One of my recent postcards returned to me today. According to the red sticker pasted obliquely across my text, the Royal Mail was unable to deliver it. The sticker offers seven possible reasons for such a predicament, but none of the associated boxes have been ticked. The options are as follows: “addressee has gone away,” “no answer,” “address incomplete,” “address inaccessible,” “addressee unknown,” “refused,” and “not called for.” As this is the first of at least one hundred cards I have sent to the same addressee at the same address, and as the addressee is Sarah Kent, London’s best-known art critic, I can only surmise that it was returned to me for one of the last two reasons. Had she moved, the postcard would have been diverted to her new address. Besides, she must have asked the postman not to tick any of the boxes, knowing full well that the last two would only lead to public embarrassment. In short, I consider this card a valid response to my invitation to my postcard collectors. Marked in fluid blue crayon and graced by the sticker, it will be one of the jewels of my upcoming exhibition.

Addendum (March 1, 2000)

I hesitated when I wrote that Sarah Kent was “London’s best known art critic,” and I returned to this ticklish assertion several times before ultimately deciding to leave it as it was. At some point I even qualified the claim, but then I realized that my awkward qualification would only appear disingenuous. At any rate, I was not surprised to receive today Waldemar Januszczak’s postcard concerning this very point:

I was amazed to receive your new card about Sarah Kent. Sarah’s behavior doesn’t surprise me: she’s terribly stern. But your description of her as “London’s best-known art critic” is surely wrong. I am probably better known than her. And Brian Sewell definitely is!!!

Of course, the answer to this riddle depends on a further question: “Best know by whom?” Sarah not only writes for Time Out—a popular weekly guide to entertainment, fashion, and art in London—but she also heads a team of art critics who write for the same magazine under her supervision. She may not be best known in the art world’s inner circle, where Waldemar and Brian may indeed be the art critics of choice, but she most likely is best known at its periphery and beyond, among Londoners at large. Be that as it may, this is why I had left my original assertion stand. And I still do not see a compelling reason to change it.