I am a man without many pleasures in life, a man whose few pleasures are small, but a man whose small pleasures are very important to him. One of them is eating. One reading. Another eating while reading.

I bring Laura to the edge of the clapping crowd, and I watch her sink, becoming engulfed in the sea of clapter.

For months I had been trying to be less myself.

'My gift to you will be to take away your freedom of choice for a while. Freedom can be very unhealthy and unproductive. Instead, you'll have freedom from choi…