Oliver was reclining in the second of their tatty deckchairs in his customary position, outside the shed that housed the equipment. This they liked to call the Operation Nerve Centre. The shed was leaning at an alarming angle, and if it were an operation, it would be a triple heart bypass performed with a rusty Stanley knife. The pronounced lean was caused by the nightly presence of five windsurf boards, which, had there been any justice in the world, would have seen them raking in cash. Sadly, justice had disappeared into the distance with its arse on fire, and the boards had recently been christened Chardonnay, Stephen Fry, Gobi, and Rot, because they were all very, very dry. They’d run out of things to call the fifth so Oliver just called it Wanker.
There they sat, in mute but defiant testimony to the triumph of mindless optimism over sound business sense.