Act one, scene one

I’ve long been aware that the pin­nacle of trite, poetic pre­ten­sion is to reveal that you’ve been walk­ing the rain­swept streets in the dark, in an overly dra­matic attempt to ‘clear your head’. It’s easy to ima­gine, because it’s been seen hun­dreds of times before in the worst TV drama series … rain-spattered head­lights briefly illu­min­at­ing a fig­ure with no umbrella (or, even bet­ter, car­ry­ing an umbrella but choos­ing not to use it), a rain­coat pulled tightly around them, look­ing deep in thought as they get thor­oughly soaked by the unre­lent­ing rain. It’s ridicu­lous, hack­neyed, sen­ti­mental clap-trap of the first order, that’s what it is.

So I won’t tell you what I did earlier this even­ing, then.