The War of Arab Eradication proceeds proceds apace, as forseen by my favourite local sage, McNostradamus of Coupar Anxious, the perpetually perplexed proprietor of the town's Centre for Confused Citizens and ex-traffic wardens. Bodies have been piling up all over the Middle East since my last entry in this journal and only yesterday have the UN finally agreed on a preliminary resolution to slow down the slaughter in Israel and Lebanon.

The fighting continues of course, at least through Saturday, presumably to let the Israelis celebrate Sabbath, and presumably for many Fridays and Saturdays to come to let both sides seek salvation for the minor misdemeanour of slaughtering their neighbours, or in the Arab's case, their fellow co-religionists. The West of course will ring their hands and take the blame from both sides and the various factions, fractions and frictions continue their good work towards whatever the next stage of human misery will bring.

And there have been developments on the Home Front too. The Bank of England, hardly a body one might expect to be in the front line of the War Against the Ungodly (or Other-Godly) tells us that it has sequestered the assets of nineteeen (repeat nineteen, 19) British Citizens, who apparently, allegedly, and just possibly, were planning to use liquid explosives in baby bottles to blow up airliners from the UK as the arrived over American cities.

The Bank's announcement followed so promptly after the arrest of these same citizens and the complete disruption of airports all over the UK that one can only speculate that their information is based on legions of under-cover bank managers risking their pin-stripe pensions on missions of extremely dangerous double-entry accounting.

When the Bank of England weighs in, the days of Happy Islam in the UK, or anywhere else for that matter, are strictly numbered. Obviously its relatively recent freedom from Government Control has emboldened it to let the public have a glimpse of the tremendous power it has at its disposal. I would confidently predict that the days of sending the odd postal order back to Karachi to keep the aged parents in supplies of heating oil are strictly numbered.

Which brings me neatly, almost, to the tragic deaths of four penguins in Texas. Their transport which was carrying them from one internment camp to another, crashed on some lonely highway, spilling them on to the road together with a miscellaneous collection of fish in plastic bags.

Well of course the rest is speculation, or will be until the Houston CSI publish the result of their team of specialst crime reconstructors and flightless avian forensics wizards.

Some of the unfortunate fish perished immediately when their bags burst, or soon after. The penguins, presumably delighted at their freedom, and with a free lunch thrown in, or at least at them, had a brief discussion as to what to do next. A faction, led by a gentu penguin whose ancestors trekked across the antarctic for their summer holidays, set out for the nearest place of civilisation and cold feet, presumably France, but were unfortunately slaughtered some distance down the road.

The rest, described as "somewhat confused", although how one can tell a confused penguin from an un-confused one baffles me, were found huddling together in a ditch, desperately trying to use a mobile phone to ring Gotham City and get a taxi rather than a taxidermist. I exaggerate: there were no taxis available.

Of course we must keep a sense of proportion about such events. What, after all, in the grand scheme of things, are the lives of four penguins, the arrest of twenty four teeny-bombers, and the deaths of thousands of Lebanese, Israelis, Iraqi's and Afghanis? A mere bagatelle? Well not to those who have been killed or their families and friends. What does it matter that the collective suffering quotient rises as rapidly as gasoline prices as long as we remain content that we are doing our best to spread democracy, goodwill and Cocoa-Cola around the planet?