Diary

I got a phone call this evening from someone who withheld their number.

It was a young woman's voice. She told me my daughter is pregnant and then hung up.

The malice of certain individuals baffles me. I can see no reason for wanting to do such a thing.

Someone once phoned me late at night, when I was very ill nd on the waiting list for heart surgery, addressed me by name and told me my TV licence hadn't been paid and that if I didn't pay at once they would send round bailiffs to collect it.

You could understand that as a clumsy attempt to extort money; but to tell me my daughter is pregnant/ Do they imagine me to be some kind of Victorian parent who will fall about in outrage?

Does the caller know I have daughters? Or is she just phoning at random?

There was no trace of laughter in her voice, or malicious pleasure at upsetting me.

I was out for a walk the other day and passed St. Triduana's well - a Gothic structure built into the hillside of Arthur's Seat. It's covered by a grille, which someone has pushed through and then taken the trouble to push a plastic mineral water bottle through and so spoil the sight of the spring within.

This sort of act tends to be called "mindless" by the press, as if it's enough to throw an insult at a piece of destructive behaviour and then move on in self-righteous indignation.

But nothing is "mindless". There's a reason for everything: and we need somehow to understand it.

But in tonight's tiredness, I am completely failing.

Labels: "mindless" malice