The seed of the story is the organisation, in response to a spate of

unpleasant muggings and victimisations of respectable citizens by

gangs of feral youth, of self-defence classes for middle class

professionals. These classes, run by an enigmatic former psychiatrist,

have an unusual emphasis on pro-active and even pre-emptive violence,

aimed at dismantling the inhibitions that keep middle class people

from getting into fights in chip shops ten minutes after closing time.

Peace-loving, cerebral individuals discover a hitherto latent

propensity for mayhem, which is briefly focussed on the protests of

animal rights activists outside a guinea pig breeding farm. Along the

way, the protagonists discover that getting into the occasional bloody

ruckus stimulates them into having much more exciting sex.

What begins as vigilantism, a reaction against the violent lawlessness

of our town centres after dark, becomes first a shattering of the

underclass’s monopoly of casual violence and then an organised

recreational pursuit, like football hooliganism, an end in itself.

I’m not sure where Ballard would take it after that - which is

precisely what’s so great about Ballard…