A hot day. Dundee's famous micro-climate. - 'You don't sweat much, do you?', W. says. 'It must be your Hindu genes'.

Indians have more sweat glands: haven't I told him that? You'd think that that would make you sweat more, W. says.

At the same time, I have the thick skin of a Scandinavian, W. says. Thick skin, to keep the Viking warm during the long winters.

And there's blubber under your skin, W. says. I'm as warm as a walrus, no matter how cold it is, he says. As warm as a sperm whale, diving beneath the Arctic ice. I am insulated by my fat, just as my head is insulated by my stupidity.

A fathead, that's what I am, W. says. But perhaps you need a fat head to dive into the depths of thought. Perhaps you need a kind of insulation, he says. Perhaps only the fat-head can think, W. says. Well, he'll dive with me, a whelk on the side of a whale.