The price of violence...

Or how to make a complete arsehole of oneself in less than three hours

What to do when, late in the evening, you decide that you just need a can of beer? What to do when, wearing nothing but a T-shirt, and with only a couple of pounds in your pocket, you bang your house door behind you and immediately realize that you have locked yourself out?

What to do, when you live in a foreign land, don’t know procedure; don’t have a mobile phone or an internet connection, no friends to turn to?

You go to the wine shop, your original destination; to Paul, the manager, for advice.

What to do, when he tells you “pick the lock” and even gives the odd tool? You try; you try hard for two hours, in sub-zero temperature - and fail, extremely so.

What to do, when you go back to Paul, a man with whom you discuss politics, for more advice, and he says: “Be violent, my pointy-headed-pseudo-leftist-intellectual-friend, be violent. Smash a fucking window, It will make you fell good and will get you out of the cold.

And so I did, as you can see by the pic. Paul’s advice, however, if it did get me out of the cold proved bad in more than one way. Smashing the window didn’t make me feel good at all. I had a terrible night pondering over the entire affair.

Yet, the worse was to come in the early morning. The door now has a brand new glass, exactly like it had before my fierce deed.

Price of violent accomplishment: 50 pounds.