I'm from the eastern end of the East Lancs Road so don't expect me to symapathise with Scousers;-)

Seriously though. How can anyone who didn't know the unfortunate Mr Bigley realy grieve for him? I have grieved for my Grandparents, my step-Dad, my friends, my sons friends, my cats and numerous other entities all with one thing in common. I knew them. They affected my life. My world was not as complete as it was before their demise. I cannot grieve for Ken Bigley his death has not affected me in the slightest.

I can be saddend by his death and more so by its circumstances. I can commiserate with the people who did know him. I can understand their grief because I know how it feels. But come on, people die every second of every minute of every hour. A lot in more tragic circumstances than Ken Bigleys.

Now, that out of the way, to the article. The Spectator is a magazine. What is it's job? To inform people? To entertain people?? To sell copy??? Well, it seems to have suceeded on all these fronts! I very rarely agree with anything in the press simply because I don't buy it. I refuse to buy anything that is purposely trying to tell me how I should think. I have enough of that without paying for it!

However, if I have the gist of the artilce right it is criticising the 'people of Liverpool', or shoud we say the handful that chose to say anything out of the many millions that didn't. Is this right? If so, well, yes. I agree with it. Those people who are making these claims of grief and solidarity are not doing so out of the goodness of their hearts. Only Bigleys close friends and family can do this. Anyone else is just jumping on the bandwagon for their own nefarious purposes. Usualy political in my experience.

Too cynical? Well, perhaps. But that's the way I see it. I'll publicaly declare my grief when it is real. But to declare grief that you don't feel for someone you don't know? Come on! Who is being cynical now?

Cheers

DtG