A couple of mornings a month, stiff with pride, deafened with aspirin (and reckless with Bloody Marys), Nicola would adumbrate serious reform:

these photographs showed Analiese in pensive poses, gazing out of windows, or in sylvan settings, bending in her frock, perhaps, to relish the touch of a flower

But he wasn't about to stray. He was straight arrow. Divagation, errancy - to Guy this spelt humiliation. It would be disastrous, and inexpiable.

Me, I am developing Lizzyboo. A fulsomely pretty girl. She is also voluble, indiscreet and, I think, not too bright. She's perfect for me.

But Nicola's personal cinematographer (the cause, perhaps, of all her trouble) was still hard at work, and lit her like a chasuble.

Of course. Marius Appleby is a pseudonym. It's Asprey. I knew it: I wasn't even surprised. It was almost bathetic. What else could explain the familiar taste, and the poundcake richness, of my love-hate for Crossbone Waters?

Regrettably, disappointingly, altogether unacceptably, and like all the other dying people I've ever come across, I am suffering from eructation and its related embarrassments.

Montaigne handles so scabrous a subject with great aplomb.