And so it goes on...

The first death. And the two cops gone down. This story certainly knows how to spiral.

You wonder how ordinary people can become so used to a course of action that they stop noticing it is a sordid crime.

Everything becomes normal if everyone does it for long enough. There is no need to go through the whole psychological process from A to Z: you just think A and Z appears. And there is a thrill in the pace and effectiveness of it all that cancels out any faint remaining trace of the alphabet that first presented itself. There is no sense of guilt providing you keep going, only the exhilaration of the repeated act. There might even be the prospect of justification. You have to do all this to catch the guilty. Down these mean streets, etc.

And down could go Boris, and take Dave with him. Not that that would be cause for long term rejoicing because government instability in a financial crisis still playing itself out is not going to improve matters. But then these things have their own momentum.

Late this morning a neighbour called round asking me to help him lift something in the kitchen. They have fly paper hanging from the ceiling, with a fair few dead flies stuck to it. 'It was some time before we caught the first fly, but the rest quickly followed. Must be a social thing,' he said.