Round the back of James Street, down a side-road and sitting in the craterous hollow between clifflike office buildings, is the Cornmarket Hotel. In some respects resembling a barn, in others an upper-class hotel lobby, the high-backed leather chairs peppering the floor look like they should all be filled with men who suit pith helmets and khaki, supping brandy and telling tales of just how many living things a blast from their elephant guns could kill.
Sitting in the paved area outside beneath the gaze of a million office windows can make you oddly paranoid. Who the hell looks out of all these windows? Surely British business doesn't contain enough people to be able to man every single pane of glass. That's just ghoulish. read more