On 13 April 2024, a 40-year-old homeless schizophrenic named Joel Cauchi entered the Westfield Bondi Junction Shopping Centre in Syydney, Australia. Shortly afterwards, he produced a long knife and ran amok, targeting women shoppers. Over the course of the next five minutes he killed five women and one man (a security guard) and wounded ten others, including a baby, before being shot dead by a (female) police officer.

I had one question - that still nags me even now - which is simply where were all the men? A crowded shopping mall on a Saturday. Where were the husbands, the boyfriends, the young lads hanging out with their mates? Running for cover or hiding in locked down shops, it seems. Shameful. If such a thing had occurred in my home town when I was a kid, the man would have been dog-piled in seconds. Every adult male in the place would have been at him and on him. Nowadays, changes in the law and the feminisation of society through capitalism cause men to second-guess their natural instincts while preventing the institutionalisation of mad people. With tragic results.

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." as the Bard says.