on Sunday.

I do enjoy looking at art, but the truth is, I really like to see how other people live; the different lifestyles that are out there. And "open studios" give you a chance to go into other people's homes.

One of the places I went was a classic, London rowhouse, done up in an attractive, though perhaps somewhat cold kind of art museumy style. The backyard even had a monument and pool that would not look out of place in the courtyard of a museum of art.

The prosperous-looking, white-haired (but not old) guy who greeted me seemed offended when I asked if the art was his "stuff". He mocked me amiably for using the word stuff and I think he felt the use of that word represented a coarse diminution of the work.

But in reacting that way, he revealed his pretentiousness.

I had no doubt he saw me as a lowbrow American (assisted in this perception by the way the wind had blown my outer shirt to the side of my torso, heightening the appearance of shortness and fatness, two definitive aspects of that kind of dunce). Which made me think about Americans and I realized instantly that an American yuppie artist would probably look exactly as he did, even be wearing the same kind of clothes.

And he might think I was lowbrow, too. (Especially if the wind blew my shirt in that fashion.)

But he would probably not be offended by my use of the word "stuff".