#JeSuisCharlie....

The world seems to be going through a dark patch at the moment. First there was Sydney, then the terrible attack on the school in Peshawar and now we have Paris. It's a city I've had the fortune to go to on several occasions and I really love being there.

The attack at the offices of Charlie Hebdo struck a chord with people as it attacks one of the underlying premises of our society, the idea of free speech. While the vast majority of the 1.4 billion Muslims on the planet will have been appalled as the rest of us, a very small minority fear free speech.

In an effort to silence it they stormed their way into the offices of the magazine and slaughtered anyone they found. It didn't work. People across the planet have been out in streets and squares of big cities and small towns holding up pencils and papers with the hashtag #JeSuisCharlie on. The friends and families of the victims can take some comfort from this. The perpetrators of these murders, however, will have to come to terms with the fact that their actions have, in fact, strengthened, free speech.

As I post this the French police and military are dealing with two sieges, one involving the people who attacked Charlie Hebdo and a second one at a Jewish delicatessen in an eastern suburb of Paris. These people may score a hollow, murderous victory somewhere along the way but, ultimately, it will be the majority of us who believe in free speech who will win.

I did this little drawing this morning. And, no, it's not Blackpool Tower.

And for those who didn't know what the light feature was from yesterday's picture.....it is one of those ceramic insulator things that you see separating the power lines from the tops of power pylons as they stride across the country. They look tiny on the pylons but are pretty substantial structures in a trendy Chorlton bar.