Friday 13 December 2013  We must not fly off handle over flag at
city Cenotaph  Deja vu: the rioting has stirred up fears
familiar to those felt at the height of the Troubles  There's
nothing like a full-blown riot — masked youths, burning cars and
flying missiles — to really make you feel the fear. It stirs up
the old, familiar lurch of dread in the pit of your stomach, the
kind you used to experience when you heard a bomb go off.  The
sound of that low, death-dealing boom was the sound of
civilisation crumbling, the advance of evil, normality denied.
In spite of the intervening years of (imperfect) peace, it
doesn't take a great deal to return us to a similar state of
mass anxiety.  I truly believe that, as a society, we are
suffering from a collective form of post-traumatic stress
disorder. It would be surprising if we weren't, after the years
of bloody mayhem.  One of the hallmarks of that distressing
condition is a state of hyper-vigilance, a feeling of being
constantly on guard.  Then, when something h