I am driven to the airport by the angriest cab driver in town. There’s a dent in the wheel where he punches the horn, and he punches the horn whenever another driver offends him, which is apparently all the time. When we pull level with another cab, he denounces them through the window, in at least three language, one of which I don’t recognise. At the airport, we pause on the shoulder to let paramedics and police through. “You’re not flying Malaysian Airlines, right?” He says. “No, and I’m not headed to Eastern Europe anytime soon,” I say.

“I,” he says, “am from the city of Kiev, in Ukraine. How do you nice Europeans feel about Mr Putin now? Do you still like him? Because once I looked into that man’s eyes.” He shudders and I watch his fingers strangle the wheel.

I ask if he still has friends and family there. He shrugs. “Most of them got out. The rest, you know…they went under.”

We shake hands at the stand. “Safe flight, sir. Me, I’m staying right here.”