What have I learned in my 53 years? That I shouldn’t listen to strangers who accost me in the street

‘I’d come to think of myself as a ninja moving like smoke through traffic.’ Photograph: sturti/Getty Images

I was performing an ordinary and not at all illegal cycling manoeuvre recently when a guy in a white van said: “You’re too old to be that stupid.” It was a critique so devastating that I was 10 minutes down the road before I even examined its mechanics. What is the right age to make a right-hand turn? I had also previously assumed that, wearing a bike helmet, I was invisible on the road. I’d come to think of myself as a ninja or a sprite, moving like smoke through traffic, protected only by my agility and smarts. Dispiritingly, it seems I was perfectly visible and other vehicles were just choosing not to notice when I wanted to turn right.

Anyway, I was on the way to meet a friend and, when I described this ageist abuse to him, he said, having quite a theatrical turn of phrase: “Darling, you’re not old enough to be this stupid.”