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pubs that have an impressive range of real ales and new world wines, or a good reputation for food (the demographic of my readership isn’t all I’d hoped if I need to say that carveries do not count); of places where there hasn’t been a fight for years and people don’t bring savage-looking dogs. I suspect there’ll be a few nationally that are adequate, where you probably won’t get beaten up, but I’d be delighted to hear of any that are actively nice.

The Lillie Langtry, which I slagged off a couple of chapters ago, is an FRP in spirit (or rather in alcopop) but it doesn’t really have a roof. It’s got several storeys of flats on top of it. But I suppose flats are flat and so, if your roof is a flat, by definition your roof is flat. It’s a flat roof in two senses.

This FRP on the Belsize Road roundabout – fortunately now closed – was called ‘The Britannia’, which name is typical of the genre in its slight overtones of nationalism. A name like that doesn’t guarantee a racist clientele but it’s surely more likely than in a Grapes or a Queen Charlotte – or even a Saracen’s Head. ‘The Albion’ is another FRP favourite. If anyone knows of an FRP called The Albion where they do organic cheeses, then let me know because that’s a massive outlier on the graph. It’s probably in Malta.

The Britannia is now a Tesco Express, which is much more in keeping with the architecture. Very few supermarkets have pitched roofs – I’ve noticed a few in small Cotswold towns and it looks wrong, like a robot wearing a bobble hat – and I’ve never seen a thatched one. But rather oddly, Tesco has decided to preserve the tall pole in which the Britannia sign was once displayed and replace it with a sort of ‘Tesco Express’ pub sign. I don’t really understand this. Surely that pole can’t be listed? But, if not, wouldn’t Tesco get rid of it?

The fact that Tesco is constantly and rapaciously expanding, choking out local businesses like bindweed smothering roses, isn’t something you’d think it would want to draw attention to. Nevertheless, there the post stands, irrefutable evidence that this was once a pub – another scalp that the vicious supermarket giant has collected, drying in the wind.

Of course I know that the closure of this pub was no loss to civilisation but, in the imagination of a passer-by who doesn’t, the hostelry that Tesco replaced is going to be a veritable ‘Moon Under Water’. (That’s the name George Orwell invented for his ideal London pub – somewhere that never actually existed. It was later adopted by Wetherspoon’s, who have several pubs of that name and many other variants like ‘Moon in a Shopping Centre’ or ‘Moon in the Face of Orwell’s Memory’.) So why has Tesco drawn attention to The Britannia’s ghost? It’s inexplicable.

I’m not good with the low-level unexplained. I worry away at such things. I’m quite relaxed about the great mysteries of the universe; when it comes to the existence of God, for example, I figure that, as with a good episode of Inspector Morse, I’ll find out what’s going on eventually. But also like Morse I do tend to bang on about tiny details that don’t quite make sense. That’s used to signify a sleuth’s maverick brilliance in lots of detective fiction: Columbo, Poirot, Holmes and Miss Marple are forever harping on about what happened to missing cufflinks or why there was no tea in the pot, while those around them try to bring their attention back round to the fact that there’s blood and guts up the wall.

I find their impatience odd. Particularly where Captain Hastings is concerned. Do you know Captain Hastings from the early ITV Poirots? He’s not in them any more, now they’ve got a bit mopier and more cinematic. I rather like that character – it’s a very entertaining turn. And one of the funniest things about it, or most annoying things depending on my mood, is how Hastings, who shows few signs either of great intellect or an inaccurately high estimation of that intellect (basically he’s an idiot and he knows it) keeps moaning on at Poirot for wasting time.

‘What are we doing checking the garden shed, Poirot?’

‘What possible relevance could an unexplained speck of powder have, Poirot?’

‘What are we doing at Somerset House, Poirot? Who cares who’s married who?’

All the time. Now, every day this