It has taken me all night to think how to reply to you, Ebbie. "move to a better place" I think you are telling me. Believe me I have thought long and hard about it, though it would mean leaving everything I have worked for and starting again. That is what my grandfather (a Lithuanian Jew) did, and what all those illegal immigrants clinging beneath the cross-channel train are trying to do. Everyone leaves instead of trying to sort out their own mess, and the vast shifting population makes it easier for the bad'uns to carry out their work anonymously. What I'm advocating is a return to village-type communities, with modern technology providing communication and relieving us of much of the need to commute. Each person would then be familiar and accountable to his/her neighbours. The cities have swollen until they are no longer viable and a change must come. If we are really going to be plunged into war (Heaven forbid) we will find our huge cities are the worst places to be. I think I'll stay and defend my vegetable patch.

By the way, I'm not in some thrid-world country, just in a poor district of your average British town.