Mike Spalding came into my life this week. Young man, great arse. He had a strange tan but this didn’t affect his impact on the ambiance of a room. Sure, he was flambouyant, but who could deny affection for such charming eccentricity? To set the scene we were meeting somewhere around the Czech-Austrian border after a busy business schedule in Russia, where we’d seen a man about a dog. We were in a bar with light jazz and dancing ladies, drinking whiskey with ice. The conversation had flowed well and Mike had told me about his family life, his career history and his Uncle Peter. These pleasantries out of the way the conversation moved more in the direction of freestyle lacrosse. It was at this point Mike was to reveal his true identity to me. The briefcase - a sham.  His home - a lie. His suit - poorly tailored.  He didn’t have a wife, he didn’t even have any socks. He’d scaled the dizzy heights of high society with his ladder of lies and half truths. Obviously the news shocked me, he said he’d told me too much. We made a break for Bosnia. The authorities were on our trail. We travelled through Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bulgaria before we finally arrived in Georgia. The smell of sweat and ripped formal attire was also the sweet sweet smell of freedom.