Two headaches – migraine and phone tapping

The morning was lost to a migraine, dozing off the pain to surface at midday and begin the gradual mental climb out of numbness. The remainder of the day catching up on four days of missed e-mails, responding to personal messages and chasing the book printers re the revised proof for author Mr James.

The backdrop entertainment was the Leverson inquiry into phone tapping. And what irony it provided. The celebrities and other well known personalities who appeared before an inquiry that was televised, the newspaper speculation before and after the event, the cascade of subsidiary news items spinning off into different programs.

On the one hand we had the stories of destructive press activities, hounding, prying and following their selected prey. On the other, we have the public, myself included, fascinated by the unfolding inquiry, the news and the witnesses called – precisely the fuel for the activities that we so greatly deplore.