Non-amenability of ${\mathcal {B}}(E)$ has been surprisingly difficult to prove for the classical Banach spaces, but is now known for E = ℓp and E = Lp for all 1 ⩽ p < ∞. However, the arguments are rather indirect: the proof for L1 goes via non-amenability of $\ell ^\infty ({\mathcal {K}}(\ell _1))$ and a transference principle developed by Daws and Runde (Studia Math., 2010).

In this note, we provide a short proof that ${\mathcal {B}}(L_1)$ and some of its subalgebras are non-amenable, which completely bypasses all of this machinery. Our approach is based on classical properties of the ideal of representable operators on L1, and shows that ${\mathcal {B}}(L_1)$ is not even approximately amenable.

If $T:A_{0}\rightarrow B$ boundedly and $T:A_{1}\rightarrow B$ compactly, then a result of Lions–Peetre shows that $T:A\rightarrow B$ compactly for a certain class of spaces $A$ which are intermediate with respect to $A_{0}$ and $A_{1}$. We investigate to what extent such results can hold for arbitrary intermediate spaces $A$. The ‘dual’ case of an operator $S$ such that $S:X\rightarrow Y_{0}$ boundedly and $S:X\rightarrow Y_{1}$ compactly, is also considered, as well as similar questions for other closed operator ideals.

AMS 2000 Mathematics subject classification: Primary 46B70; 47D50