“Beba moved away for a moment and observed the scene. Standing in the water up to his waist, a young man in wide trousers, with a little waistcoat pulled over his naked torso and a turban on his head, was gazing in reverence at a little old lady, in the shape of a horizontal letter S, wearing child's swimming costume with the Teletubbies printed on it, floating on a lounger. The old lady resembled a hen, while the young man looked like a hero out of A Thousand and One Nights.'Shall we order another bottle of champagne?' suggested Beba.”

“Inside an old man is always a young man, a young man shaped by his friends.”

“Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.
In the cradle a child is screaming.
An old man sits over his death, and anyone
young enough talks to his love, breathes
into her lips, looks into her eyes.”

“This wise old whiskery fish swims up to three young fish and goes, 'Morning, boys, how's the water?' and swims away; and the three young fish watch him swim away and look at each other and go, 'What the fuck is water?' and swim away.”

“Mr. Blank's old friend is acting up again, and because our hero is no longer wearing the cotton trousers and underpants and is quite naked under the pajama bottoms, there is no barrier to prevent Mr. Bigshot from bounding out through the slit and poking his head into the light of day.”

“Brushing dirt from his coat, Sam ignored the wild-eyed looks the other three gave him. Surely a house like this had enough staff to clean up a little dirt?“And who is this young man?” the old lady demanded.Sam opened his mouth to reply, but froze when he saw just who the old woman was.“May I present Sam Morgan, Your Highness,” Griffin said.Bloody hell. It was Queen Victoria. They’d just burrowed their way into Buckingham Palace.”