2002-09-12 - 12:05 a.m.

Not seeing any media before lunch, head hunched down all morning in the murky trenches of ads selling second hand delights such as robot arms (which surely is a fatuous buy unless you have to manipulate raw uranium on a regular basis?), I�d kind of forgotten what day it was. I was quickly reminded when I got locked inside the bank at lunchtime and we were forced to observe a minute�s silence by the Department for Displays of Public Grief (or is it the Sympathy Tsar?), who somehow feel that this is an appropriate thing to do, which in some ways it could be, but the way it feels is that we�re getting our �caring� out of the way in one handy bite-size chunk. I finished filling in (out?) my paying-in slip, and could only think of how the lives of those poor people who died last year had been totally fucking cheapened in every respect in the last twelve months, in every repetition of the footage, in every twelve-page colour photo retrospective (ie. all the same photos as last year�s issue) pullout that the newspapers are churning out to save on reporting actual news. I wanted to think about them, but I didn�t want to be told HOW to think about them, or when.

I also thought a little bit about the million and a half innocent Iraqis, including 750,000 children under five that UNICEF has confirmed the United States Government has effectively murdered since 1990 (and, by association, the UK � don�t get me wrong). Equally tragic. But where�s THEIR twelve page colour supplement? Where�s �Dead Iraqi Babies � The Photos!� Don�t they deserve a glossy magazine and self-righteous comment too? Of course not. You see how that would be ridiculous and�full of nothing.

I can�t imagine what some of you have been through in the last twelve months. This day last year was fucking obscene. But then, so is every single life lost in this thing.

I put my headphones on for the walk back to the office as seemingly every charity known to man was hitting us newly guilt-ridden plebs for cash, including one to do with dolphins, though I�m not sure any sea mammals were actually harmed at the WTC bombings. Perhaps a bit of one was found in a tuna sandwich? Who�s to say? Keeping my head down, a shockingly persistent young girl nevertheless started verbally lambasting me as I approached, standing right in front of me and forcing me to take my headphones off to listen to whatever it was she wanted me to feel bad about � one minute, Belle and Sebastian, the next, her hysterical high-pitched yelping. It was kind of like: ��♫stars of track and field you are♫�(rustle rustle)�WORLD PEACE!?!?!� It may have been something to do with her green apparel, but I distinctly processed what she�d said as �WHIRLED PEAS!?!?� and I thought perhaps I was about to be asked to participate in a taste test for some new, mechanically rotated vegetable product. It took a full second to realise she was harping on about the salvation of humankind. It was touching that she thought my coins might change the fact that we�re pretty much fucked from here on in, but I didn�t want to get into it, so I mumbled something about being late (which I now actually WAS, thanks to the silence) and pottered on.

I�m going to Italy for a few days. I wish you all peace. Or, if you prefer, peas.