Maybe a later SnowBlog post will mention what I've been up to this morning, but it's been very funny. When life gives you lemons, created a lemon-powered marketing machine, that's my advice. Anyway, enough of being cryptic and silly, I'm afraid this post is actually one of my perennial downers. Sorry for the shift in tone, but this is where the lighthearted bit ends. I want to mention something compellingly unfunny.

Whatever you think about the wisdom of invading and occupying Iraq there's no denying that millions of Iraqis have been so affected by the violence all around them that they've fled the country. The Coalition of the Willing haven't been much interested in giving new homes to the displaced, which to my mind is rather hardhearted of us, and since we rarely see this conflict through the eyes of Iraqis, not much is said about it in the press. For that reason, I heartily recommend reading Riverbend's blog, which has been turned into a couple of fascinating books. She is an extremely able writer and the experiences she relates of self, friends, family and her nation as a whole let you see it all from the inside. She does something that the press have never managed to do: to make Iraqis seems just like Brits or Americans or anyone else. There's lots of humour and family squabbles and silliness, and so when she talks about bombs going off or people she knows being killed it no longer seems distant or somehow OK because it's happening to foreigners thousands of miles away. You can't help but imagine how you'd feel in her shoes.

Her most recent post is the most uplifting for a while because she is currently safe with her family in Syria. I defy anyone to follow her story and not be fascinated, horrified and enlightened by what you read.