When the Ukrainian jet went down four hours after the Iranian air strike I thought: ‘hmmmm’. That was all. That was it. Just: ‘hmmmm’. Everyone did, at some conscious or unconscious level. Because we’re humans (speaking for myself here) and we have a natural knee-jerk against any form of ‘coincidence’. And when there’s missiles flying around skywards, that ain’t a good time to be in a nearby airplane. But we were told ‘engine malfunction’, we were told, ‘unrelated’, we were told all sorts of things that really didn’t ring true. Either on an uninformed but intuitive level, or on a more professional ‘flight expert’ kind’a level. There was no message of distress. These planes can easily land with just one engine. How unusual for a plane to just… blow itself up.

All of which may be the perfectly reasonable explanations for the terrible disaster which killed 176 people.

But this is Iran. And, although they have, I’m sure, a fantastically organised defence system, a rigidly disciplined and highly active armed force, I just can’t get out of my mind the image of a bunch of men (only men) all screaming (they’re always screaming in Iran) at each other, rushing round a mobile missile launcher, in a chaotic, Keystone Kopsy kind of way, and then someone, we’ll call him ‘Omar’, accidentally pushes the button. Don’t know which button. Nor does Omar. But it gets pushed in an exceptionally ‘oh shit’ moment and up goes the missile. Not saying it happened like that, I’m just sayin’…

Then Donald Trump had the same thought. Probably thought it twice. He does everything twice. Does. Everything. Twice! And then they examined footage filmed by people who… who film every plane that flies by in the dead of night? Who film the sky at all times to reduce the charge on their phones? Anyway, people filmed it and they found ‘missile patterns’. More hmmmm. Then the plane explodes.

Now even Boris is having those thoughts. But only once. And the Iranians have taken the plane’s black box and won’t give it back. Strictly it should be examined by the Ukrainians first, but Iran are playing tough. Almost as if they have something to hide. Something shameful and stupid and ridiculous and really embarrassing.

Even Justin Trudeau is unhappy and has grown a beard in protest.

The case continues.

Happy Friday

A xxxx