I BELIEVED IN it. I more than believed in it – I was obsessed. It was a vision of something amazing, something I thought could never happen on Earth. A vision of co-operation among all the beings on a planet to overcome adversity – to survive as a global community with none left out.

For reasons I will explain, that vision changed my life for the worse. It started with a book. There it is, the damned thing, the guilty thing, still on the topmost shelf in my study between Disturbing the Solar System and The Cambridge Photographic Guide to the Planets. I should have ditched it, shredded it, burnt it years ago, but it’s too good-looking. Like a lover who gives you grief but is too attractive to break with.