Polly switched on the Six O\u2019clock News and a bombardment of headline stories followed, their bare, salient details stretched out for a few sentences, then on to the next: Escalation of violence in the Middle East as thousands killed\u2026 Heavy fighting as Russians gain territory in Ukraine\u2026 14 year old boy stabbed by schoolmates\u2026 27 lives lost in the channel, smugglers charged\u2026 Police officers sacked for racist behaviour\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Stories that contained the worst atrocities human beings could suffer or inflict on each other, but there was no horror, no outcry. Polly, too, was not shocked, appalled or even engaged. She was thinking about what she was going to have for tea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then: Man jailed for life for torturing and murdering his ex-girlfriend\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She started to listen to the details: A young woman had been stabbed multiple times in her home by a jealous ex-boyfriend, who had ignored police warnings. Her children had been upstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Polly thought no more about what to eat. She switched the TV channel over to a programme about antiques but all she could see were flailing arms and blood; all she could hear were pleas and screams and the frantic banging on a door. She waited for it to stop, for the film reel to end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Presently she returned to the news. Football results and celebrity awards rounded up the days\u2019 events with a quick look at the weather. Polly thought again about her tea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Polly switched on the Six O\u2019clock News and a bombardment of headline stories followed, their bare, salient details stretched out for a few sentences, then on to the next: Escalation of violence in the Middle East as thousands killed\u2026 Heavy fighting as Russians gain territory in Ukraine\u2026 14 year old boy stabbed by schoolmates\u2026 27… Continue reading Headlines<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":545,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions\/545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paulinecooke.trapeziumarts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}