Well, for a nutcase, he certainly wasn't a troublesome one. So much the better. I ordered another coffee and got back to the sports pages. for consumption by persons with the mental capacity of a dying snail, of which, as we know, there are a large number on this planet, very large in fact. And also for the jellyfish, as my friend Steve would say (jellyfish being one of the few creatures on the planet which do not possess a brain of any kind at all).
The IHT on the other hand is an interesting journal, it has real sports articles written by journalists with a literary education and it is more international to boot. I checked the mid-week European results, I briefly perused the text devoted to what had actually happened in the games, and then I leaned back—metaphorically of course, given the chair I was sitting in—and I lit up a cigarette (yes I know, it is boring and furthermore you are right; and also furthermore, I have plenty of other defects, should you so wish) and picked up the nutcase's visiting card.