My landlady tells me that he arrived at their house, took the coconut — with help from my landlord — then asked for a glass of water. She thought it was the funniest thing ever.

Yes, I do actually really like sleeping alfresco. It’s best in places where you won’t need the net.

Sadly, Phil, both Z and R prefer to draw weapons, vehicles, robots and people shooting each other. I find it a credit to my attempts at feminism that Z does include the odd female among his people shooting each other. Z did produce a piece of computer art — hand-drawn gnomes with some sort of fractalized overlay in op art hues — that made me wonder whether he’d been imbibing camel-drawing with his lemon squashes in the pizzeria.

Great story 🙂

Yes. I’ve never quite worked out the ethics of taking coconuts. In general, I think you are supposed to know the owner before you take one. You don’t need to ask, or mention it to them, but you definitely need to know the guy whose tree it is. In Europe, you would need to both know the owner and ask them before you took fruit form one of their trees….

Yep. R actually lives in rice fields, too, so I’m sure wandering off to go and get a coconut at the crack of dawn is normal for him. Just not a challenge I’ve ever had to face with Z, who normally requires a crane.

Yeah. One can improvise a hammer in most situations, but nails are something one cannot improvise. It’s the ridiculous ones that assume that you just will, naturally, come across a ceiling with a hook in it that amaze me, always.