On the tube today a man came along the carriage begging for money. For once, I had some coins in my pocket and handed over £1.25. The man gave me a fist pump and a tap on the shoulder and called me his brother. I smugly sat back and tried not to catch the eye of any fellow travelers who were perhaps suitably humbled. At the next stop a slew of five or six-year-old children tumbled into the carriage with their teachers and minders, on the way to the museums at South Kensington. The teacher spoke out: would anyone be willing to stand up to let the children sit down? The woman next to me stood up. Well, one: I’m against grown-ups standing up for children. Two: I’d already forked out £1.25 that morning. I did not let the woman who had stood up catch my eye. So I sat next to the kids and overheard one boy starting up a game of I Spy. I spy with my little eye. Something beginning with…, he said. Black, blurted out an Indian boy next to me and laughed. The boy starting the game was black. Yes. It’s a moral minefield on the district line.

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