Dismal scenario

Here is a middle-aged man lying in bed in his black and green striped pyjamas. The bed is a single bed and he is reading a book. On the bedside cupboard is a 1970s Grundig Elite Boy portable radio tuned to The World Tonight. Next to that is a photograph of his 17-year-old son in a cheap frame. His son is looking annoyed with the person holding the camera. Slippers, much stained, rest east–west in parallel alignment beside the bed. On the wall above the man’s head is a framed colonial map of the Nyasaland Protectorate. On the floor, but within easy reach, a pile of books nearly two-feet high. As he reads, he is absentmindedly fingering a place on his chest, high up near the collarbone, where lately a gristly little spot has appeared.

Let us look more closely at the detail, shall we? What is that paperback he is reading? What a lurid cover! Imitation bullet holes and a bloodstained sepia photograph of a man with a perm and a moustache! The title of the book, let us see now, is Escobar: The Inside Story of Pablo Escobar, the World’s Most Powerful Criminal, as told by his brother, Roberto. Under that, in heavy, blood-red type, are the words Drugs. Guns. Money. Power. Oh, dear. Why would anyone want to read about that dreadful man? He was a Robin Hood figure, did I hear someone say? Adored by the poor of Medellin? He gave truckloads of Christmas presents to their children and built homes for their parents? And you think that exculpates him, do you, for all the misery of cocaine addiction he was responsible for in the United States and in Europe? I think you need to give your moral compass a sharp tap, comrade, if you think that.