Running for cover, I waited under a shop's eaves with a woman who shouldn't be allowed umbrellas. What is it about slow-moving, space-taking people with brollies that's so quintessentially human? "I'm all right, I don't need to consider anyone who may not be." I gave up wasting time sharing the meagre warmth and pressed on through the torrents, the world crashing down around me in a maelstrom of splashing greys. Like Caligula's defiance of Neptune I marched unshielded through the assault in mad hubris. It felt calming. I felt like the only calm thing left in a world going mad.