Will Smith, the writer, comedian and star of The Thick of It, would frequently post pictures of Pierce Brosnan on Twitter, with captions such as the following, accompanying a shot of Brosnan painting in his garden with a hat slung behind his neck: You come home to find your new gardener painting your wife in the nude. Why, I asked him, is Pierce Brosnan so brilliant? “Because he’s like a walking Rolex ad,” he said. “Because of the seriousness with which he’ll put on a cufflink or pick up a shot glass. But also because he knows exactly how cool and ludicrous he is at the same time.”
It is my impression that making a career out of the intricacies of the law has less to do with wisdom and compassion and more to do with having a somewhat legalistic mindset. And it is my impression that to work in litigation in particular you have to be up for something of a scrap as well. Because litigation, when you look at it, is a form of Robot Wars for pedants.
But what of Catherine? Oh, a desponding apprehension Dr Long does conjure there too! What if Miss Catherine too harbours the terrible canker of consumption? Unseen, unfelt, unperceived. Waiting like a dog behind the door to savage my last hopes. I find myself speaking: ‘Devise a means, Dr Long, to prevent an impending mischief upon my one remaining child.’ O fateful words.
‘Dear Lady, I understand completely. Fear not, I am able perfectly to attain your object.’
We were talking, in this mud hut, about the lives and customs of the places in which we lived. The two Turkana were particularly keen to learn about marriage customs in England, one of them having recently married for the second time; and they were amazed to hear that we could have only one wife where we came from. Amazement turned to frank disbelief when the matter of bride-price arose. Or rather, the lack of bride-price.
Only hours after receiving the news, Bésancourt was levering himself into the saddle of his mule, whilst Lindenhof was buying new pack-animals with gold which he had carried secreted in the heel of his left boot ever since his days in Mexico.
And how while you’re doing what you’re doing now, and while you’re thinking what you’re thinking now there are whole other lives going on in which you are nothing, and whole other places where you are not, and which you will never see, from the home of the man you pass each morning on the way to work furthermost depths of empty space.
