...to think that, on days when I wasn't using Maelbeek station morning and evening, I was probably travelling through the airport at Zaventem. Thousands could say the same, of course. As I've said elsewhere today, it's small comfort to the bereaved and maimed, but at least my ex-colleagues in Brussels are accounted for and safe. It's hard to know what the perpetrators think they will achieve by massacring innocent people (other, perhaps, than repaying in kind some of the carnage visited on civilians caught up in conflicts in the Middle East). One result will be increasing suspicion (at best) of muslim communities in the west, and, probably, an increase in redneck cretin support in forthcoming colonial elections.
It's perhaps tactless to move on from such a dark subject. Nevertheless, we have reminded ourselves today that culture is alive and well. We have been, with Barbara, to the Ditchling Art and Craft museum, which is housing an exhibition of calligraphy and typographic design, concentrating on the work of Eric Gill and his master Edward Johnstone, who created the typeface used to this day by Transport for London, with only a minimal facelift in 1985. We just caught the weekly lecture, which was quite informative (if hammed up a bit), and mercifully glossed over Gill's sexual activity with his sisters, daughters and dog.
The drive from Brighton to Ditchling was beautiful. Fine day, long views, spring colour. Lunch in the White Horse at Ditchling was good, if a touch indigestible. Memo to said hostelry: raw red onion has no place in a mixed leaf salad.
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