New Statesman: My six-year-old son buys potatoes at the greengrocer's for his Lone Star Super Spud G

Well, it was one of those bad day's, when the fiction leaps from Gabriel Garcia Marquez straight to Allan Massie. So I trudged across to the till with the biography, but, before paying for it, I said to the woman at the cash desk: "I'm surprised to see you haven't got any books by Andrew Martin." "Andrew Martin?" she said, blankly. "Well, this is a very small shop, you know, and we only have a limited stock." To which I felt like replying that if she reduced by a couple of hundred the number of Alan Titchmarsh books on her shelves, then she might be able to be more diverse.

As it was, I said something else, only slightly less bitter, with a couple of pro-Andrew Martin remarks thrown in. Then it was time to pay for the biography, but, taking my credit card out of my wallet, I realised that it bore the fatal name: Andrew Martin.

As the cash desk assistant stretched out her hand to receive the card, a possible exculpatory lie flashed into my mind: "Obviously," I could say, "I'm not the same Andrew Martin as the author I've just been talking up. That would be grotesque. No, I just have the same name as him, which is why I take an interest in his career.

I bottled out in the end, though, saying: "On second thoughts, I'd better pay with cash." It took me a quarter of an hour to find a cashpoint, and so I paid the price of vanity.

My six year-old son went off with the wife a couple of weeks ago, and came back with a very politically incorrect toy. He announced it as "a gun that fires potatoes", which did alarm me slightly, but it turned out to be a Lone Star Super Spud Gun, which fires acceptably small particles of potato. This gun may encourage the sort of martial fantasies in young boys that have ultimately led to all the wars in history, but, on the plus side, it has kept my son very quiet for two weeks.

As we drive along in the car, he fires it at road signs. For ages, he'll be totally silent, apart from the popping of the Lone Star; then he'll muse: "If you fire one second too late, you miss..." Another pop comes, followed by another rueful observation: "... or one second too early."

This teaches him an important lesson about life. The gun has also got him started on buying things in shops, specifically potatoes. While I hover in the doorway, he'll walk into a greengrocer's, pick up a single potato, and mutely place it in front of the till. He then hands over ten pence, for which you can get a pretty good potato, even in Highgate. I wonder if the shopkeepers realise that, technically speaking, they're engaging in arms dealing? But, there again, there's no such thing as a politically correct greengrocer.

The best party I've attended without talking to anyone took place last week. It was in a mellow courtyard in WC1, there was a good jazz trio, unlimited decent wine and everyone looked a bit like Peter Cook-kohl-eyed, white-faced, tending towards Keith Richards -- and some wore T-shirts reading "Derek and Clive Are Alive".

This was all no accident, since the party was promoting a double CD of Cook in conversation with his eccentric Hampstead neighbour Rainbow George. George, whom I've never met, is described in the amazing sleeve notes of the CD as "six-sistered ... a backgammon partner of Lord Lucan" and a man who lost his Bang & Olufsen tape recorder to the bailiffs over gambling debts.

Any number of the rakes at the party could have fitted that description, so I never did get to meet Rainbow George, who is also billed as a "Bosworth" to Cook's Dr Johnson. Possibly, Boswell is meant here.

Anyway, the recordings--which were made at a time when Peter Cook, although "the funniest man alive", was "at a bit of a loose end" -- are wonderful. Cook speculates about "the speed of darkness" and rings up radio phone-ins pretending to be an earnest Norwegian called Sven. He congratulates the hosts of these programmes on their not talking entirely about fish, which, he maintains, is the sole subject of radio phone-ins in Norway. Peter Cook Over at Rainbow's is on Proper Records.

There's a lot of talk, at the time of writing, about who's going to replace Jeremy Vine on Newsnight when he replaces Jimmy Young on Radio 2. Meanwhile, I have some advice for Vine. Assuming that he's going to do the Jimmy Young programme in a vaguely similar way to his predecessor, he'll be alternating between talking chirpily to housewives in Buckinghamshire about the price of meat and playing terrible records such as "Without You" by Harry Nilson.

My point is this: if you are going to juxtapose teacup-rattling English indignation with maudlin balladry in this violent and disturbing way, then remember that not all maudlin ballads are equally bad. Some are quite good: "Fool To Cry" by the Rolling Stones, "Inside Out" by Odyssey, "Please Don't Go" by KC & the Sunshine Band.

In fact, if Jeremy Vine would like to get in touch, I'll bet I could name a hundred.

The Necropolis Railway by An drew Martin is published this week by Faber and Faber at [pounds sterling]10.99