The desert is growing, W. says. I’m writing more, much more than he can follow on my blog, my infernal blog. Posts about him. About us! It’s remorseless. Thousands and thousands of words. Day after day.

Don’t I know there’s a war on – a philosophical war?, W. says. Why am I not marching to the philosophical front lines, like him, to do my bit?

His sports science students are complaining, W. says. They don’t see the relevance of Sun Tzu and Clausewitz to badminton ethics. They don't understand why they're being made to study the guerilla tactics of Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh in a module on shot-put metaphysics.

'War has no constant dynamic', he quotes, 'just as water has no constant form'. 'The skilful strategist defeats the enemy without doing battle', he quotes. 'The enemy advances, we retreat', he says. 'The enemy sets up camp, we harass. The enemy tires, we attack. The enemy retreats, we pursue'.

If he can’t make his sports science students into a guerrilla army, W. says, he might make them into beasts of burden instead. Hasn’t he dreamt that he might saddle them up and ride them, placing bits between their teeth? Philosophical bits! The bits of Rosenstock! Of Rosenzweig! Hasn’t he dreamt of kicking literary spurs into their sides? The spurs of Kafka! Of Krasznahorkai!

W. dreams of mounting his last postgraduate students on the backs of his sports science students. Of combining brain and brawn, like Master/Blaster in Mad Max III: Beyond the Thunderdome. He and his army would take to the hills, W. says, getting reading to charge the college in a few months time.