I was disappointed when David Burney, a speaker at Doors 8 failed to show up at my book party in New York. Then I started seeing David’s face on all the television sets in town. It turned out that a landslide had blocked one of the main arterial roads into New York – and he was responsible, as Commissioner of the city’s Department of Design and Construction, for getting this horrendous mess cleared up. Which he and his team seem to have done, in double-quick time, to plaudits from the local media.