Picture the scene. Slightly dank motel room, with imaginative stains in the most unexpected places, decor of crossover late 70's early 80's style, if there is such a thing, interspersed with fading and peeling Formica, my tent draped on the furniture with all my other clothes. My not-very-waterproof jacket is dripping in the shower cubicle and there's a red screen on the telly saying "Beware heavy rain and flash flooding". Now that is the way to deliver a warning and mean it. When all of a sudden the roof fell in and there was the rain again, right there, in my room! You couldn't make it up. Well Ruth Rendell could perhaps, but it's not anything I'd have thought of.
It took just a moment of stunned disbelief before the uncontrollable laughter set in and it hadn't fully subsided when I did a Hugh Grant in the reception.
The Hunt For Puerto del Faglioli Paddy Tyson p65