With lickspittle wearing a little thin, I thought George might appreciate some new material for his dictionary of archaic idiom. I can hear sneak thievery slavering from his lips in his Glaswegian drawl - actually the image is so real maybe he already said it. Jackass and popinjay could prove useful for self-descriptive purposes - any suggestions for a word to represent his bling thing?

It's back to business as usual in Britain. I have a new resolve - I'm going to see if I can write our way out of this morass. Not me alone, nobody is that arrogant, but me and everyone I can encourage to join me. It is possible to fix things. Think local, think sustainable, think switching off the light when you leave the room. Most important, think positive and drink lots of water for the concentration.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 1: Very few people are baying for blood - I admit to cushioning myself against fascism and extremism by not reading those newspapers so I could be missing something. But from where I'm sitting, people are calm, reasonable and determined to get on with things. Due process will take care of the rest (we hope - things have been known to go wrong on that score but let's be positive).

POSITIVE THOUGHT 2: Bono is right, celebrity is currency and I'm glad he's spending it wisely.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 3: I have no celebrity but I can write so that's what I'll do. Let's use our powers of persuasion, in the best language in the world, to talk to the people who hate us, resent us, fear us - and don't know us. The news coverage of the bombs surprised everybody in Saudi it seems - they had no idea that London was such a multicultural place - they thought it was full of proper white English people that say things like golly gosh. So, now that they know what we look like, let's build on it. Let's not wait for more bombs to reveal our true colours, let's take the debate to them.

POSITIVE THOUGHT 4: the sun is shining and it's a bountiful day