At the Holiday Inn café, having not had breakfast, he ordered steak and fries for a late lunch. It was difficult to cut the meat into bite-sized pieces with a knife, and even with the addition of salt and pepper it was flavourless and could not be fully chewed up. He poured it down his throat with the wine. It was like eating the sole of a leather shoe. Indeed, the leather soles of his wingtip shoes had been damaged by moisture. The rain never stopped falling. He was trapped by fickle weathe...