Kirsty - April 25th, 2004 Hi everyone, and welcome to this weeks (or month… or fortnightly… whatever! Hey, I do write this – eventually.) Firstly, I gotta ask y’all a favour. The Delays album – Faded Seaside Glamour… does anyone know where to get the lyrics? I’ve searched the net for hours and they don’t have the lyrics anywhere… And yeah, I have looked in the album cover, haha. So, any help will be appreciated; You could email me :P Thanks. OK, OK, here we are… Trust is a weird thing. My friend was talking to me earlier about how her boyfriend cheated on her and now they’ve split up. She didn’t know a thing about it, until a friend of hers found out and told her. I think she’s gonna be okay now. Hey, we all know how it feels, right? They were together a long time. How could anyone do that to someone who you’ve shared secrets with, that you’re supposed to be in love with, consider a friend as well, and that you’ve been through a lot with? On the news you hear of “family friends” murdering the children or the people they know. How? Plunging the knife or pulling the trigger, or however they do it; HOW can they do it, years of trust and friendship, gone, just like that? I have to think about killing a spider if I can’t get it back out the door safely. But that’s just me. When we all say (because, come on, we have all said it) “I could kill you” or “Drop dead” … Ever regret it after? I did it once with my mom, and later on in the day she collapsed at work and was in hospital for days. Freaky. Back onto trust though. I’ve probably talked about it before. I apologise but, it’s a topic that means a lot to me. If you want to get your fortune told, palm read, whatever, then you have to trust the person you go to, to an extent. When they ask for money, you hand it over, right? Decency, or are you believing every word they say? They could be taking you for a fool – You don’t know. I’ve trusted people who’ve lied and done other stuff, but people are like that. You get over it. You have to trust people – If you don’t then you can’t live life! You trust your government to protect you and your country, your family, your friends… You all get hurt but you rebuild the trust. But people do some things, like murder and theft or whatever it is, to elderly people (don’t they have grandparents?!) or to their own family or a friend… The word “wrong” comes to mind. The last few times I’ve written this column, I’ve written about serious things, current affairs and what have you… So next time, I might just talk about socks… It’ll be like that game, “Just a minute”… Y’know, you talk about one subject without repetition or anything… Maybe not socks… Donuts? Suggestions welcome. Right, thanks for reading; I’m off to watch the footie. Kirst x

Jon - May 28th, 2004 So, the French have had it pretty rough, wouldn't you say? Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the quality of building for the Athens olympics later in the year, Charles De Gaulle airport terminal 2E came crashing down, and at least 5 people are dead. 5 people. 5 people out of 6 billion does not seem like a tragedy. But here's where you have to use your mathematical power to work out why this is a tragedy. Suppose for each of those people they have 2 children. Those 2 children will have to grow up with the knowledge that one of their parents, who would do anything for them to be safe, will not be coming home that night. Suppose, from those 5 people, they are still young enough for their parents to be alive. It is every parents nightmare to outlive their children; it's not natural. Suppose each parent has 2 siblings. Already, how many people have been effected? The chain will then continue through friends and co-workers who they may have been closer to than their family. Possibly hundreds of people will have been effected by the death of five people. That, my friends, is a tragedy. But I am amazed by the way the rest of Europe has done a complete U-Turn now that they have been hit by this bizarre disaster. Throughout the conflict in Iraq, how many European governments have you seen criticising France? Remember why they're criticising France. For trying to save their soldier's lives. "Oh look, France are surrendering. What kind of fighters are you?" At least they went, and did probably a better job than any American could do. Now that this airport terminal has collapsed, all of a sudden; "Oh my goodness, this is terrible! Our loveable French neighbours have been effected by a disaster!" Funny that. It's amazing what a tragedy can do. Did anyone notice that the only thing that ran David Beckham off the front page in Spain, was a terrorist attack? I'm amazed Mr. Blair hasn't jumped in to this and accused Al-Qaeda of bombing the French airport. Since 9/11, the world has gone into absolute panic. And why? Because everyone everywhere is paranoid. And if you're not, the government arrest you on the grounds of being a spy, a terrorist, or an assassin. But the constant threat of terrorism is effecting everyone's way of life. What does this mean? It means the terrorists have won. And it's the soft governments that are doing nothing decent in Iraq who are letting them win. I do sometimes wonder who has the ultimate control in world. The governments do nothing to help, but instead carry on taking money from the public, who simply aren't given the chance to speak up and tell it how they see it. Step aside, government. Stop telling us how to run our own lives, and trying to be the nation's parents. That's all I have to say.