I’ve been learning to drive since December. Everything you do on the road is subject to restrictions and regulations and it feels as though someone always has their eye on you in case you break the law. Fair enough; I don’t want to cause carnage or be involved in carnage.

As I was walking down Lendel today, I was thinking about how none of these rules apply to travelling at about 3mph, on your own steam. You don’t need a licence to walk or wheel yourself around. It’s a form of transportation that everyone is entitled to. It feels like a fundamental human freedom.

If I were to write a novel warning about authoritarianism – something inspired by 1984, Brave New World and Fahrenheit 451 – I think my tyrannical regime would have begun by outlawing walking at 3mph.

It would be an authoritarianism born in the Department for Transport and it would culminate in the outlawing of physical travel. Only virtual contact would be allowed. Procreation would somehow be possible online – perhaps we’d exchange genome sequences over facebook and somewhere a 3d printer would produce a new human child.