NOT SO LONG ago, I lived in paradise. A luxury apartment on the Gold Coast. I still remember waking up every morning to the sea and sky. All that blue felt like heaven. The elevator doors flinging open, a sublime gateway, right into the apartment 360 degree views of the world and floor-to-ceiling white timber shutters which rolled to ward off the wind that comes with being so high. I couldn’t afford the view. An interior decorator was looking after me. I was a poet close to the poverty line. I was overambitious. Chained – albeit half-willingly – to my garret.

In 440BC, Herodotus said that in the ancient tower of Babylon a single native woman was chosen by the deity for himself out of all the women in the land. She could be found in a spacious temple on the topmost tower beside a golden table on a gilded couch of “unusual size”.