaps this Cornish maid would have thwarted Dr Beeching if she could. She certainly has an air of defiance. The museum part of The Castle - which I recommend seeing - has a lot to show and say about the railway at Bude. Just as well: virtually nothing is left to see on the ground. I was rather fortunate to be at Bude with Mum one sunny day in 1974, when the old station was still there to see, looking neglected and overgrown with weeds, but largely undamaged:

So many stations, and certainly all terminus stations, once had a newspaper and tobacco kiosk, almost always run by W H Smith. I bet that behind that corrugated iron there were yellowing piles of unsold newspapers and magazines from 1966, tied up with jute string. All the station site has long since been built over: there is nothing left to reinstate. No wonder Irene Jones' maiden looks vaguely displeased, if not positively angry.

Another Irene Jones painting caught my eye:

Again, the deep eyes and defensive face suggest vulnerability, violation, and keenly-felt loss.

But it's time to look closely at Ric Hyde's female lineup, and see what can be made of it.

Obvious things first. There are six figures standing on what might be a kitchen floor, or a chessboard. All are female, and all face the viewer - except the skeleton, who seems to to have a male pelvis and has his eyes on one of the naked women. Four of the six are very much alive. The grandmother-figure on the far right (who is carrying fruit that looks considerably more vibrant than herself) doesn't quite look as solid and three-dimensional as the others, as if she is not really there. The skeleton is of course not alive at all, but nevertheless is dancing, jigging about, projecting movement and an odd sense of ghoulish vitality.

Four of these figures are nude, or almost so, and two are showing their private parts. The grandmother is, by contrast, fully-clothed and covered up - though shabbily and unfashionably dressed.

The adult woman on the far left is carrying a baby in a blanket. The young girl next to her is holding a kitten. They might be mother and daughter. The other adult woman in the centre, and the girl with pony-tails next to her, might be a second mother-daughter pair: both have in common ribbons in their hair, and both have a flimsy, but effective, covering for their pubic area.

The skeleton has a skull adorned with flowers. He might be a dead father/grandfather, and those the fond protective hands of a close family member. But they look like groping hands to me. The adult woman in the centre is possibly the skeleton's daughter, but clearly does not like the skeleton's touch. Her pony-tailed daughter seems unconcerned at the skeleton's proximity. But she does look exasperated - why, I don't know. The adult woman on the far left is out of the skeleton's immediate reach, but nevertheless has a concerned expression on her face, as if worried about the future in general - or something off-picture that we can't see.

In the background is a fruit orchard (or is it the Garden of Eden?), presumably the source of the fruit being held by the grandmother. At ground level, there are garden flowers. A single, discarded red rose lies near the skeleton's feet, implying love rejected. Young pony-tails is holding up a little white flower. And there are two smug, sitting animals: a cat and a frog.

The painting seems full of symbolism, and might be interpreted in several ways. One would be that all families end up jigging the dance of death. But that's way too obvious! So is saying that it celebrates the confidence of youth.

The four unclothed females are clearly saying something strong and emphatic with their various degrees of nudity. Exposure of intimate flesh to this extent would in real life make them vulnerable to exploitation and harm. Perhaps the artist is saying that, whether clothed or unclothed, women are at risk. Children may not see the danger (the two kids are definitely not worrying) but their older and more experienced mums can. And grandmothers have learned that the best protection is to be fully covered up, almost invisible, and just resignedly fade into the background.

Surprisingly, the painting is not - at least not to my personal eyes - in any way erotic. I can of course easily imagine a lot of prudish people finding it provocative and (with the depiction of nude children being semi-taboo) almost obscene. It would surely have been considered decidedly risqué twenty or thirty years ago. My Mum would have thought so. But although arresting, I don't think the picture shocks. It does however make you want to look at it intently, searching for clues to tease out the artist's meaning.

Well, would I have it up on my lounge wall at home? Yes, definitely. I think it says something important about women and ageing. And I'm an ageing woman.

