Fear.
WTF is the matter with me? The minute I sat down to write something my stomach clenched up and I felt peculiar. For god's sake.

Anyway - even though my plan is to be up-beat this year, (always a signal for much low level dreariness to ensue), I am going to write today about the tsun@m1.

I much enjoyed an interview with T0ny Bl@ir on TV last night conducted by a senior journalist who obviously hated him. TB is tactlessly refusing to interrupt his holiday and the journalist had to fly out to Egypt to speak to him. 'We are all wondering why you decided not to return when you normally like to take a major role on sad occasions, like that of P... Diana's funer@l. Where you were very much to the fore and even coined the expression 'People's Pr1nc3ss', the journalist said through gritted teeth. TB had the shifty, flicky-eyed look of GWB and waffled about being in constant phone communication. He obviously isn't sure what the most popular position to take would be or how much money to give and is waiting for it to become clear. The BBC is afraid of the government at the moment as their charter is coming up for renewal but managed to write on teletext, 'PM continues holiday while money pledged by the British public exceeds that promised by government'. Ahhh .. small pleasures.

One thing he said though was, 'There can hardly be a person in the country who does not have some connection with this tragedy'. 'Really?', I thought, 'Is that possible?'. But then maybe that IS true. Those regions are incredibly popular with Northern Europeans and the first choice for students and Gap year travellers. All my children have been out there on several occasions and we are personally linked to THREE different people who were actually there. I will now list these as a matter of interest:

The son of our close friends in this village was in Sri L@nka on his honeymoon and they had just gone upstairs to their hotel room when the wave struck and filled the first two floors.
The girl who rents a flat from my husband in London had gone out on a boat trip and thought the sea was unusually choppy. When they returned their holiday village was destroyed.
My younger daughter's old schoolfriend - who now lives on a small Tha1 island permanently, working as a diving instructor, and who the children stayed with last Spring - had not gone out that morning. But all her friends who had are missing.
One of the men who was definitely swept away was the husband of a woman I used to see across the room at parties all the time, years ago.
And on the exact same day a year before my older daughter was living in a wooden house on a beach in Ind1a where there is now no one left alive.



- posted by Iris @ 1/02/2005 10:13:00 AM comment