How can the USA hold people for two years without access to lawyers, loved ones or human rights, and the UK government set them all free within 48 hours? And what drives anyone to do what they did in Madrid?

I’ll be happy when we leave the UK. Flying to the USA, but not on British Airways, United or American Airlines; staying in the US, but not in the major cities; flying to Australia, but not on QANTAS; living just outside a smaller Australian city, with our own water supply and a long way from any terrorist targets.

Sure, I’m worried, somewhere underneath the day-to-day. The UK, and probably the Tube, is widely expected to be hit. All the Madrid trains went through the same outdoor station; one person could have planted all the bombs with pre-calculated timings, and the same could happen here. It’s (apparently) easy to kill, though I can’t fathom why anyone who understands the value of life would want to.

London, in a country whose government supported the last war, has so many people that an attack seems inevitable. (The IRA managed it many times.) But terrorism is unpredictable. Any small crackpot group can claim to “have links to Al-Qaida”, and all a bombing near you takes is a few determined local nutbags. As we live in a global village these days, that means that nutbags anywhere can cause trouble.

If we all live in fear of a global terrorist organisation (like KAOS from Get Smart) then “they” are winning. If “they” are a coherent force at all.