"I'd only been sitting in my BMW for 30 seconds with the engine running, so when the door was opened by a man in camouflage, I knew what was happening and stayed fairly cool, " he said.
He liked Paris so much that he stayed there -- "with its drizzle, as cool, grey and luxurious as chinchilla, " he writes in the autobiographical novel "The Farewell Symphony" -- beyond the year that he had planned.
"My project involved a method for treating leather so that it stayed warm to the touch in a hot environment and warm to the touch in a cool environment, " he said.