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foreigners – scream at the top of your voice and wave your arms about in massive but vague physical gesticulations.
    This sad display provides mainland Europeans (again, particularly, the French) with endless entertainment. Outside the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris, there can always be found a cluster of extremely dull mime artists in tights and bowler hats with flowers sticking out of them, miming walking into a high wind. These irritating performances are invariably accompanied by a clutch of Americans, Brits and Japanese delightedly assuring each other that the bowler-hatted one indeed looks exactly like he's walking into a high wind, or quite anyway. The locals, of course, know that far more fun can be had watching a British tourist attempt to mime 'Can you direct me to the Museum of Contemporary Sculpture please?' and what's more he won't shove his bowler hat under your nose at the end of it.
JUDGING A BOOK BY ITS COVER
    So there they were, the two men on the pavement, one of them roaring at the intercom and miming wildly. Geoffrey, deciding that actions speak louder than words, even words as loud as the ones making the intercom shudder, pressed the lock transmission button, thus providing the first clear message of the whole communication.
    After the obligatory electronic lock dance, in which a person and door push against each other to the tune of a buzzer going on and off, the door swung open and the men stumbled in.
    They took the lift to the floor marked Transport, Fuel and Engine Research' and emerged from it to find Dr Geoffrey Peason waiting for them. Geoffrey held out a shaking hand and tried to greet them cordially but he wasn't really up to it and the two men clearly weren't very impressed with him. However, at first they made at least a pretence at the easy good manners which killers are wont to adopt before unmasking themselves as the angel of death.
    They enquired again after Dr Geoffrey Peason, stating that they had business with him regarding his recent application for a patent. Dr Peason, also attempting easy good manners but blowing it by dribbling a bit, again replied that he was the said Peason, Doctor of Physics and patent applicant, and what could he do for them? Unfortunately Geoffrey still was not making himself very clearly understood and the visitors' tone became impatient.
    'Now listen, sonny, we haven't got a lot of time to waste, so you pull yourself together, all right? And tell us where Peason is.'
    Geoffrey was suddenly very tired. He hated being patronized and he hated being dismissed as of no importance. It was always happening to him. He turned his back on the men and staggered back to his chair. Plonking himself down rather heavily he knocked his bottle onto the floor.
    'Bollocks,' he said, or rather 'Burgles,' an exclamation which he accompanied with an impulsive-looking gesture of despair.
    Faced with this incoherent hurdle to their enquiries the two men's tone became markedly more intimidating.
    'Where's Peason?' the talkative one barked. 'This is where he works isn't it? Our information is that he's always here Sundays.'
    Again Doctor Peason tried to explain that he was the man they sought, but the men just did not have the patience to listen to him. They had been briefed to pay a visit on a brilliant scientist and inventor. A man who had invented something quite brilliant and scientific. Confronted by this slurring, unpleasant, uncoordinated young man in a leather jacket and torn jeans, they assumed that the doctor was out. However, since the dribbling rocker was clearly their only available source of information they had no choice but to continue their clumsy enquiries.
    Advancing towards Geoffrey one of the men slipped on the pizza.
    'I just did that,' said Geoffrey, trying once more to be friendly, but still failing completely to make himself understood.
    'Don't laugh at me, you disgusting little git,' barked the man. He grabbed Geoffrey's cap from Geoffrey's head. Geoffrey