Mrs Impostume once said to me in passing, when I was raging no doubt at the iniquity of it all, worked up into an ecstatic lather of righteous fury by my own rhetoric, promising that there would be a day of reckoning, let Armageddon come and wash us ALL away if necessary, “ First destroy and then we’ll see!” all that stuff…

Well, what she said to me, her face a combination of irritation, boredom and dismay was,

“I never trust anyone who hasn’t had their nose broken.”

I remember it well, we were on Nou de la Rambla at the time.

Talk away, you’re going to scuttle off back to your room with your books and your drugs to hide the moment a confrontation comes. When you come up against power in its most naked form, you’ll shrink from it and all this wonderfully impressive talking will have meant nothing,

There was a large, cold noise in my ears, the sound of something ringing hollow. The wind whistling mockingly through the gap between words and deeds.

She knew my type, you see.