The Camden Town crowd is different from that of the Oxford Circus crowd. Instead of girls with foundation on their lips and big hair dragging reluctant boys, the girls are covered in tattoos with masses of eyeliner and the men are divided between tall shaggy men with dyed-green dreads and those with spiky blue mohawks and severely pierced faces. The journey started with some sharp, suited men between groups of radicals, but the last of them got off at Mornington Crescent talking about the FTSE (maybe, I don’t listen all that well as War of the Worlds plays).

I look at my watch and my heart speeds up, realising that I only have an hour until my interview with Death, or – as some know him – Dave. As I climb the broken-down escalator I stifle morbid thoughts and begin my confidence-boosting mental routine that aids me with haggling.

I walk into the light which, after the darkness of Tottenham Court Road and the artificial lights of the train, sends me almost to blindness, then pull out my last twenty.