27 may 2017, manchester

As someone who fled when I was 18, never to return, it's only slowly that manchester crept up on me since I actually did, even though my role in life for many years was its boosting and (weird word alert) agglomeration. Now of course I'm a proud native and suffered with everyone on hearing of the bomb and cheered at our response. There may be other things going on, but my emotions were on my sleeve as the dead kids were identified, probably as I now have my own and they both had friends there (thankfully everyone totally fine). My obvious resonance was to israel, as there was a time I was there in the early 90s when bus bombs were going off weekly. I had one very good friend who took the same bus every morning to university in jerusalem, missed it one day and it blew up. The boyfriend of a very good friend was actually on the number 5 bus blown up in the middle of tel aviv. 20-odd people died, but he walked away with cuts & bruises (always sit at the back). Somehow though my attitude then was cavalier and removed. All life was a risk and we lived it daily. Now though I feel for families and somehow internalise the devastation of lives rather more. I also shared in the defiance. After its dress rehearsal at everyone's everyman steve mycio's funeral, the wonderful this is the place (worth a watch) found its ancestral home in front of the town hall and gave words to everyone for this tough world. Meanwhile, at the bottom of p8, at least 28 people were killed yesterday in a bus bomb in egypt (see 15 november 2015, paris-to-paris, a heavily-edited story of 2015. Meanwhile, today is the city games, which will see bigger crowds than ever on manchester's streets. We live each day.