MORE ON MENEZES

Courtesy of Yvonne's blog, which I recommend taking a look at, yet more questions about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Many of the statements quoted in the article appear to be made up of allegation, supposition and speculation, so one needs to read carefully, but if nothing else it shows how contradictory witness statements can be, and there are some useful cross-references. It can be found on, erm, yes, Wikipedia. Mea culpa.

I've stopped reeening on about it and edited the entry on Kidnapped.

And there's this article in the Guardian on the explosion in blogging, which makes me consider that just because one can burble on endlessly about trivia, it doesn't mean one should. Save your energy for the good stuff. The web seems to give endless licence to, well, practically everything, and it's so easy to get distracted. Harlan Ellison cites this as his principal reason for staying off-line, and I have some sympathy for his argument. (Ah, the exhilaration of being carried along in the wake of those sweeping Ellisonian statements!) I spent a good ten minutes the other day watching the wee extracts from Battle of the Planets on the BBC cult TV website, and wondered afterwards what on earth I was doing. Of course, one man's meat, etc, but the amount of self-discipline required is quite incredible. There's a Quaker maxim which runs something along the lines of, before you say anything, consider first of all whether or not it really needs to be said. The rest is silence.