Barney

We've recently taken to naming our bigger storms. I don't quite see the point, but perhaps it facilitates discourse to personalise these things. Last night a storm called Barney blew accross. There's something faintly amusing about a storm called Barney- Barney being such a genial, fat-faced sort of a name. Anyway it suited him. He made a bit of a noise and then was gone; something of a non-event, really. I was going to say he hadn't done any damage but then Ailz noticed that one of the ornamental trees in the front garden was leaning sideways.

P.S. Matthew says the tree has always leaned like that. Maybe. I'm not so sure.

Why?

My mother keeps asking "Why does Cameron want to bomb Syria?"

How do you answer that?

I'm settling for, "Because there's a civil war in progress and he wants to join in."

Seriously. Two years ago he was all for bombing Assad in support of the rebels. Now he's all for bombing the rebels in support of Assad (though he'd still like to bomb Assad as well.)

No, I don't know what Cameron should do instead. But of all the options open to him bombing is the most facile and futile. We should have learned from our own experience (during the second world war and after) that nothing so strengthens a people's will and enflames their fighting spirit as being bombed.