I stayed where I was and watched. The man and the corridor. He didn’t make any other noise, and the corridor didn’t do anything that corridors don’t normally do.
I looked at her and sighed. In another world, I thought to myself, it might have worked. In another world, in another universe, in another time, as two quite different people, we really might have bee...
His name was Rayner. First name unknown. By me, at any rate, and therefore, presumably, by you too.
He clambered out of the car, eager to show how quickly he could clamber out of cars, and followed at my shoulder as I strode over to the house.
Face-cream, hand-cream, nose-cream, eye-cream. I wondered for a moment how serious it would be if you ever got home drunk and accidentally put face-cream on your hands or hand-cream on your face.
Even so, it was a goodish yarn, with plenty of derring-do, and I added some derring-didn’ t-really-but-it-sounds-good, just to keep up her glowing opinion of me.
Carl waited while I knocked, and when the door opened I came within an ace of slipping a couple of pound coins into his gloved hand and asking him to book me a table at L’Epicure. Luckily, he stopped...
And as I walked, I tried to see the funny side.It wasn’t easy, and I’m still not sure that I managed it properly, but it’s just something I like to do when things aren’t going well. Because what does...
Well, that obviously wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot. Saying period at the end of something doesn’t make it incontrovertible.
To follow somebody, without them knowing that you’re doing it, is not the doddle they make it seem in films. I’ve had some experience of professional following, and a lot more experience of profession...
The French came to Morocco to build roads, railways, hospitals, schools, fashion sense - all the things that the average Frenchman knows to be indispensable to a modern civilization - and when five o’...
Somewhere a clock ticked. Quite fast. Too fast, it seemed to me, to be counting seconds. But then this was an American building, and maybe Americans had decided that seconds were just too goddamned sl...
Normally, words are sentfrom the brain towards the mouth, and somewhere along the line you take a moment to checkthem, see that they are actually the ones you ordered and that they’re nicely wrapped,...
Necessity is the mother of self-delusion.
I once met an RAF pilot who told me of what he called a bird strike. This, rather unfairly in my view, made it sound as if it was the bird's fault; as if the little feathered chap had deliberately tri...
I had to wonder how Ginny could hold her head up under the weight of cosmetics smeared all over her face. Underneath it all, she may have been quite pretty. Or she may have been Dirk Bogarde. I will n...
I had an absolutely revolting lunch with O’Neal. Although the food was pretty good.
Americans have never really caught on to the idea of eating sheep. I think they think it's cissy.
[...] and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side. It wasn't easy, and I'm still not sure that I managed it properly, but it's just something I like to do when things aren't going well. Because wha...
So unless we’re going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense to moan when it strikes. Us, or anyone else. Because we’re not comparing it with anything.