My brilliant career

In the summer of 1986 I got a job as a busboy in Burger King on the Champs-Elysées. I was given a funny pair of trousers, which I was ordered to wear as part of the uniform. I refused, and so later the very same day the only employment with steady prospects I’ve ever had in my life was terminated. I took to busking on the Métro with my friend Lloyd. Even after that summer ended, I stuck to busking — and to be honest I have been doing it ever since. OK, so Van Morrison tunes got dropped in favour of freelance journalism. But it’s all the same thing.

I became a war correspondent. I assumed people might take me seriously. It took a dozen conflicts, coup d’états, assassinations and sundry acts of God to conclude I was wrong. By my age, hedge-fund traders have already retired to their yachts.