h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Right. I know we're talking categorically different scales here, but Brits, Spaniards, citizens of the former Yugoslavia and many others on every continent - we've had to deal with terrorists, conflict, and the loss of loved ones for years.

Allowing our lives to be ruined, changing the way we live from day to day, the things we choose to do - that hands them victory. The only way to beat them is to stare them down and shout as loud as you can - "do what you will, it will never be enough to make me run and hide."

I used to use this space to follow the fortunes of a team close to my heart. People have come together, shared moments of disappointment and unbridled joy through sport, and it saddens me to see lingering doubt as to whether continuing the sporting calendar is appropriate. Fifty years ago, Britain had a wartime league where teams shared the professional players according to who was stationed where and when. Rivalries were set aside, the results were irrelevant, but the games gave people a sense of normality, that however bad things were, life should still have its moments of passion and cheer.

I won't talk about today's result - but I will say that I stood in silence with 34,000 other Londoners and collected my thoughts. And then for the next two hours we sang together, cheered together and when the right net bulged - we forgot what the next few weeks and months might hold in store for us, and we danced.

Surrender to fear is true defeat. Carpe diem.