Eye Watering Sucker Punch (Tuesday)

It's funny when it catches you - you're so used to shrugging off all the horrific incidents which saturate our media savvy world that when you're caught with your Yesman guard down and actually listen to the human stories going on behind the reports, it takes you by surprise.

I had the radio on in the car and was listening some journalist describe how he'd been shot in Saudi Arabia. He described how his assailant had approached with a smile and "Peace be upon you" before pulling out a gun and, after a futile attempt to run, fired a magazine of bullets into him - each one thumping into the core of his body at point blank range. This is gruesome stuff and all very nasty, bla-de-bla, but what got me was as this was happening to him, he looked up and could just see pure hatred in this guy's face. I found myself imagining the pure "oh f*ck-ness" of looking up at someone, so filled with hate, accumulated through their life's experience and influences, that they are willing to pump 15 bullets into you as you lie helpless on the ground.

I think it's helplessness of it all - thinking of all the numerous events over the centuries, not just the last decade, that lead to that Saudi developing that degree of hatred and how it will never stop. The seeds of the next conflict are already germinating in this "war on terror", so even when they pull out, the ruins will breed yet more hatred and our "western values" will be under threat again, allowing our leaders to fire us up, 'cos "something must be done" - madness.