HST was one of the things that got me into journalism - I hero-worshipped the guy, along with Michael Herr, Nick Tomalin, Tom Wolfe, Don McCullin, Tim Page and all that generation of writers and photographers who had the temerity to look the system in the face and describe brutally and beautifully the ugliness they saw.
Trouble is, the reality of my own vaulting ambition was to spend about six years sitting through local council meetings, agricultural shows and the nitty-gritty of regional journalism before I could start to behave badly.
The rest is possibly best left unsaid, but HST was a very welcome and very bad influence!