Would I pay, say, £3,500 for it, if I had the money? Yes. It's well-painted and interesting. It has some of the artist's mind in it, and isn't just a photograph.

Would I be happy for my friends to know that I owned it? Yes. I don't think any of them would find it disturbing, offensive, or in any way difficult to look at or live with. Unless, of course, their own experience of life had given them the ability - lacking in myself - of seeing whatever awful thing the painting might be saying.

Some hidden things are awful, and are really too hard to face. It's good to demand truth, and to understand what is real, and what is fake. But some knowledge can drive you to despair. I don't see despair in this painting, but I do think its message - whatever it is - is not a reassuring one.

Which cubicle in the ladies' loo?

Now here's a nice little problem to be thrashed out: when going into an empty ladies' toilet, and faced with two or more vacant cubicles, which should you choose, assuming all are equally clean and attractive?

Is it a desperately important issue? Well, for some nervous souls it might be. We feel most vulnerable with knickers dropped in a public place. And moreover a place where (if someone else comes in) neither can avoid listening to the other, and where there may be an unwanted social encounter as one or other emerges from the cubicle after flushing the loo. Anglo-Saxon attitudes to proper and improper behaviour, hedged in by prudery where private parts and intimate functions are concerned, rob us all of breezy, laid-back easiness in such a place. I do wonder whether, for some, the choice of cubicle is determined by how simple it might be to escape after the deed is done.

Like me, you may yourself be perfectly cool and casual about all this, and feel no stress, and no need for an exit plan. You may even, like me, enjoy the prospect of a brief chat while putting windswept hair to rights, or restoring faded lipstick. I will confess however that for me it wasn't always so. As a child I felt terribly awkward in a public toilet, seriously embarrassed, and that gaucheness long lingered on. But nowadays things are different. I am indisputably an adult human being with normal body functions, who has every possible right to be not only who I am, but a user of these particular toilets. And moreover a user who will, if she so wishes, look frankly and straightly into the eyes of anyone who peers curiously or rudely at me. The thin-lipped, censorious and disapproving can't disconcert me.

How I wish I had such confidence when young! But then, how I wish for so many things that would have transformed my own childhood experience. Sigh.

Back to the problem I posed. Setting aside irrational feelings that require a rapid and secretive in-out strategy, what is the basis for going into one cubicle rather than another? Is there some unwritten rule? Or some behavioral thing hard-wired into human psychology? Or is it just something determined by obvious things such as the level of lighting, apparent cleanliness, or which cubicle has toilet paper and which hasn't?

I don't think this is quite the same problem as choosing a good seat on an empty bus. On a bus, there are many other considerations. Whether one has luggage or shopping bags or is pushing a buggy with a child in it. Whether one is unsteady on the feet. Whether sitting too far from the exit will mean getting trapped on board by the crowded passengers between one's seat and the exit. Then there's the view, and whether one will end up cheek-by-jowl with nightmare passengers. But there is possibly a similarity, in that whether on a bus, or in a cubicle, a nervous person will want to stay unnoticeable and avoid an unnecessary social exchange.

What about unwritten rules? It's always a bit odd when a stranger sits next to you on an otherwise empty bus or train. It's an invasion of personal space. But that rule seems not to apply in a ladies' toilet, when, given a choice of, say, a dozen cubicles, person number 1 may well find persons numbers 2 and 3 (total strangers who come in afterwards) choosing the cubicles on either side. In other words, there's a tendency to sit in clusters. So much so, it's often possible to find a cubicle at the far end that hardly gets used, and remains almost pristine all day long. I'm thinking there's a female thing going on here, no doubt unconsciously: safety in staying together in a group. It would obviously apply to mother and child, sisters, and girl friends; and it still applies when the only link is the basic fact that the various unrelated occupants are all female. I don't think this is the case in the male world, where it might be regarded as suspect if one man urinates too close to another, and there is no need for instinctive collective protection. Surely none of this amounts to a 'rule', though - it's just a reflection of social norms.

