On tragedy, banality and comedy

Time to stop navel gazing and look at how much more sick and inexplicable the rest of the world is. The growing trend of kids planning school massacres via chat rooms makes my own junior school dreams of organising a mass walk out seem rather paltry. What is the world coming to? And why do I sound more like my father everyday when I ask this? Perhaps I am morphing back into a female version of a grumpy army officer past his sell by date.

But there is good news out there too, albeit in the most unexpected guise … prisoners earning credibility and honest lucre through their embroidery work - high class and best quality - according to Libby Purves and her interviewee this morning. "After all, they have the time to become very good because most of them spend at least 19 hours a day in their cells." A comment that makes the happy ending less joyful.

Meanwhile in this Francophile world of ours, Sarkhozy upsets train drivers, civil servants and parents who have to deal with the consequences when teachers decide to get in on the argument. Lucy called from school yesterday (a rare occurrence) to warn me that I would be getting letters about her absence, because she had been on strike too. What can I say? In principle I support her and the fundamental right to freedom of speech, though in reality suspect that the French penchant for walking out or dumping piles of poo on government doorsteps (if you are a farmer with access to tons of it) may not be altogether helpful for its ailing economy. Having said that, a recent cartoon image of Sarkhy wearing a Thatcher style wig sent shivers down my spine. Give me a placard, I'm marching.

And so onto to even more depressing subjects - the BBC World story about two internet lovers in America. A virtual love fest based on false identities - he, supposedly a fit 18 year old and she the female version of the same. Nothing new in that you might say, except that this time an additional member was lured in and ultimately murdered. Tragic enough, but perhaps even more tragic because he was the only one telling the truth.

Yesterday I went to the hair dresser (also a rare occurrence) and found myself sitting next to the mother of an ex-school friend of Lucy's (an even rarer occurrence in this particular case - I may navel gaze, but this woman is so up herself that I suspect the short and curlys currently undergoing a serious renaissance may not be all the seem). Inevitably we ask the inevitable questions about each other's daughter and inevitably I enjoy watching Madame Doctor's wife squirm when I tell her how well Lucy is doing - much better (in numbers at least) than the other one. Hey! I only do this under provocation! The real crunch comes (the best bit of all) when our beloved hairdresser tells us that we share the same hair colour. Eyes flick to mirrors and I catch a smirk in mine, but it's all prunes and sucking lemons in the other. Having to sit next to me in the same salon is mildly irritating. Discovering that my (the mad English woman with terrible dress sense) daughter is in fact out performing hers is uncomfortable, but being told that we are sharing the same hair colour is clearly intolerable. The small talk stops there.

Today Paul is doing his Rotary bit for humanity by standing in the (hopefully heated) doorway of a local supermarket and handing out plastic bags that shoppers will hopefully fill for people less fortunate than themselves. It's a bit banal, especially when ranked alongside the catastrophic effects of the recent floods in Bangladesh, but a positive action and certainly more than this cynical scribe is prepared to do.

Trivia …
We are about to enrol in the local gym, which I am sure I will regret.
Have started to meditate again
Wedding photos arrived but don't have the courage to look at them after counting wrinkles in the hairdresser's mirrors
It's raining again