Friday, 23rd January, 2009

Happiness is not having to go to the Big Day Out. The teenagers went off this morning, bless them, to this annual event and I know they will be having a fabulous time leaping around to the music in 30 degrees heat amongst thousands of their peers and hundreds of St. John's Ambulance Brigade personnel, not to mention Security.

In the olden days the word "security" used to have a comforting ring about it: the insurance man would come around on his bicycle once a month and collect the two and sixpence premium, receipt of which he carefully recorded in a little book, and cycle off again, whistling cheerfully. The family then was secure in the knowledge that should the breadwinner cark it, there would be funds available to pay for the funeral and maybe even some cucumber sandwiches afterwards. That was security.

Say "security" to me now and I have an instant image of a hard-nosed, stern-looking bloke in a dark uniform who looks upon me not only as if I am a criminal but as though he would have no qualms about killing me if he had half a chance. I have no idea what these people are supposed to be protecting me from and if their presence is meant to reassure me in some way, then they are failing miserably.

Much jubilation today when Barack Obama signed a piece of paper to the effect that America wouldn't be involved in the torture of prisoners under interrogation. Of course this is good news but one cannot help feeling that this should have been taken as read, that one wouldn't for a moment imagine that a supposedly civilised nation would ever engage in such barbaric practices. Haven't read the small print but does this mean the CIA is giving up extraordinary rendition, too? Seems hard to believe - maybe so many years of the Bush administration means that I have become a little cynical.

But very good news that a terrible chapter in America's history will end with the closing of Guantanamo Bay within the year. Interesting that of the 775 inmates, only three were charged and convicted, one of them for the awful crime of being Osama Bin Laden's chauffeur. (One has to be very careful when looking through the Positions Vacant column these days!).