We have had a lot of rain - an absurd amount for August really - and today has been a blur of showers and patchy sunshine. I have a small washing line full of clothes dangling hopefully in the still chilly breeze. Tom is at school and I have finished a brief rehearsal for the cafe tomorrow. Now I am chatting to a friend in China on QQ for the first time in months. She is a teacher in Xian, the ancient capital of China.

I would truly like to ignore the news for a while. I thought that it might just be me who was feeling overwhelmed by the sheer freight of bad headlines, but no. The other day the experienced journalist Monica Attard, whilst in the midst of a panel interview, said that she had despaired of the terrible events in the news. She had even stopped looking, for a while. So, it's not just me.

In any event, I fall back on my earlier theory about the way information is created and disseminated in the modern era. It happens at lightning speed and in an environment in which publication is virtually instantaneous and omnipresent. It is everywhere and all the time.

Compare that with, say, how long it took for the First Fleets safe arrival at Sydney Cove to reach London in 1788.