I sense that the road to Heaven is paved with dashed hopes.

The war dashed all hopes that came with independence.

When something like this happens, you get your hopes up and they just get dashed.

People seem to take as much offence as they possibly can these days - it's almost a new type of greed, a new kind of road rage.

But I hate being a grandfather. It's indecent. In my mind's eye, I'm still twenty-five. Thirty-three max. Certainly not sixty-seven, reeking of decay and dashed hopes. My breath sour. My limbs in dire need of a lube job. And now that I've been blessed with a plastic hip-socket replacement, I'm no longer even biodegradable. Environmentalists will protest my burial.

Two's company and three's a crowd, but seven can be an uprising. And the seven can become 70 or 700 or 7000 very quickly if the sense of being wronged is felt broadly and truly enough.