Published in the March 2008 edition of that excellent magazine The Word, David Hepworth’s article about the American TV series The Wire is the best thing I have yet seen on that important subject. The news about The Wire has spread too slowly in Britain, where the show is apparently considered, by the channel controllers, as a hot potato, perhaps because of its race issues. I first became aware of the show on one of my working visits to Australia in 2007. I saw only a single episode, but was immediately hooked: an appropriate word for a story that has narcotics coming out of its ears. Back in Britain I bought boxes of the first three seasons.