In some respects Homeric society is clearly an artificial literary creation. It is a natural tendency of all heroic epic to exaggerate the social status and behaviour of everyone involved, so that characters appear generally to belong to the highest social class and to possess great wealth and extraordinary abilities, in implicit contrast with the inequalities and squalor of the present age.

My tastes, he said, still smiling, incline me to the garishly sunlit side of this planet. And, to tease her and arouse her to combat: I prefer a farandole to a nocturne; I'd rather have a painting than an etching; Mr. Whistler bores me with his monochromatic mud; I don't like dull colours, dull sounds, dull intellects;[…].

Such diversion as Podson could extort from his isolation was soon vitiated by repetition. He surfed. He sun-baked - with discretion till his skin had peeled and given him a harder cuticle.

I was pretty much going to be the last one among my peers to take the plunge. That meant I had previously heard their unique engagement stories.