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\\’In the game we play, one group of people, representing 5 billion of the world\\’s 6 billion, sit bemused, befuddled and ignored. They\\’re the world\\’s poor. They have human rights, identical to you and I. And if I had one hope...\\’
    What the hell am I listening to? Jerome said to himself. He reached to search for another station. He hesitated. For a moment he listened to a little more. Compelling stuff, he thought as he drew his hand back and replaced it on the steering wheel. Who is this guy I\\’m listening to? I don\\’t usually listen to all this crap. But he\\’s got a point, he admitted reluctantly.
    \\’With that extract from David Browne\\’s recent speech to the United Nations General Assembly we close today\\’s PM programme. The programme was presented by...\\’
    Oh, him. I should have known, Jerome said to himself. The name David Browne rang a bell. He was the famous author Jerome had met that morning. A paraplegic, who wrote mainly about human rights issues. Not a subject to interest Jerome. Once, before boarding a plane, he\\’d picked up one of David Browne\\’s novels at an airport. He was asleep after ten pages and left it on his seat. The book became an international best seller.
    
    Jerome had two reasons for leaving the office early. Firstly, the appalling weather. Near Siberian conditions had hit the south east of England. Temperatures had been well below freezing for days. This particular day, heavy snow had been falling on and off since breakfast. London was covered in a three to four inches of the stuff. Many of the Capital\\’s office workers, not prepared for such an extreme climatic change, had been sent home early. As Jerome left his office, the snow-covered streets were filled with frozen commuters, scrambling in all directions for the comfort of a warm bus or train to take them home.
    Jerome had a large, comfortable car for his journey. Yet, even for him, the trip from the West End to Chiswick had its problems. Almost as soon as he\\’d driven his car out from the company garage his troubles started. First an accident at Oxford Circus delayed him for three-quarters of an hour. Then some idiot, driving in the opposite direction to him along Holland Park road, skidded and drove into the front of Jerome\\’s new BMW. The other driver admitted responsibility, nobody was hurt and both cars were capable of being driven away. Not only did he have to drive around with an imperfect looking car, he had the added inconvenience of having to arrange the repairs; or at least getting someone else to arrange them. And, for a while, he would be without his beloved car.
    To try to put himself in a better frame of mind he selected a CD. One of his favourites - an obscure Marvin Gaye album. By the time the second track was playing he started to feel more at ease. His thoughts had moved to the person who gave him the CD. He smiled, knowing he\\’d be seeing her later that night. That was his second reason for leaving early.
    
    Marlborough Road, in Chiswick, West London, is a street full of large, well-maintained turn of the century (nineteenth to twentieth) detached and semi-detached houses. Jerome had lived there for the last three years. Once his company had begun to take off, he and his wife decided to move from their smaller house in Hammersmith to a large detached house. For their borrowed money - three quarters of a million at the time - they bought a house with three reception rooms, a study, a new fitted kitchen with all appliances etc., six bedrooms, two with en suite showers, two other main bathrooms and all the other blah blah that went with homes of this size. They didn\\’t need that much space but, to them, it seemed wise to trade up in the property market while, financially, the going was good.
    Theirs was an agreeable street. Some of the houses were still lived in as family houses; others had been converted to flats. The residents came from business, the professions, media, the arts world and suchlike. Some people in the road liked to socialise, others preferred to keep themselves to themselves. The key to the street was money. Properties were valued from three-quarters of a million upwards and rents for a two bedroom flat started at

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