Haiti

Of Haiti's current horror, what can one say? What can one do? I would love to fly out there to the rubble of Port au Prince, find one devastated family and bring them back to our house, look after them, feed them, keep them warm until returning seemed safe and sensible. But the authorities would never allow such a thing.

Those collapsed shanty towns. Those people digging desperately with their bare hands. Those poor Haitians with their desperate history and their broken economy. Those neighbours lost. Those uncles and cousins, sons and sisters, mothers and grandmothers wrapped in tattered blankets and left on the kerb for collection vehicles. Those mysterious ways of that heartless "God".

Like millions of others I will donate money to the Haitian earthquake appeal and hope it does just a little good. Meanwhile, we live with our minuscule worries, our holiday plans, our New Year's resolutions, our bills, our appointments, our quarrels, our ideas for tonight's dinner. It's all nothing - meaningless compared with what has happened in Haiti.

I urge fellow bloggers to give generously. We are all earthlings.