I collect famous people’s numbers and put them on pages next to things that I’ve written in my daily planner. The numbers are usually invalid by the time I get thembut they were real at one time. A page with famous numbers has to be torn from the notebook binding and placed loosely between standard pages so people can see it sticking out and pick it up for me when it falls. I like to have a mix of celebrities, friends and contacts on each page. A page full of pop stars or actors (even though they’re real numbers) isn’t believable. But one with a writer and an economist or a journalist and a rapper is. PPDA and Rocca made for one of my better combinations.

I started doing this after Kurt Cobain killed himself. I was 14 and in math class when I wrote his name on a math assignment under a doodle of a dead rocker and next to a seven letter number. How many people had Kurt Cobain’s number? What if that was actually his number?

You may think this is pathetic but how is it different from any of the diners, cafés, delis or hole-in-the wall bars you’ve been to that put up autographed pictures of famous people who have eaten there to make themselves look established. You smile when you think of the short and chubby owner with his half-hearted comb-over and ready smile when customers are lining out into the street (especially in winter). He looks like an overfed pug but he’s served his sandwiches, scrambled eggs, croque-monsieurs or gin and tonics to the children of the zeitgeist. He fits the image of the history’s unexpected darling. His name may die forgotten but he’s sure to pop up in some filmmaker’s nostalgic end-of-career return to youth or in a young playwright’s reworking of La Bohème.

I’m an accountant. I don’t have a restaurant and I don’t smile that much at work (especially in winter). But how did you imagine me when you found this page. 

David Lewis