This cannot have been what he was hoping for, surely? All those days cross-legged under the Bodhi tree seeking enlightenment, and this is happens - he's cited in a divorce case?

London is a cheek by jowl place, packed tighter than a sardine can; almost inevitably then, this means that at some point of the day, you will be forced into accidental companionship with folk you've never met, simply by the sheer pressure of people.

Moreover, whether you want it or not, it's a near certainty you'll be caught in the slipstream of whatever conversations are going on in the sardine can. Dull, or eye-poppingly sensational, it's impossible not to listen. Like tonight.

I'm fond of Holland Park. Living in a flat with no balcony and no worthwhile garden, Holland Park has by default become my green lung - the place where I breath easier, where I think, and where I read. Or try to.

On the next bench along from where I was sat this evening, was a woman, who for the benefit of her friend, had taken on the busy work of dissecting someone else's recent and, clearly, very bitter divorce.

The nadir of their divorce battle, the Stalingrad of their break-up, was the angry tussle for just which one of them would get full custody of a huge stone Buddha they'd bought holidaying in Thailand. An argument over Buddha?

You have to stop and think about this one, though. Is n't Buddha supposed to bring people together, embodiment of reconcilation, and so on, and not be, instead, under siege from competing parties in a divorce court ? Something cannot have been right from the get-go in that marriage if it met it's end in a catty squabble over a stone Buddha.

Apparently, it finished with them having joint custody rights stitched into the divorce; six months here six months there.