I was given 'The Holy Barbarians' by a sculptor then dating my older sister and later, husband. I really don't know why this all clicked for a middle class virgin - but it seemed like a whole other explanation for existence that nobody had told me about. It is probaby connected to my father who was totally bowled over by India where he was stationed during the war. He gave me a copy of the Upanishads when I was 9, which, now I come to think about it, was a weird gift to a son at a tender age. He also gave me a copy of 'Ripley's Believe it or Not' at the same time, which had quite a lot of strange things that people had avoided telling me about before (so I reasoned).

Of course, all this was just a typical imprinting intersection with hormonal changes. Nothing we can do about that. The just born duck sees a football rolling by at the critical imprinting moment and then dedicates its life to leather sphericalness. My football is a patchwork of stitched up panels of heretics who can write unusually.

But it is indeed a privilege to meet someone who actually visited such hallowed haunts with the same nonchalance that I occupied Swinging London, thinking that eating sausages with Lennon was what people did. My naivity was then a blessing.

You can't be me, I'm taken