“... off for not being ‘more vigorous on human rights in Kashmir’. He needn’t have bothered. A beard rose to ask why the US Government had betrayed them. The repetition irritated the Congressman. He took the offensive, complaining about this being an all-male meeting. Why were these men’s wives and daughters not present? The bearded faces remained ...”

“... one of the bends, I fell. I landed on a body: it was an Arab man, lying on his side, long hair and beard, and he was gone. By the time I got to the third floor I couldn’t feel my arms. I’d breathed in a lot of carbon monoxide – I was being poisoned and I fell. That’s when the firefighters came and picked me up.’‘The fire was all the way round the ...”