Why life must go on as normal

Odd sort of time, isn't it? Like the gap between exams and the results but writ so large as to be on an apocalyptic scale. Day to day everything seems pretty much as it was before, except we now know a lot more about Afghanistan. But all the time there's this shadow, lurking, that might define our entire future. Or lack of it. And everything we plan is conditional.

Maybe all wars start in this same unreal fashion and, when you look back, it will be but a blink of an eye.

But you forget for a while. Our leaders urge us to get on with our lives, and we dutifully do so, go shopping, get preoccupied with trivia and getting the car serviced, checking the football results, and planning next year's garden.

Then something reminds you that there are still a few thousand bodies to be cleared out of the New York rubble. And a former colleague has been arrested by the Taliban. And you wonder whether it was worth buying those bulbs. At the very least, maybe we should be planting vegetables instead.

As the Chinese curse has it, we live in interesting times.

But panicking will get us nowhere. Americans apparently are rushing out and buying televisions, convinced that whatever happens The Simpsons and Oprah and the electricity supply will continue as normal. So if you've bought yourself a gas mask, don't stare at it and fret. Stick it in the back of the cupboard and forget about it.

Or, even better-- plant some daffodil bulbs in it and give yourself something to look forward to.

IN the meantime, the good news. GNER are going to have No Phone Carriages on their trains.

About time too. I know in the current sum of human misery, annoying phone calls don't even merit a flea bite, but the closest I ever got to murder (and it was frighteningly close) was having to share a table with three Durham business students returning from a round of interviews in London. Their self-esteem was so sickening, their opinions so appalling and voices were so loud , they didn't need phones and they yah-yah'd all the way up from King's Cross, while the rest of the carriage glared, ground teeth and went incandescent with frustrated fury. The phone ban will probably do a great deal to lower the blood pressure of the travelling public.

The No Phone Carriages will also be No Stereo and No Computer Games.

Great. All we need now is No Eating Very Smelly and Messy Picnics on Shared Table Carriages and train travel will once again be a pleasure.

RAJ and Shahan Hashmi have failed to find a suitable bone marrow donor to save the life of their two-year-old son. They want permission to create a designer baby that could save him.

Opponents have said it is not right, not fair on the designer child who will have to live with the knowledge that he or she was created simply to supply bone marrow.

If that child is loved for himself as well, surely there can't be a problem at all? It can't be any worse than for all those children who know they are only here because their mum had too much red wine at the Christmas party.

Better still to be wanted for your bone marrow than tragic Lauren Wright, not wanted at all.

TWIGGY is a great person. When she was the star of the 1960s she still remained funny and down to-earth and immensely likeable. What's more, she made the transition from model to actress and gave easy, chatty, modest interviews.

But she's no live television host.

Her short stay on the This Morning sofa has proved pretty disastrous and now she's gone after just four weeks and Fern Britton's getting pulled back in early from maternity leave.

Sitting on a sofa chatting looks easy enough, but you would have thought, that television bosses of all people, would have realised that, like so many things that appear easy, it's actually a job for a professional.

A STUDENT is suing her school for £150,000 because bad teaching meant she had only an E rather than an A in A-level Latin because she had a teacher who basically didn't know what he was doing, which is, to be fair, rotten bad luck.

However, she still got into her first choice university, so what's the problem? There's all sorts of bad luck in exams and teaching. Only the very few, very lucky people get all their subjects taught by the best teachers. No, it's not fair. But life isn't.

And that's one important lesson this classical scholar doesn't yet seem to have grasped.

CHILDREN who walk to school are brighter, healthier and more alert, says a new study to promote Walk to School Week.

Tell that to the children of Holy Cross in North Belfast.

The shouting, the chanting, the jeering might have gone from the front pages but it still goes on. The mother of one four-year-old said this week "This is Megan's first term at school and this is all she has seen. She thinks this is normal."

Even against the background of September 11, that is a desperately depressing comment on our society.

ANOTHER piece of good news this week (there is some, honest) is that, after an overwhelming vote from shoppers, smoking is now banned in the Hill Street Centre in Middlesbrough.

Smoking in the street is bad enough. In enclosed shopping centres, however airy, it is much worse and adds to a dingy, unappealing atmosphere.

Let's hope other shopping centres will soon give us a breath of fresh air.

TOMORROW is National Poetry Day. Just the spur to read a poem, write a poem. Best of all, learn a poem off by heart.

Dear Sharon,

I am one of those people who don't drive and likes to pay cash for everything so I have no credit card either. I have not been abroad for many years and only ever had a one-year passport - long-expired. Because of this, I cannot prove who I am often made to feel I don't exist. I would welcome identity cards as it would make my life easier. People who have nothing to hide have nothing to be afraid of. At least I should be all right later this year when I qualify for my bus pass.

J. Dobson, Darlington

Dear Sharon,

Please spare a thought for families of those in the forces. While other people are getting on with their lives thinking life might stay normal, it won't be for soldiers, sailors and airmen.Because budgets have been cut right back in recent years, many of our forces aren't properly equipped. They are stretched to the limit. As was proved on September 11th, we never know when an enemy might strike and defence should be the first priority of any state.

Mr Barker, Darlington

Published: Wednesday, October 03, 2001