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Years ago, in my late twenties, I worked as an area manager for IBN, earning £100,000 plus a year, plus all kinds of benefits, including company car, enhanced pension scheme, private medical insurance, access to holiday homes - in Spain, Greece, and the USA, free entry to this that and the other. Endless intros. Endless nodding heads. I covered a large, but underpopulated area, working long hours, often staying away over night, often working weekends, power-lunching, and so forth. I got into fights, always stood my ground, but largely the work was easy, with the business just ticking over, with a bit of tweaking. After about four years of this life, I threw it all in and moved to a house on an island between the Welsh mainland and the Isle of Man; living there with around twenty other people in a kind of informal commune. The group had a religious theme, but it was indistinct, non-aligned. I went there as an anthropologist - presaging the work I do now - mostly on a piecework basis, by the word or paragraph, whichever was shorter. The finished study was published by Bloodaxe, then by Faber. I used a false-name. I always do. Two people died on the island while I was there; three others got seriously ill, but recovered. I was there for six hours in total. From there, I moved to a bunker, on Bunker Hill, operated by Bunkers-R-Us. I aimed guns. It was there that I learned about the money to be made in food and children's clothes. I aimed guns. I became involved in a series of accidents. I learned to drive. I had an eyelid amputated. IBN called me back. I returned, to a high-powered clerical position; developing several radical and non-radical archiving systems still in use today. IBN's market-share grew by 41% whilst I was there this second time, largely due to overseas investments, especially in Indonesia, Welsh Wales, Little Italy, &/or c. I still have a t-shirt to that effect. I left IBN for a second time ten years ago. Since then, I have travelled - as I always meant to in my twenties.