So what do I do? Do I try hard to be super-female, or do I prefer rationality? Well, I confess to rationality. If entering on my own, I always select the cleanest, best-lit cubicle available, which more often than not tends to be the one furthest from the entrance door. That doesn't matter one bit: I don't need to make a rapid escape. The basin closest to that cubicle is generally the nicest one too. This said, if I were with a girl friend, I would almost certainly sit close to her, even if not actually in the very next cubicle. So you could say my approach is in fact a mixture of rationality and social conditioning, and it all depends on whether I'm alone or not.

I can't help thinking that this apparently trivial problem has deeper undertones! I could go into several other things, but will desist. All right, it's worth mentioning, for instance, the etiquette of flushing - now that I think about it, it seems usual to flush the loo just before leaving the cubicle, and not at an earlier point. The flushing noise is a polite signal to queuing ladies that a cubicle will, within seconds, become free. And because there is always the possibility of a queue, no woman ever likes to spend a lot of time in the cubicle, and will apologise profusely if she absolutely has to. There are of course scummy women around who have no social graces whatever, but friendly courtesy and understanding is the norm in a ladies' loo, and long may that remain the case.

By the way, I hate 'unisex' toilets. I avoid them. I would rather find a pub or a hotel and buy a coffee as the price of using a proper female-only area to do my business in, knowing that no unsavoury man has waggled his willy over the toilet seat and dribbled everywhere.

It passed the handling test

As you might suppose, I've been on the lookout for a chance to handle the new Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ mobile phones. There is still about two weeks to go before they hit the shops, but here and there working examples can be seen. A few days back, I saw both phones in Carphone Warehouse in Barnstaple, and was able to get a good general impression, play with the screens, satisfy myself that I liked the look and behaviour of the Android Nougat OS, and didn't mind the absence of a 'home' button one bit.

But as to whether the larger S8+ would fit comfortably into my left hand, I couldn't do more than compare the relative sizes of the S8 and S8+ side-by-side, noting at least that the S8+ wasn't quite as large and unwieldy as I'd thought it would be. Both working phones were securely locked into position, and I couldn't pick them up to find out how each felt in the hand. If the shop had examples that one could handle, they were keeping them out of sight, and the place was too busy to hang around and enquire.

But today, in Wells, I did get a chance to ask. No, they weren't risking putting even a tethered working phone in anyone's hands just yet; but they had dummy models. Ah, I said, that's all I wanted. I just needed to see whether the S8+ was too big for my hand, or felt in any way odd. Well, as you can see, I got my fingers around it without any problem:

That was reassuring. So size wasn't going to be an issue. And if I could cope with the larger S8+, there was no point in considering the smaller S8. Here they are, side by side:

There was a £90 price difference between them, if buying outright - really, not a lot at this price level. The styling and capabilities were exactly the same. The S8+ had a larger battery and a larger screen - that was all. But to me those two things were important, and well worth paying for. I suppose some people might consider a large phone like the S8+ unpocketable, but for me pocketability wasn't an issue - the phone would be going in my bag. Nor did I think the S8+ oversized and clumsy: it was long and narrow, instead of short and wide, and that stopped it being awkwardly tablet-shaped.

So the only issue left now is how to afford one! It would definitely be sensible to pay for it outright (that is, SIM-fee), rather than on a two-year monthly contract, because that seems much the cheaper way. I am currently paying Vodafone £17 a month for my SIM-only bundle (a perfectly adequate 10GB of data, 500 minutes of calls, and unlimited texts). I'd be reluctant to pay any more per month - certainly not to revert to a monthly purchase plan costing anything up to £40 more. It's surely better to wait patiently until my savings have increased, and can safely take the hit needed. And by that time, some months ahead, it won't be £779 but something less: £700 perhaps.

At least I've now handled the S8+, and can confidently order one on the Internet when the time is right.

