They hanged Huffum White in August 1813. When he was offered a last wish, Huffum told the priest he’d quite like somebody else please to take his place on the scaffold, but criminal justice had its way with him and celebrated a great achievement: they had just hanged the last highwayman in England. In truth, it was no achievement at all.
Richard Elliott couldn’t stand it any more. For nearly two years, he had been acting as the government’s drugs envoy in Bristol, running the city’s Drugs Action Team, handling millions of pounds a year, linking together police and health workers and social workers and voluntary agencies into one big drive against drugs, but earlier this year he realised he just couldn’t stand it any more, so he quit.
What would you do if you house was on fire and the fire brigade turned up and started drenching it with petrol?
One dull week in February when everything in Britain was coated in drizzle, my partner and I ran away to Andalucia and, under a crisp blue sky, we drove far up into the mountains north of Seville, through a small town of narrow streets and white houses called Cazalla, out into the hills again, up through the poplar trees, where we rounded a bend and suddenly discovered an absurdity.
