Grim over mall

For dinner I go to a Cuban restaurant called A Piece of Havana, recommended by one of my trainees. It's unprepossessing from the outside, as all these mall based restaurants are, but it has a good feeling inside.

I have a house mojito and order a spicy oxtail stew with fried plantain, rice & beans. It's superb - flavoursome, different and not too excessive.

I crave a sorbet and head to the next mall down - which is huge. It is drizzling, warmly, so I wander around as night falls, stupefied by the size of the place, the grim awfulness of the stores, all identical to others on similar tracts of land across the country.

Despite it all, there's a glimmer of brutal, corporate beauty which I can appreciate even though it promises no hope for the future, no suggestion of redemption.