Human footballs

The dreadful attack on a young male asylum seeker in Croydon a few days ago shows how easily wolf-pack bloodlust can take over, with near-fatal results in this case. The young man was in a vulnerable place - waiting at a bus stop - and he was not 'white British'. He got noticed. He became a focus for a sudden surge of hatred, with a lot of local young men and women joining in. South London is not a safe area for people who look foreign, not when a mob of prejudiced young people are around. And now the victim is in hospital, after being beaten up, and in a very bad way. His story will eventually come out. It'll probably be one of family distress in a war-torn land, an expensive and dangerous bid to escape, endless difficulties, and personal hardship and endurance to reach Refuge Britain. The victim will not seem particularly special or meritorious, but simply a young man who came to a free and peaceful country, hoping for a better future. He didn't deserve to be a human football.

What a welcome to 'civilised' Britain, to be kicked on the head by scumbags whom I'd personally like to taser till they scream for mercy.

I don't think that attacks like this are a consequence of Brexit. They were bound to happen as the general population became ever more and more obviously multicultural, and the hard-core 'white British' element felt ever more squeezed. But Brexit, now a reality, had the promise in their minds of a reversal to the rot, a halt to all the hated diversity, a banishment of all the foreign faces, of everyone who is 'not us'. And this spurious promise might have emboldened some of the attackers sufficiently to cast off all restraint, and do their worst in the gut belief that they now had the upper hand.

This is not what I voted Brexit for. I didn't vote for a closed society infested by hate gangs.

And yet this kind of thing was always a possible outcome. The ridicule and denigration of foreigners, all of them now reduced to stereotypes. And not just impotent Middle-Eastern refugees. Suddenly the EU officials in Brussels are getting demonised - characterised not as quiet, sensible people who are doing their best to direct all the diverse and interlocking affairs of a continent - with only their ultimate political and economic vision really at issue - but as self-satified, fatcat, spiteful and domineering headmasters insistant on setting all the rules, eager to sneer and punish. And individual countries - Spain, for instance, over Gibraltar - are now getting lampooned in the most xenophobic manner. What next? Howling British football fans on the rampage somewhere, fans from South London perhaps, hurling abuse and insults at continental locals, and possibly killing somebody? Expect it. It won't start a war, but it will freeze relations with Europe and stand in the way of achieving a reasonable result from the complex disengagement negotiations.

It was put to me by trans, gay and lesbian people I knew that Brexit would mean a certain retreat from further legislation to support vulnerable minorities. Even the withdrawal of existing rights and protections. Some quivered in fear at the prospect. I pooh-poohed what they said. I thought that an independent and self-governing Britain would, on the contrary, want to be seen as a land of open governance, opportunity and fairness, exemplarary on its human rights-and-values record. It would all be part of a drive to be super-attractive to talented incomers wanting to settle here. Border controls? Of course. But only to prevent over-crowding, and the fostering of an unskilled, under-productive underclass dependent on the state. And high human values would bolster Britain's moral standing among nations. You can't wag fingers at wayward regimes if you don't look after your own people well - all of them. So it would need to be Britain as a beacon of excellence; and not Fortress Britannia, a besieged offshore stronghold in which the trapped inmates have a worse and worse time of it.

I still think we are on course for the sunnier outcome. The first step, the so-called Great Repeal Bill, will incorporate all EU legislation into our very own corpus of law. No rights lost. It's true that the government of the day, this one or the next - or any down the line - can meddle and tinker with that starting position. But then I hope they will, to keep pace with evolving public opinion.

The EU may have in the past forced British governments to pass specific laws, but also much was done on our own initiative, in response to the public mood and public representations. And I think parliament was often bowing to what had become the de facto situation in the nation at large. Taking a long view, I would say that much good and just law - workable law, anyway - has always needed the groundswell of public opinion behind it before it could ever be put on the statute book. Laws are ineffective unless the public wants to obey them. And it does take a long, long time for public attitudes to change. It's almost as if there's naturally a wave of fresh and innovative laws with every new generation, but no more frequently. And yet as older generations fade away, so new ideas gain general acceptance, and the laws to support them follow. My parents tut-tutted over many trends and notions that were currently being talked about. Those things didn't chime with their world-view, what they had grown up to believe right. But I knew the ideas that they were so uncomfortable with would gradually come to be part of ordinary thinking, and eventually what everyone younger than them would consider proper and correct. It just takes time.

