For William Goldman (1931-2018)

Life imitates Art once again.

One autumn afternoon, I was biking along the Dutch landscape in the company of a friend when the weather began to turn. An acceptable bistro for a hot restorative and some suitably sweet nosh was about half a kilometer ahead. It was agreed that would be a good stopping point.

When we arrived at our destination, my friend noticed I was now wearing black leather gloves. I hadn’t been at the start of the ride. He was somewhat puzzled because at no time did I stop to don the gloves. Now, I could have said, “Well, I lived in Seattle for eight years and learned the value of not only dressing in layers, carrying spare bits of essential clothing, blah blah blah …” but I didn’t. Instead I said, “If you’d watched Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid as many times as I have, you’d know how to pull on gloves using your teeth even when you’ve been shot to shit in Bolivia.”

And it’s a sunny day in windswept Holland …