2003-01-13 - 6:28 p.m.

After a hangover-addressing breakfast on Saturday morning at one of the local coronary-jockeys, I returned to find my road completely sealed off to traffic (it�s a big, busy main road), and being policed by the, er, police to the tune of about eight vans, a few cars and a helicopter which had landed in the park opposite. There were also several huge waste disposal lorries with a logo I didn�t recognise on the side, looking suspiciously like the kind of vehicles that undercover special services units assume they look inconspicuous in. There was a fresh faced, young looking rozzer stood around trying his best to look authoritative, so I put the question of what had happened to him. �An old lady�s been knocked down,� he offered. Riiiiiiight. Because that WOULD require enough police to start a new branch of the masons and all those suspect looking big scary vans, right? Listen, if there�s sexy police-on-terrorist action going down, shouldn�t the police at least be using it as propaganda to garner sympathy for the war? What a missed opportunity. Apparently there was a ricin seizure, which, as we all know from our deadly narcotics fashion supplements this season, is the new anthrax. Given how crowded the tube was this morning, it was kind of disappointing that it got busted.