Missing - bad outcome

Contents warning: may upset

A few days ago, I noticed a tweet from Sarah Brown, the wife of the UK prime minister Gordon Brown, that a 12-year old girl from Dordrecht, Holland, had been reported missing. A poster was linked to, provided by the Dutch national police.

Today, I received an email from my father, who is not on Twitter, saying that a girl of 12 was found murdered in Dordrecht. She had been taken across the street by a neighbour, killed and buried in the man's garden. He was a police officer. The Dutch national police fear a backlash against their officers, who are there to protect and serve.

Some of you are deeply involved with the Amber Alerts that go out for missing children. This was an Amber Alert, which can now be stood down. Unfortunately, for the wrong reason.

Wednesday 17 March

Pretty wild day and pretty wet at times. Got myself out to the Post Office to send off the letter to New Zealand I blogged about last night. Expect it to take a week to reach NZ, two weeks for the query to be sorted and another week for the result to reach me. Popped into the supermarket for a few items, and you have an express checkout available if you have less than 10 items. Well, people think that the express check-out is there if you bring your shopping in a basket. Even if it has like twenty items in it. Rant over.

Australia's northeastern coast should get worried about tropical cyclone Ului, which has been making ominous noises near the Solomon Islands for the past couple of days. The storm will head towards Queensland, but is expected to weaken to category I (on the Saffir Simpson scale) before making landfall in a few days from now.

Seen on Streetview