The Gaudi monuments of Barcelona Slipped under my radar; I flew down Sardenya on a rented bike instead. The beach is straight ahead, I think. The city map makes the west seem north with the sea at the bottom instead of at the side. No matter. I like getting lost. and finding little cafes where I can practice my Spanish. R.H....

Imagine you meet a guy and he introduces to you his wife. She stands beside him and she looks directly at you and she smiles and you know instantly that she is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen in all your time on earth and that, regardless of what ensues, whether you’ll make love to her over and over or have her just once, or never lay your eyes on her again, seeing her has changed you and now you will forever feel a gnawing ache because she exists, because she came out of the world and will go back into it and you’ll know that it happened and rue the day it did. The mythologising will come: every desultory gesture, every object she touches, her name, her smell, the way she phrases a feeling or recounts an event, shares a memory, the way she looks at you and the peculiar timbre of her voice and how she says your name- all of it makes you feel so agonisingly alive and conscious of her that you want to cry heavily just to be able to go another round. Is this love? You develop murderous thoughts about her lover. You’d prefer it were otherwise; you don’t really want to harm anyone, not that it would ever happen; it’s just a silly fantasy that he could be removed somehow. Your mind splits in two: the real and the imaginary – the latter begins to feel more real....