Sting: Lord Of The Lake

ON THE DRIZZLY Monday morning before Christmas, I'm sitting in an oak-panelled room in deepest Wiltshire, awaiting the entrance of the owner of a Jacobean pile called Lake House. I picture striding in from the rain like a jodhpured charmer from a Jilly Cooper novel, but the Italo Calvino and Cormac McCarthy books on the table belie the rock-star-turned-country-squire clichés.