BOGOTA- Went to the market this weekend to buy an expandable cosh, but they didn’t have any colours I liked. I had a long chat with the salesman, to help find the right cosh for me, but they only had three varieties in stock, police issue rubbish from the United States. He tried to fob me off with a knuckle-duster, but knuckle-dusters are gauche whatever colour they are.

I don’t want a knuckle-duster, I want a cosh. And not just any cosh. I want the cosh that Harrods would sell me, if they had a branch in Colombia. A cosh that Princess Diana would not have been ashamed to club photographers with.

“You’re not going to see the Duchess of Devonshire wearing a knuckle-duster, you know what I mean?” I said to Pancho, the salesman. He didn’t have an answer to that one.

If a murderer comes round my house this evening I guess I’ll just have to make the best of a bad do and throw plates at him.