The plumbers turned up at the door last night. "We need to check for a leak in your bathroom." One boldly announced, "'Cos we cut a hole in the downstairs ceiling and the waters coming from upstairs."

I had visions of a domestic disaster looming as these people disassembled my home in the hunt for a few drops of water. Two of them bounded upstairs and proceeding to dismantle the bathroom as expected. One brought his young duaghter along. Thankfully she was well behaved and was more concerned with making silly noises with her crisp packet than help daddy destroy my home.

The two men ripped open pipes, meddled with taps, threw aside a length of mottled copper tubing, and heriocally found the leak. They fitted a brand new shining stainless steel hose thingy and lo and behold, the job was done. They announced they had succeeded, beaming with pride and delight.

I was happy too. Well done lads. Yeah yeah that noise funny.... Seesh....

Haven of Evil

It seems Britain isn't doing enough to bring war criminals to justice leaving MP's in a very derisive mood over our governments plans to extend such actions. Part of me worries about this though. War crime is pretty much in the eye of the beholder. As much as I would prefer to see warfare conducted in a more gentlemanly or chivalrous manner, it simply isn't going to happen like that. Human beings are both crafty and nasty, and if they see an advantage one of them will take it, whatever the human cost, to achieve their objective.

There are those who believe all soldiers are war criminals by definition. I'm not one of them, and I do take pride that Britains armed forces conduct their gritty business in the generally competent and professional manner that they do. But of course, inevitably there comes a point where an individuals actions cross the line from necessity to something much worse.

There are those for instance who point at 'Bomber' Harris and claim his campaign to bomb Germany was a war crime. He himself declared that it was a plan others had criticised but give it a chance because it's never been tried before. He was therefore attempting to find an advantage in the war against Nazi Germany, a regime that had bombed civilian targets from the start. I don't believe for one moment he derived pleasure from that decision - it was a time when Britain faced potential extinction, so it was either that or give up. There wasn't any real or practical alternative at that time, and of course the decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan is a terrifying concept but one designed to save the countless lives of American servicemen in a lengthy invasion of the Japanese homeland.

They say history is written by the victors. That's true, but it's also reviewed by hindsight. Now whilst there may well be 'war criminals' as defined by the United Nations at large in Britain, is this hullabaloo a genuine call for justice or merely a convenient cause to lambast an ailing government?