Much fuss was made recently over the discovery of a painting by Artemisia Gentileschi, a near contemporary of Caravaggio’s, and the first woman to bring a successful rape charge in a Roman court. The painting of ‘Susanna and the Elders’ was found gathering dust in a storeroom at Hampton Court. Cleaned up and now glowing with colour, it is Artemisia’s take on an ancient Bible story. Two lecherous men catch Susanna naked while bathing. They blackmail her to have sex with them and, when she resists, falsely accuse her of adultery. The charge is thrown out by a judge. Susanna is vindicated and the men revealed as liars. Because a boldly depicted naked woman takes up so much of the canvas, many have assumed that it must have been painted by a man. But Artemisia was a very skilful operator. A woman in a very macho world, she used her great skill in portraying the unclothed female body to make money from leery male collectors. But she had the last laugh as her subject matter is always the power of strong women over weak men. Her depiction of Judith cutting off the head of Holofernes is feminism at its most brutal and most jubilant.

Do motorcyclists think the speed limit doesn’t apply to them? Motorists in our neighbourhood are now required to potter along at 20mph. This is fine, but it lulls pedestrians into a false sense of security as they step off the curb only to find a bike carrying two coffees and a prawn curry racing round the corner at 50 miles an hour. Some of them at least announce their approach with an ear-splitting roar, giving you time, unless you’re old or disabled, to jump back on to the pavement to let them pass. I’ve never seen a bike stopped for speeding. Probably because they’re going too fast.

I’m not surprised the police are not stopping motorbikes these days because they have so much else to do. Like walk properly. They’re weighed down by so much office equipment that many of them waddle towards an incident, which seems to reduce their authority and make them touchy. Mind you, if I was encumbered with all that stuff I’d be far more inclined to be stroppy than reasonable.

‘Cancelled’ is the word that best sums up our troubled times. On destination boards at stations and airports it appears frequently, flagrantly and unapologetically. What was once the exception is now the norm. I recently encountered this when I was planning a book tour around the country. Railway travel is by far the best way to go, but to someone like me who finds it sensible, safe and often wonderfully restful, the railway is no longer an option. Our leaders have for some reason never been proud of the railway system, and seem to have little in common with those who run it. The open warfare between the rail unions and the government is getting us nowhere, except into that five-mile tailback.

I was 80 in May and am still getting used to it. I like to think nothing much has changed. It’s just another number. But on my way to buy some bananas the other day I bumped into Sylvester McCoy, the ex-Doctor from Doctor Who. He’s just become an octogenarian and said very wisely that being 80 means that at last you are old. He’s right of course. You can be a fit 70, or even a skittish 70, but no one speaks of a ‘young 80’.

Reports of an unclothed man popping out of the bushes on Hampstead Heath reminded me of a time in India when a naked man came down the street towards me surrounded by a cavalcade of ecstatic followers. It turned out he was a Jainist holy man whose beliefs forbade the taking of any other life. The mere act of slipping on a pair of underpants might have squashed a microscopic insect, and his followers were there to prevent him squashing anything. As a lover of all God’s creatures, apart from poodles, I admired his strictness. But back home, difficult choices had to be made. Flowers or slugs, wasps or sandwiches, cats or birds. And to be honest, showing an ant the door takes a big chunk out of the working day. There’s never just one of them.

Recently I came upon a phrase book called Hindustani Simplified, which my father had been given when he was in India in the 1920s. The choice of popular phrases was frankly bizarre. One exercise called ‘Useful Sentences’ reads like a surrealist Manifesto: ‘Burn this.’ ‘Bring three cups of tea.’ ‘Put the gun there.’ ‘Read good books.’ ‘Wash your face.’ ‘Don’t laugh.’ No wonder we lost the Empire.