Stealing a paper in London is easier than bumping into a stranger. Picking up my daily free copy of the times I scanned it briefly and then threw it away. There still hadn’t been a third death, it was almost good news.

I dodged through the slow moving traffic to get to the tube station across the road. My peripheral vision caught movement and I turned round to have a baseball bat fill my vision, followed quickly by the floor.

I stumbled to my feet and begin to run towards the tube station, my balance was completely gone but I somehow staggered to the entrance. Turning I saw my assailant abandon his motorbike and is walk calmly towards me, he was wearing black leather and a helmet that obscured his face. I half ran half fell down the steps and bundled over the ticket barrier.

Amazingly there was a tube waiting, I fell into it and wished the doors shut. My attacker started to jog towards the doors as they began to close. He’s too late, but he was too close, I rode the tube out the city and didn’t look back.