Just before Easter they came to paint the roof. Those of you afflicted with the curse of a long memory for trivia will recall that the present palace of fun is a penthouse, the relevance of which to this exercise is that there is roof both over it and around it at floor level. They came one morning, just as I was getting up. I was pottering around in dressing gown and cappucino, the way I usually do at eight o'clock, confident that nobody can overlook us here. It was just when I was going back to the Pavoni for a refill that the sinister figure in the boiler suit appeared outside the kitchen window, feet first, descending a ladder from the upper roof. Boots, nylon gaiters, green boiler suit, heavy leather gloves, each came into view in turn, and then the face mask and the black goggles. Black goggles? The goggles were what made me think of the SAS in the first place, but it made more sense later on when they got around to the bits of roof that we can see from our windows. White paint. Very white paint. The goggles must be for the snow blindness. This stuff must be unbearable in strong sunlight. Even in the moonlight the roof looks as though it is under a layer of fresh snow. The morning light is all wrong too, just the way it is when you wake up after an overnight snowstorm.