To be honest I’m not sorry to say I’m as jaded and cynical as Arthur is.

People I can relate to I feel loss for, people I know I feel grief for, but, whilst it is sad to hear of any of these tragedies in far flung locations, where do you stop with your ’emotive outpouring’ and how much of it really is pandering to ones own self-image as a good and caring member of the human race?!.

I mean isn’t the plight of murdered IDP’s in Grozny’s camps equally as tragic as Perm or how about the deaths of the 60 South Africans killed in internal unrest in the townships a few months back?. How about the numerous street children of the Philipines that are preyed upon and perish every month utterly unregarded?. Is it only worth your empathy and sympathy when the tragedy is spread over the global media?. Or do you just accept a default position and weep uncontrollably for the whole sorry mess?!.

….or do you sigh, wonder what the hell the sense is in any of it, and crack on with the important things in your life that you can influence.

Maybe crocodile tears is a touch patronising of Arthur but it does seem to fit doesnt it?!.