Also m'dear, we don't get to vote in your elections; much though we'd like to sometimes.
But the classical English Stoicism of yore is less now, in this new millennium. We haven't as yet reached US levels of hysteria; but the news channels are making a big thing of it all; and since the public outpouring of 'grief' at the death of Diana I don't feel at all secure in the idea that our phlegmatic nature (seen in collective terms) will ever re-etablish itself. How damnably dull. A pose should have poise. If we're going to be indifferent in the face of major things like missed breakfasts or awful coffee, we should remember that small things like terrorism or death require the same indifferece.
Submission to fear has no style.