A moment at B46

This book was born as I was hungry. I have no right to be hungry. Today has been spent indoors teaching a course. The day was punctuated by food: sandwiches, cakes, a buffet lunch. Nonetheless, I am at Hamburg airport, I am tired, I am hungry and I am grumpy.

At the end of the day, I emerged from the conference hotel into bright sunshine and took an uneventful taxi through the city to Cologne airport. I was conveyed, without incident, to Hamburg where I had a two hour layover before continuing to Edinburgh.

The time was 8 pm and I was ready something nice to eat. It was not to be. All the restaurants were closed or closing. It's not a small airport and there were plenty of flights still to depart. Oh well - no knuckles of pork with fermented cabbage sides for me.

Instead, I pass through border control and find a solitary bar that furnishes me with a beer and a sandwich. I sit chewing away in, bathed in melancholic miasma of setting sun filtered through grimy German glass.

Edinburgh is dark, but warm. I drive home through the empty Scottish night, with the sunroof open and Starless and Bible Black playing on my earphones.