This knocked me back a bit. I imagined it was going to be the standard nutjob disposal: months and months of nothing followed by a dishevelled man being found in a cave sans dignity. Only, we've ended up with some actual news.
Whether you want to or not, you're going to be subjected to some pretty grisly pictures. I don't know why that's become acceptable in recent years. Back in July 2003, pictures were released of the dead faces of two of Saddam Hussain's sons. I remember them being accompanied by a warning, and there still being outrage at the sight of them.
Today, anybody logging on to any news website will be greeted by one or other picture of Colonel Gaddafi's corpse. It doesn't take a futurologist to guess that it'll be all over the front pages tomorrow.
So, Gaddafi is dead. What does that mean for us?
Not a lot, it would seem. On the one hand, David Cameron has been commended for the role Britain took in the NATO intervention in Libya. I may be cynical, but it may have a little to do with the victims of Gaddafi we are supposed to remember today: the Lockerbie victims, WPC Yvonne Fletcher and all those who died when Libya suppllied explosives to the IRA.
The National Transitional Council, though, is not likely to give us what we want, which is, by the way, Al Megrahi's head on a silver platter. Extraditing some criminal we shouldn't have given away in the first place is a bad political move. What the people of Libya will want right now is a government that acts in their interests, not ours.
Still. We ought to expect some gratitude in the form of a little slice of Libya's natural resources. Which are... what are they? What do Libya have a lot of? It couldn't be... yes it is. Oil and gas. Funny, that.
Let's not be silly, though. We're not going to be whinging when the price of petrol drops by half a penny a litre.
So, let's not be dismissive when it comes to being "friendly" towards nations with stuff we want. It's not really about Lockerbie, otherwise we wouldn't have given Al Megrahi back in the first place. It's about making life a little bit easier for ourselves.
When we first made friends at school, we picked the people who had colouring pencils to borrow. We picked the people who would swap us their sandwiches. Our mums wanted us to play with the people who would grass us up if we didn't eat our fruit.
Friendships, between countries as well as between children, are about making the most of things. Let's not complain.
Also, wash your hands thoroughly.
