I usually work on this blog in the evening. I start after the early-evening news and begin checking out websites and linkdumps looking for something -- anything! to write about. To my consternation (and probably yours, too), I usually find something.
One thing I can't do is pay attention to anything on the TV while I read or write. It's not a matter of dividing my concentration. I'm just totally oblivious to it. So I'll usually leave it tuned to one of the sports channels. I don't even care what's being shown. It's just a bit of noise and color off in the background and if I get stuck on what I'm working on I can check out the game for a few minutes.
Last night TSN was playing a tape-delayed Champion's League quarter-final soccer match between AC Milan and Inter Milan. I'd heard radio reports during the day of some kind of trouble in the tournament but I didn't connect the two until I became dimly aware that the commentators were talking about something other than soccer. I stuck my head out from behind the monitor just in time to see AC Milan's goalkeeper get clonked with a burning flare.
As the BBC's report indicates, this is somewhat of an ongoing problem:
"This sort of thing happens quite often in Italy," Italian football expert James Richardson told BBC Five Live."It is not really that extraordinary to see stuff thrown onto the pitch in Italian games.
"A few years ago Inter fans actually tried to launch a burning moped from the same area of the San Siro as last night's trouble.
"This isn't an isolated incident. The hard-core support are very adept at getting flares and offensive banners into stadiums.
All I could think watching it was: Jesus. Terrorism. If you can't stop goons bringing in an apparently-unlimited supply of fireworks and highway or railroad flares, how are you going to stop someone packing a few pounds of Semtex? And if you really wanted to kill a lot of people -- not just from the initial blast(s), but by possibly collapsing part of the stadium structure, and also all those trampled in the ensuing panic -- then a soccer match, or any other big athletic venue, would be your target of choice.