The door gets answered by somebody who was reading, and that is deliberate rather than an accident of timing.

The alternative is opening it onto a person assembled over the previous hour and standing in a considered position, which turns the first minute into an event that then has to be lived up to. Events are difficult to walk into.

Walking into the middle of an ordinary afternoon is easier for everybody. Nobody has to perform an entrance and nobody has to react to one.

It also means the first ten minutes are a hallway, a kettle and a question about whether the driver found the building. People expecting something else spend those ten minutes adjusting, and I would rather they did it here.

The other consequence is that nothing is tidied for anybody. The flat is as it is, there is washing on a rack somewhere, and people find that either the whole point or entirely wrong for them within about four minutes.

Russian, 21, JVC, in or out. 800. 🚪