This, she reflected, in a continuation of her earlier train of thought, was presumably how religions got started, and must be the reason why so many sects hang around airports looking for converts. They know that people there are at their most vulnerable and perplexed, and ready to accept any kind of guidance.
duty-free shops which are able to charge much lower prices than ordinary shops but—mysteriously—don’t,
There were questions asked in Parliament about this, but not very interesting ones.
A MINUTE OR two later Dirk paused to consider his best strategy. Rather than arriving five hours late and flustered, it would be better all around if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but triumphantly in command.
“Pray God I am not too soon!” would be a good opening line as he swept in, but it needed a good follow-through as well, and he wasn’t sure what it should be.
his car, but then again it was only a short distance, and he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his “Zen” method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.
and he had a tremendous propensity for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his “Zen” method of navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of the few occasions when it was both.
“Ah, I expect you’ll be wanting to pay for that paper, then, won’t you, Mr. Dirk, sir?” said the newsagent, trotting gently after him. “Ah, Bates,” said Dirk loftily, “you and your expectations. Always expecting this and expecting that. May I recommend serenity to you? A life that is burdened with expectations is a heavy life. Its fruit is sorrow and disappointment. Learn to be one with the joy of the moment.”
opening the newspaper at the horoscope page as he did so. “Virtually everything you decide today will be wrong,” it said bluntly. Dirk slapped the paper shut with a grunt. He did not for a second hold with the notion that great whirling lumps of rock light years away knew something about your day that you didn’t.
It just so happened that “The Great Zaganza” was an old friend of his who knew when Dirk’s birthday was, and always wrote his column deliberately to wind him up. The paper’s circulation had dropped by nearly a twelfth since he had taken over doing the horoscope, and only Dirk and The Great Zaganza knew why.
There were three of them, three police cars left askew across the road in a way that transcended mere parking. It sent out a massive signal to the world saying that the law was here now taking charge of things, and that anyone who just had normal, good and cheerful business to conduct in Lupton Road could just fuck off.
Dirk swept him aside in a torrent of words to which the constable was unable to come up with a good response off the top of his head.
Dirk would be prepared to bet (though probably not to pay up)
He wished that he could hotly deny that any of this was his fault, but until anybody tried to assert that it was, he couldn’t.
The explosion was now officially designated an “Act of God.” But, thought Dirk, what god? And why?
When after a little while the old god’s morning ablutions
She did not know that he was a god as such, in fact she thought he was probably an old film producer or a Nazi war criminal. Certainly he had an accent she couldn’t quite place, and his careless civility, his natural selfishness and his obsession with personal hygiene spoke of a past that was rich with horrors.
She was of course the last person to judge somebody by the color of their skin—or if not absolutely the last, she had at least done it as recently as yesterday afternoon when an African diplomat had been brought in to have some gallstones removed and she had conceived an instant resentment of him. She didn’t like him. She couldn’t say exactly what it was she didn’t like about him, because she was a nurse, not a taxi driver,
“Did you do this to me?” roared Thor. “Did you—” Thor searched for any way of saying “glue me to the floor” that didn’t sound like “glue me to floor,” but eventually the pause got too long and he had to give up. “—glue me to the floor?” he demanded at last. He wished he hadn’t asked such a stupid question.
Toe Rag reacted like an iguana to whom someone had just complained about the wine.
I may not know a lot of things, but I do know one thing. I know that I am Thor, the God of Thunder, and that I will not be made a fool of by a goblin!” “Well,” said Toe Rag with a light grin, “when you know two things I expect you’ll be twice as clever.
anything above 4 it represented merely as “A Suffusion of Yellow.” Dirk was not certain if this was a programming error or an insight beyond his ability to fathom,
The little book of instructions suggested that he should simply concentrate “soulfully” on the question which was “besieging” him, write it down, ponder on it, enjoy the silence, and then once he had achieved inner harmony and tranquility he should push the red button. There wasn’t a red button, but there was a blue button marked “Red,” and this Dirk took to be the one.
“Well, look, I mustn’t keep you. I am indebted to you, my dear lady, for the tenderness of your ministrations and the loan of your coffee, but lo! the day wears on, and I am sure you have a heavy schedule of grievous bodily harm to attend to.”
“Inquisitive and presumptuous. I do not deny it. But I am a private detective. I am paid to be inquisitive and presumptuous. Not as often or copiously as I would wish, but I am nevertheless inquisitive and presumptuous on a professional basis.”
“Yes, it is true,” he was saying, “that sometimes unusually intelligent and sensitive children can appear to be stupid. But, Mrs. Benson, stupid children can sometimes appear to be stupid as well. I think that’s something you might have to consider.
It was odd, Kate reflected, that people who needed to bully you were the easiest to push around. “So you would like to know precisely
It was odd, Kate reflected, that people who needed to bully you were the easiest to push around.
She had originally tried the direct approach but had been rebuffed by a mere telephone receptionist on the grounds that she didn’t have a name to ask for.
Do you have a lawyer?” “Yes, I do, as a matter of fact,” said Kate. She said it with vim and hauteur. “Is he any good?” said the man in the hat. “I’m going to need one. Mine’s popped into prison for a while.” “Well, you certainly can’t have mine.”
There is a school of thought which says that you should consult a map on these occasions, but to such people I merely say, ‘Ha! What if you have no map to consult? What if you have a map but it’s of the Dordogne?’
My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it’s going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be.
A large part of this minute was in fact taken up with an internal struggle about whether or not he was going to cave in and have a cigarette. He had recently foresworn them and the struggle was a regular one and he lost it regularly, often without noticing.
He had to get some cigarettes if he was going to think this through with any intellectual rigor.
The late night corner shop obviously meant something different by “late night” than Dirk did, and though Dirk was certain that he could convince the proprietor of the rightness of his case through sheer linguistic and syllogistic bravado, the wretched man wasn’t there to undergo it.
It was a smell that never stopped coming at you—just as Dirk thought it must have peaked, so it struck on upward with renewed frenzy till Dirk thought that his very brain would vaporize.
“Oh ah.” Dirk was learning a whole new conversational technique and was astonished at how successful it was. He regarded the man with a newfound respect.
I said it was all her fault the moment I saw her. I didn’t realize I might actually be right.”
Odin at this time is just a down-and-out. He’s living on the streets. He simply can’t get anything together because he’s just not adapted for this world.