I got up extra early this morning to get into the office and get a few hours under my belt before belting up North for a funeral.

I never made it into work because some troubled soul decided to bring the West End to its knees by breaking into a shop on Regent Street and when the Old Bill turned up he threatening to blow himself up with what turned out to be a tube of Smarties.  

After several hours of tense stand-off and negotiations the man was nicked. Some eight hours later the last of the police cordons was finally lifted and normality returned to London’s West End. If such a condition exists in London’s West End…

Yep – hundreds, possibly thousands of people never made it to work today because of a lunatic wielding a tube of brightly coloured sugar coated chocolate drops.

Meanwhile I had been to the funeral of TJ.

Four years my junior, TJ was tragically taken from us last month by a sudden and fatal heart condition while travelling in the South Pacific. He was fitter and leaner than every one of his old colleagues and friends who turned up to say farewell today. By rights he should have lived for another 30 years and continue to brighten the lives of those lucky enough to know him.

I then spent 3 hours trying to get back into London because some other troubled soul decided to jump in front of a train in Slough, causing the usual network chaos that accompanies such behaviour.

One life taken far too early from a man that really valued it, versus thousands of lives inconvenienced by the actions of a man who clearly didn’t and another who clearly doesn’t. It just doesn’t seem fair.

Today was a crazy day. It was one of those days where the frailty of the human condition exposed itself in all its glory.