By Michael Bywater, h2g2 Staff Enforcer

He is an unlikely hero for the closing months of the second millennium, but, closeted in his luxury hideaway clinging limpet-like to a Provençal hillside or coteau - a French word which French people use to mean "hillside" when speaking to each other in their language, French - the man they call "Mister Smack-In-The-Face" is taut, elegant, alert, somehow... linear.

Clad elegantly in his elegant clothes, "Smackie" (as
he is known to his few close friends) is a difficult man to reach; unapproachable,
detached, self-contained, reclusive, hermit-like, surrounded by an almost-impenetrable
wall of security. You might almost say he is elusive. And Smackie knows his
own power, insisting (for example) on full copy approval for any interview.

"That's right," says Smackie, "and you can see why. For a start, I never gave you permission to call me 'Smackie'. Plus there are several grammatical mistakes in the first two paragraphs of your 'interview', as well as a non-sequitur, a tautology and a glaring ambiguity. I mean, it looks as if you're saying I am clinging to a Provençal hillside. I am not. I do not cling. I have people to cling for me. Okay? I mean, it's just sloppy writing. That's the trouble with this damned Internet nonsense: any little counter-jumper with a laptop and a modem thinks he's all set to be the second Alistair Cooke. Feh."

With that, Mister Smack-In-The-Face sprays himself lightly with Annick Goutal Sables, licks delicately at a perfect pomegranate, and smacks me in the face.

It is almost a privilege. The fist is bunched, gnarled, trans-sonic,
tumescent. Propelled from the shoulder, the blow is at once brutal yet caressing.
Mister Smack-In-The-Face's muscles ripple beneath his elegant cotton "Man-At-C&A"-style
shirt. The air is suffused with the unmistakeable aroma of lots
of money. As I am carried away into the waiting ambulance - luxurious,
private; nothing but the best for Mister Smack-In-The-Face's guests - I find
myself reflecting: is "Smackie" living proof that the
great question of good and evil can be resolved in the person of
one very private, very reclusive, yet deeply violent man?