Common

I see Johnny 'Mad Dog' Adair, the ruthless UDA gangmaster who fled from Belfast to live in Bolton last year, has admitted committing a common assault on his wife Gina whilst walking on a common near his home last night.

Thankfully I live very far away from this common assaulter, but strangely enough I was sitting at my PC yesterday morning when the silence was pierced by the unmistakeable sound of a woman being beaten up by her partner. I had never heard that sound before. She was weeping, begging, howling and squealing - all at once - as the bangs thumped. It was the most distressing thing I've ever heard. Some neighbours called the police who took control.

Violence, apparently, is committed most by people who are desperate, who have run out of words and can't argue their cases in any way other than to vent their spleen by rupturing the spleen of the person they're at odds with. They're so caught up in their own feelings to see that it solves nothing, it just creates other problems. Not that that matters, because the 'men' who do it aren't bothered about logic. They just want to beat the shit out of their partners - who stay with them because they get convinced it's really their fault. God forgive them.

I hope Gina Adair has the presence of mind to walk out. Which won't be easy - she has cancer.