Impossible to escape the ways in which some fantasy, some prejudice, some unreason, some ignorance, some fear and who knows what else have woven their way into our every feeling and sense impression.

'There is a real sense of wonder,' says Gray, 'when I balance two rocks in such a way that it gives the impression that it's impossible for them to stay in place.

There was a sense that the city was descending into a Hobbesian hell-although that impression was fed by misinformation, much of it spread by the police themselves.