ABSTRACT
I saw Rolf Harris2 in our street the other day. I was just parking the car and there he was, walking along the road. He came right by me, and then turned into the little park opposite our house. I didn’t say anything and, funnily enough, he didn’t say anything to me either, though I sensed he was on the point of it. This is not an entirely unprecedented experience in our street. The lead singer of Jamiroquai lived for a while a few doors down, and I gather he sold his house on to the lead singer of Travis, who then caused flutters in the parish by persuading his band to do unscheduled performances at the infant school where his son went. Still, this is a pretty ordinary Victorian terrace in Crouch End, not Highgate (where I once saw Ruby Wax having breakfast), Hampstead or even Hackney, and this kind of encounter is not at all the sort of thing you have to learn to be blasé about. In truth, I don’t really know what the lead singer of Travis looks like, even though, thinking back, there is a good chance that it was him I lent my hedge-trimmer to over the summer. Whereas you could not possibly make a mistake about seeing Rolf Harris. This was a definitive event, a conjunction of worlds.
