Swiss Re

I only knew one of the men at the table — a friend of a good friend from China — and after listening to several speeches that I did not understand, and several gulps of whiskey, I went to go talk to him. But he doesn’t speak much English, and I felt communicating with him in Mandarin would be in poor taste. So I smiled at him, and he smiled sadly at me, and pulled out his accordion. We eat, we talk, we drink — water or tea, not vodka, like me, Alptekin said with an exaggerated wink, as my friend stared into the distance beyond the gym wall and started playing a mournful song on the accordion. And that’s how we free East Turkestan.

Can anyone tell me what happened to the Morning crew on GWR? I go away for a bit and when I come back there gone and replaced by a pair of wazzers!

To make matters worse, we pass through a torrential rainstorm, which makes window-gazing almost impossible, leaving me glad that the trip is less than 30 minutes duration.