Despite having lived here for over two years now, I still don’t suppose I know more than twenty people in the town by name. But there are a whole phalanx* of individuals that I meet regularly while cycling about, and who always greet me with an enthusiastic grin. This morning, inter alia, as we resting lawyers say (not having got the hang of italics on this yet) I came across the elderly gentleman who stands aside and ushers me past with a courtly bow, the sixth-former with the pretty freckles, the Yorkshire Terrier man, the short-sleeved-shirted-cyclist, the poodle lady and the Impeturbable Man who senses me coming along behind, turns his head, says hello and steps out of the way all without the slighest faltering in his brisk stride. And no doubt they all have their own name for me (in Lucca it was “La Signora con la bicicletta rossa”) and it doesn’t matter if we never know anything more about one another. I don’t think many people feel quite like that about the silver Audi that cuts them up at the junction every morning…

* in the sense of the utopian Phalanx community rather than the military formation