More years ago than I care to remember I was staying with some academic friends at Columbia Uni in NY. They were the two of most left-wing people I’ve ever met – they had been friends with Abbie Hoffman in the 60’s, who if memory serves died whilst I was there, and they put across what seemed an incredibly plausible case that the FBI had poisoned him for his anti-social activities.

I didn’t take them 100% seriously at the time – didn’t really have any context from which to judge – but I take it more seriously these days.

An OK film, but very sad. I’ll have to get my ‘best of Abbie Hoffmann’ off the bookshelf again. He’s really quite an inspiring figure, although the drugs destroyed his mind.