“Oh jeezus!” Stuart blurted out.

“What?” Stuart jerked his head to the side in the direction of the door, which was being closed again after opening briefly.

“Line-up-Linda’s just arrived. She’s probably heading straight upstairs to get her legs in the air.”

Richard knew Stuart didn’t like Linda MacKerricher. He thought she was a slut. So she was; but Richard didn’t see anything wrong with that. She was a liberated and independent young woman. In fact Richard found her crazily sexy. He cursed his luck in not catching sight of her – probably wearing those kinky wet-look boots and that purple mini-skirt. Liberated and “easy” though she was, Richard could never pluck up the courage to even talk to her, let alone join in one of the orgies she was reputed to take part in.

“So why would a posh cunt like you even want to help?” Stuart continued, snapping Richard out of the reverie that Linda MacKerricher had unknowingly evoked.

“Lots of ‘posh cunts’ are revolutionaries. Most revolutionaries are posh cunts in fact – Marx himself, Lenin, Guevara… you name it.”

“Yeah, sure thing, Guildford boy.”

“Fuck you Mr Kelvinside Academy.” Richard knew that Stuart was as middle class as it was possible to be for a Glaswegian, but still had one over on him when it came to class-related, inverted snobbery. Richard’s parents now lived in Milngavie, having moved up to Scotland from Guildford when he was about three. In the mindset of most Glaswegians, Richard was a toff – almost aristocracy.

“OK Guildford boy. So you like to tag along to the odd meeting. You like to slag off the hardcore members but will we ever see you put your money where your mouth is?”

“If I thought it could do some actual good I would. I mean the way society is just now… there’s lots of things wrong. Systemic things. You know yourself how we’ve discussed it all; over and over again. Things that are wrong. Things that are wrong with the system itself and so can’t be fixed by the system.” He wondered if he was getting a bit drunk. He didn’t usually use Glaswegian expressions like “You know yourself”. He would normally say “As you know” or whatever the correct expression was.

“OK, agreed. So what do ye propose then?”

“Nationalise the banks without compensation. Step one.”

“You can’t just do that though.” Stuart said with the sort of patience usually reserved for small children, “You can only do that after a revolution. Industries can only be nationalised after they’ve failed. Or by force, after revolution.”

“Not true. Labour’s in power now and there are already mutuals, co-operative banks, the National Savings Bank. Why don’t they just expand that sector and take over the banking system step by step?”

Stuart shrugged. “Step by step hasn’t worked. The Left has already tried Parliament. Every time they do something the Tories just reverse it next time they’re in. Plus the Left never stick to their guns when they get into power; they always change. We’ve had Keir Hardie, Aneurin Bevan, Benn. Even Harold-bloody-Wilson was supposedly ‘hard Left’ and look what happened.”

Stuart’s attention was drawn to the door again. Richard looked too, hoping that Linda had come back. He was immediately disappointed. Instead of Linda MacKerricher wearing a mini-skirt and boots, someone wearing a duffle coat and a Partick Thistle hat and scarf was trying to push a bicycle into the room. It seemed that the Thistle fan was intending to ride the bike around the room as an amusing stunt. This was giving rise to a bit of an altercation because several of the punks were trying to prevent him. Their idea of anarchy in the UK did not extend to permitting people to ride bicycles in rooms.

“OK, let’s agree, as usual, that only revolution will really change things. So how do you do it?” said Richard.

“How would you do it?”

“Just what I was trying to say a moment ago. You need something to trigger it, an act that causes significant damage to the existing system so that it’s unable to function properly. Once that happens the socialists will rise up and the system will be unable to defend itself.”

Stuart didn’t say anything but nodded briefly in agreement. Then, remembering there were more important matters to attend to, he stretched his head back and began tipping half a tin of Tennent’s Super Lager down his throat, seemingly oblivious as Richard continued his monologue:

“We’re just kids right now, students. We know nothing. We don’t know anybody who knows anything or has any influence. Even guys like Eddie are half-way to Walter Mitty; they’re kidding themselves. But all this education we’re getting might eventually be good for something. If we could keep in touch with the people we know who really want to change things and make a difference then one day we might be useful.”

Stuart had stopped gulping the lager. His head lurched back down to its default position as he crushed the empty can into his fist. He studied Richard for a long time, as though he was somehow having difficulty recognising him. But finally a glimmer of comprehension flickered to life.

“What exactly would you do?”

“Sabotage. I mean something big. Something fucking big. Remember what I was telling you about Georges Sorel?”

“And you’re volunteering…?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Count me in, man.”

A wall of sound slammed through the room as The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen blasted out. The punks immediately started pogo-ing in a frenzy, forcing the hippies lazing on the floor to reluctantly create space for them. The guy who had been singing Leonard Cohen songs left the room, meekly cradling his guitar to prevent damage. Stuart had to shout: