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2 September

I'm not often lost for words but something seems to have happened to me in the last week or so. There were all sorts of things I thought of writing about here, from the joy of picking wild mushrooms in the woods (what I was up to on Saturday) to various bits and pieces of interest and silliness I've garnered from the internet. But somehow it hasn't happened.

Oddly, I think it's the events in Russia that have stayed my hand. Or maybe that's not odd at all. Im pretty hardened to the grim horrors of the news agenda but I am pretty much lost for words, and thoughts, about this one. I'm even having trouble reading some of it. It's a dreadful journalistic cliche to call something like this an 'incomprehensible tragedy', but I actually can't comprehened the thought processes of someone who is prepared to shoot fleeing children in the back in the name of a political cause. It's just beyond me.

It's very depressing, and it seems to have combined with the effect of a TV drama I saw the week before to work some sort of depressive magic on me. 'The Hamburg Cell', if any of you saw it, was a dramatisation of the events leading up to September 11th, with the terrorists as its central characters. It was a brilliant piece of TV (and how often do we get the chance to say that these days?) but it, too, was deeply depressing (it also had the disturbing effect of almost making me support internment at Guantamo Bay, but that's another story...!)

What the hell. Sometimes the world just appears to be so huge, evil and overwhelming that it seems pointless doing anything. I think I'm in danger of burning out. Fortunately I'm going on holiday next week. Phew.

Posted by paul at September 2, 2004 09:39 AM

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