It would be naïve to say that pubic opinion is always infallible, and can never be misdirected. Or even that it is naturally progressive. British people have always been very conservative in their views, and new notions often have a hard time making rapid headway against ingrained prejudice and ignorance and unwillingness to see past superficial differences. So although it may become rare for a gay, lesbian or trans person to be beaten up at a bus stop, they still have a long way to go. In fact I doubt whether it will, in Britain, be socially normal and unremarkable to be different in a sexual or gender sense during my lifetime - whatever the legislation.

The Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ are announced - I want one

So, the almost-totally-leaked-in-advance Samsung Galaxy S8 has now been announced. It will start hitting the mobile phone shops in late April. I intend to pop into one and get an S8, or its even larger sibling, the S8+, into my hands. Literally. I want to find out how they feel.

Both these phones may be too big for my hands. If so, they fall at the first fence, and I'll be looking elsewhere. But I'm hopeful that they are both easily manageable - even the S8+. In fact I really do hope the S8+ suits me. The S8+ will give me the largest Samsung phone screen that I can get, so that when I peck at the on-screen keyboard my fingertip will score a direct hit many times more often than not; so that the figures on my spreadsheets will be easy to see; and so that my installed photos will display themselves really well - for they are a resource that I look at very often, for all kinds of reasons. Ditto, my mapping. Both phones will have high-density super-OLED displays: the colours and crispness will be wonderful.

Of course there are technical reasons for wanting one or other of these new phones. Assuming that they fit my hand, the key selling points for me will be the display, the internal storage, the ability to take a high-capacity micro-SD card to boost memory, and a socket into which I can plug some earphones.

First, the display. For years, high-end Samsungs have sported super-OLED displays which are wonderfully crisp and colourful, and a joy to behold. Either of these new phones have enough screen pixels to give me HD+ rendition - about 2K in TV terms. More than enough for a screen-size of 6 inches or thereabouts.

Second, the internal memory. My S5, bought in 2014, has only 16GB built-in, of which only 6K was ever usable after the initial 2014 setup. So I was always quite short on internal memory. This began to matter once I started to download and install large quantities of high-definition 1:25,000-scale Ordnance Survey digital mapping in 2015, which could only go into the internal memory - quickly gobbling it up. I soon had to stop. It was frustrating. I saw that I'd need much more internal memory on my next phone, just for mapping. These new phones have 64K of internal storage in them. I want to have that before the end of the year.

Third, the micro-SD storage capacity. Samsung abandoned the micro-SD slot on the S6, arguing that in these days of 'ubiquitous' cloud storage, nobody needed to add 'physical' memory storage to their phone. The level of protest must have surprised them. After all, not everyone lives in a city, with a strong phone signal all around, and always available. They had a rethink, and last year's S7 restored a slot for micro-SD cards up to 128GB. These new phones now let you install up to 200GB extra storage, for photos and music mainly, and I will be wanting that. I presently have a 64GB card in my S5, and it's going to get full up by spring 2018. The need isn't urgent yet, but soon will be.

Fourth, that earphone socket. It's still needed! I listen to music (or the BBC iPlayer Radio) from the S5's loudspeaker when washing myself in the morning, but on occasion - such as when ironing - want to sling a bum bag around my waist to pop the phone into, plug in my earphones, and play music that way while doing something around the house. If I ever tackle some DIY painting, I'll want to do the same. And by earphones I mean those tiny ear buds. Not big clumsy-looking headphones, which seem as ludicrous to wear as VR headsets. Not for this lady! So I'm so glad that Samsung stayed with the socket. I think this will make some people hesitate over buying the new iPhone, which has done away with the socket simply on styling grounds, ignoring what people like me actually want. Apple's cynical game is presumably to sell vast quantities of bluetooth headphones, which is what you'll need to buy. It's so unappealing. And a strange shunning of a cool past Apple iPod marketing campaign - that iconic image from ten or twelve years back of the silhouetted man grooving to music, with his iPod and earphones picked out in brilliant white, and the cord connecting them - also brilliant white - dancing around wildly, the very visualisation of mobile music, indeed of personal freedom. And Apple now wants to bury that forever...

