I'm very fond of boasting about how well bussed I am in this part of town so you can imagine my distress when I went out to catch a 13 the other day on discovering that it no longer runs past my door.

Now it's not a bus I use often, being one of those that run at long intervals and never on a Sunday, but meandering as it does through the New Town I had it marked as perhaps being of future use when Ewan eventually finds his nest. And it's a blow to art lovers from Lochend to Leith Walk since they now have no direct connection to the Gallery of Modern Art.

On this occasion that's where I was headed - to see the Charles Avery exhibition. If you like Giles cartoons you'll enjoy Avery's drawings. Many of them feature a bent old creature who reminded me strongly of the Giles Granny figure, even though this one sports a triangular coolie style hat. Fans of Tolkien and that sort of made-up universe will enjoy the fantasy texts accompanying the work. And according to the chap who introduced the exhibition (who did not dwell on, nor even mention, the Giles connection) this is art world beating stuff so rush to see it.

My distress at the semi demise of the 13 was nothing as to my distress on finding a beanie hat on the floor of the lift when I came home. Connor had assured me that there had been no lift lunatic incidents during my absence. Has he struck again or is this simply the case of a lift user warmed by coming in from the cold removing his hat and failing to stuff it into his pocket?

A more sinister explanation occurs to me. If lift lunatic incidents have only broken out afresh since I got back could it be some modern Jeckyll and Hyde phenomenon? Does this inoffensive pensioner turn into the lift lunatic at certain conjunctures of the planets, or perhaps when he's had one too many?