The other day I saw a couple of guys painting double yellow lines. I’d always wondered what the paint was. A kind of thermoplastic that sets on contact like wax. There’s some kind of beauty there.

It’s certainly an art. It’s definitely Art when The Boyle Family reproduce it in fibreglass. Their work blew my mind when I first saw it. Exact casts of road surfaces, Victorian tiled floors, manhole covers. Incredible. Like 3D photographs.

The Boyle Family, title, date unknown, photo Paul T Cowan

I like the new and old yellow lines on this one, and the overpainting of the granite kerb. They work the passage of time into it. This pavement in Hove is even more complex. A century and a half on show like a paint scrape. That’s just the archaeology of it. Visually it’s a feast.

But when does the pavement itself become art? The second the painter’s thermoplastic dries or when you pick up a chunk and put a title on it?

Man proposes, God disposes 2021.