I'm taking all the other S8/S8+ features for granted. I don't give a monkey's where the fingerprint scanner now is. I don't use it. I couldn't give a tinker's how good the camera is. I use a proper camera instead. It matters not that I'll still have to charge the thing daily, although the larger-batteried S8+ might go further on each charge. I do care about dropping the thing, so I'll need to invest in one of those super-grippy tight-fitting clear-plastic cases that protect the back and side edges of the phone. Modern notions of top-end styling demand the use of metal, and yet the consequent slipperiness of these devices means that you have to swathe them in plastic so that you can safely hold onto them! Ironic, but there it is.

There's the cost to consider, of course - when to buy. And here I have no choice at all. My savings take a serious dip in May, as they always do in that month, and I can't consider buying until they recover later in the year. Say in October, six months ahead. I'm hoping that (a) by then any problems with these new phones will have been sorted out; and (b) with newer competitors' models on the scene, prices will have dropped. Just now the S8+ is costing £779 to pre-order. Phew! But by October I should be able to get one for less than £700. And if the S8 is the better choice for my size of hand, then I'll be paying even less.

It'll still be an awful lot for a telephone. But I shall hardly use it as a device for voice calls. It's really a handbag-sized computer, nearly as capable as my laptop. And I shall intend to keep it for four years. In that light, paying £600-700 up front doesn't seem so much.

One thing had better be given some thought now, though, and not left until later. The new phone will need a name. So far I've named my smartphones in succession Joanna, Eloise and Demelza. Which name next?

Chester

It was midday on the 21st March, on the day before I set off on my present West Country Tour. I'd just had my hair done in Cuckfield, and I was filling in a spare hour and a half before meeting the girls for lunch. A special lunch, too: it was Sue's birthday. I'd decided to pop up to Nymans, the National Trust property not far away. I'd had a quick look at the gardens, but despite it being a fine day they were not yet at their springtime best. It was still March, still rather chilly, and just too early in the year. One month ahead it would all look lovely; but on this day it seemed better to get out of the breeze and while away the remaining time over coffee in the Trust's café.

The café was pretty full, but I found a table for two, and settled down in one of the seats. More people came in. It was almost one o'clock, and despite it being a Tuesday, a lot of people clearly had the leisure to visit Nymans with some kind of lunch as part of the pleasure. I began to feel a little guilty, it being a busy time. Here I was, a single person with a coffee cup, occupying a table that a couple eating a meal might have had. So I was relieved when a man, clearly on his own, asked me if he could share my table. 'Of course,' I said, 'Please do.' He smiled.

He seemed a nice man. He had a semi-retired, fiftyish-sixtyish look to him. Not older. I took in grey hair, scarf, jacket. We began to chat. I soon needed to explain that I was retired, and spent my time doing little more than seeing friends and taking endless photographs on holiday. He in turn explained that he used to be a golf pro, and still played at a well-regarded golf club not far away. I said my Dad used to love his golf, and played well until arthritis got him. Dad had to give it up completely when he had a double-knee replacement operation in 1993, when he was seventy-three. After that, however, he had become an armchair golfer, watching the game avidly on TV until he died. The man opposite me said he was sorry to hear of Dad's arthritis. He had his own aches and pains, but so far they hadn't stopped him playing. And indeed he looked fit enough.

