I am not, as you may have gathered, a chit-chat-on-the-elevator kind of person. And yet when I stepped on the elevator last week and heard a certain familiar fanfare, I couldn’t help blurting out to the guy who held the door for me:

ME: Good lord, it’s our own personal Masterpiece Theatre.
GUY laughs.
ME: I don’t think I’ve ever heard it in any other context.
GUY: What was the name of the host...?
ME: Alistair -
GUY: - Crowley.
ME: - Cooke.
GUY: Yes, Cooke. Crowley was...
ME: - a con artist.
GUY: - a writer.
ME: I thought he was some sort of famous Edwardian occultist-slash-scoundrel-slash-drug addict.
GUY: That’s right, he wrote Diary of a Drug Fiend.
ME: Ah.

And then the elevator doors opened.