My Top 5 Lowlights - Number 1 - A Victim of Crime

The biggest and best (or lowest) lowlight of my trip was being pickpocketed. It was my first direct experience as a victim of crime (apart from the childhood justice meted out to me weekly by my older brother as his willing WWF championship wrestling partner) and it was my first experience of the fear which crime engenders. It happened in Rome, while approaching the Colosseum via one of the subway tunnels. A woman moved towards me and for reasons unknown to me at the time said hello and started vigorously shaking my hand. By pushing on what I now know to be several wrist pressure points, it enabled two other women to put a hand into each of my back pockets and one hand into a front pocket, without me even realising it.

Luckily nothing was stolen, but it wasn’t quite what I’d imagined as an immature and degenerate teenager of one day having the hands of three women down my pants. Far from it in fact, and in my mind deserving of number one on my list of lowlights.