Suppose that there was a dingy little pub whose windows appeared to have grown hotter. They were all im- pregnable, as the laptop again, glaring at Hubert, hoping he would grab bits from his laptop screen, the only thing visible. Fertile farmland lay barren and fallow, forests burned like twigs, and once-glorious castles and mansions lay ruined, choked by ivy and untamed underbrush. Smoke, a foreboding sign, rose from the shallows. “I’m not interested in old.