We discussed the way retired men played golf. I said I'd walked round with Dad once or twice, years ago of course. It was an addictive game. My companion always played in the afternoons, after the sun had dried out the greens. He was amazed at the number of golfers who insisted on playing in the early morning, when dew was on the grass. What sort of game could they hope to have? Perhaps, I said, they did so in order to get home well before lunch. To be with their wives, perhaps. He pondered this. Yes, that might certainly be a reason. And yet, I went on, some wives would be happier if they played later, and even stayed out most of the day, so that their husbands wouldn't be under their feet. Do you think so, he asked. Oh yes; not every wife, of course, but I assured him that busy wives might well prefer their husbands to be out doing something like golf, rather than getting in the way at home. (The male half of the couple next to us gave me a startled look as I said these words. I ignored him)

By this time his food had arrived. 'I hope you won't mind if I eat while speaking to you,' he said. 'Not at all. Please go ahead. After all, I've been slurping this cup of coffee!'

He mentioned that he still had a proper living, if being a landlord was such a thing. Well, I had concluded that he must have some money coming in. People who drop in for lunch at out-of-town National Trust properties on a weekday were generally not total wage-slaves. They were usually retired, or otherwise in a position to run their lives according to their own convenience, not somebody else's. But although comfortable, he wasn't well-off enough to own a home of his own. I sensed a marriage break-up that had left him short, compelling him to chose between buying a small place, or keeping his remaining capital intact. The let properties would represent most of that capital - safe in bricks and mortar, but not liquid cash in the bank. And the income from them would not necessarily make him rich. So he had to rent.

No doubt it was somewhwere nice; but the property - presumably a large flat, or perhaps a cottage - wasn't his. He wasn't too bothered by that; but still mentioned that he'd already had to move twice in recent years. He confessed that ruefully. I could imagine the upheaval involved. He believed he was now all right for some time ahead in his present home - the owners lived abroad - but still had to proceed on the basis that he could be given notice to quit at any time, and probably when he least expected it.

It struck me how lucky I was, to actually own my own home. If I so wished, I could live there until I died. Nobody could evict me. And I didn't have to meet the cost of rent. Nor make mortagage repayments, come to that. But the chief thing was that I couldn't be slung out. 'Lucy Melford' was on the Land Registry record (they don't have 'title deeds' any more), and that was the end of it. I was immune from any hassle, or meddling with my right to occupy. I was, for all practical purposes, safe and untouchable in my little castle.

I began to feel sorry for his unenviable position. How could a rented place truly be a 'home'? Didn't there have to be some permanence to a home? What did it do to you, if you were always under the threat - however small - of being deprived of your personal living space? Surely it would make your life seem very flimsy? As if you were a potentially homeless from moment to moment?

Life in a rented property must be an awful strain. It must nag at your most basic feelings of security. Someone else, the owner, had a key and could invade your space, or send his workmen in, or throw you out.

If you lived on a boat that you owned, you would feel secure in a way denied to you when renting a house. It was the same for a caravan. I could live in my caravan. And because I owned it, I would feel it was inviolably my 'home' in a way I wouldn't feel if someone else had hired it to me, and might want it back. Neither boat nor caravan were things planted solidly on a definite plot of land. One floated; one was on wheels. Both had to be moved about from time to time, one to another mooring, the other to another pitch. But that necessary mobility didn't affect their status as proper homes, albeit small ones. Putting it another way, nobody could take my caravan away, and deprive me of its shelter. It was mine; I could refuse entry; the space within was for me alone. But this man was vulnerable to all the shock and distress of having to uproot himself at short notice, again and again and again. If I were in that position, I would be very unsettled, unable to feel completely happy and content, and quite possibly my health would suffer.

I looked at him closely. Did he understand it the same way? Or was he so used to his home life having this fatal flaw, this terrible impermanence, that he coped without fear? I wondered.

Our time ran out all too quickly. I would rather have liked to talk more with him. But I mentioned Sue's birthday lunch in fifteen minutes' time. I really had to leave. He rose from his seat and we shook hands. 'By the way, I'm Lucy,' I said. 'I'm Chester' he said in reply. It was hard not to kiss him farewell, as if he were an old friend. I left before I had time to think of something else to say, or tempted to make some ongoing connection. Perhaps I should have.