Don't Panic: I Got Soul!
‘You will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic.’ I’ve read those words many times and now they’ve taken on a new meaning. Jesus said them, St Matthew recorded them, but I’m reading them for the first time against the backdrop of a seemingly growing media discussion about the possibility of civil war in the country we’re living in. We’re not panicking but it does make you think a bit. ‘Don’t Panic’ is perhaps more famous for adorning the cover of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. That comic masterpiece involved the destruction of the whole world, an event that, while treated as not funny in the book, is really not funny. We live on a street where I can still see the sandbags behind which people defended their patch fifteen years ago. The thought of this country plunging itself into another violent mess when it hasn’t cleared up the remains of the last one is far from a joke. Into these sober thoughts burst an anthem that practically had me dancing around the living roo...