I can't get over the flood thing in the Indian Ocean. Me and Prince Charming have been to several of the places that were affected and every time I see them on the telly it just breaks my heart. I mean, I didn't even have a very good time in Phuket but seeing the main street barely recognisable under a load of rubble and water was just awful; thinking of all the corpses on the beach where I sunbathed is just unbelievable.
And then there's all the people that I remember from my holidays who are almost certainly now dead. For instance, if you said to me, "Hey, remember that waiter in the New India Cafe in Port Blair in the Andaman Islands, the one with the lazy eye who was so patient about explaining what all the things on the menu were, and who had to keep reminding us that they didn't serve dosas at lunchtime or thalis in the evening? He's popped his clogs, the poor old chap" that would be kind of sad.
But not only is he almost certainly dead, but very probably all the half-naked guys who worked in the tiny, roasting hot kitchen are dead; the guy with the crazy tika designs on his forehead who worked the till is dead; the friendly receptionist at the Jagarnath hotel who lived on one of the outlying islands and had to get the ferry to Port Blair at dawn every morning is dead; the lady who did my laundry and had the weird iron full of burning coals is dead; the family who slept out on the roof of the neighbouring house are dead; the guy at the beach on Havelock island who made me a bhang lassi is dead; the man and his wife who ran the restaurant by Beach Number 7 who made such nice vada are dead; the coral reefs were we went snorkelling are destroyed; the little secret beach covered in cute little hermit crabs where we made love is now littered with the corpses of fishermen; the cafe with the slowest service in the world, where we waited two hours for a curry and then saw phosphorescence in the water on the way home, is rubble; the family on Havelock island whom we walked miles to visit because they had been so kind to our friends the year before are dead... it's all a bit too much to bear, really. And I'm sitting here all safe and warm in my house in Bristol; I can't even begin to comprehend what it must be like for the people who actually live there.
The worst thing for me though is that this really is a case of there but for the grace of god; if the earthquake had happened in the Atlantic Ocean instead of the Indian Ocean, it'd be us who'd be burying three generations of our families and then fighting our way through a crowd to get a bag of rice from Oxfam. If we were lucky enough not to be dead. OK, maybe there's a whole load of geological reasons why it wouldn't happen in the Atlantic, but it still freaks me the hell out.
PS Encouragingly, I just tried to donate some money to the Red Cross earthquake appeal, and couldn't get through coz it was so busy. Just out of interest, I wonder how much money the general public of America will be donating to the relief fund, in relation to the amount they donated to the September 11 disaster fund?