Like most people of my approximate age and general outlook, I fell upon a book called Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas when it appeared in 1971 and devoured it at a single sitting. These were early days in university and people hobbled around campus with Lord of the Rings in their smelly bags. Hunter S Thompson's brief and furious work blew away the hobbits and all their pothead pixie friends for ever.

Here was a man who had so many drugs that he had to keep most of them in the boot of his car. In the telling of his hilariously anti-Establishment tale, Thompson did not draw one uncrazed breath, setting a new benchmark in bad behaviour. How we growled at our