Yesterday, as I waited for my new upstairs neighbour’s double-parked mother to move her car so that I could drive away from my flat, I noticed that her shiny Smart had a deep, long scratch in its paintwork, a deep, long scratch the height of which corresponded exactly with that of the stump of my recently broken wing-mirror. Given this correspondence and the frequency of her visits to her daughter, there’s a chance that both of our vehicles have been damaged by the same careless driver.

I thought I might have a chat with her about it, but when we met on the stairs she couldn’t stop to talk, complaining of a bad cold and disappearing before I could even comment on the weather. I hope she gets better soon.