Guildford: by any means necessary

Sorry about sudden quietness. Lenin nearly choked to death; Ed knocked himself out; I had to go to Guildford. Cackling Third Witch Eric's dire prediction (or is it a threat?) is coming to pass, it seems.

A while back, I seem to remember a well-meaning journalist trying to give his British audience a sense of where Fallujah was in relation to Baghdad. "It's roughly the same size and distance from London as Guildford," he said. On reflection, this was less a laudable attempt to present the news in a clear and comprehensible fashion, as a sinister ploy to win support for the occupation. They're razing Iraq's Guildford to the ground? It's enough to turn anyone Christopher Hitchens.

(It may, come to think of it, have been Reading. It may have been Woking. Details, details: these places are all much of a muchness and should the US Army want any of them, they can have them.)