Rub the lamp, wish for apathy.

As a very poor student you require something that seems to make the world go round, the small pieces of paper with the Queens Head on, that people pay into banks, building societies and on occasion, Post Offices. You recently took a job at weekends, some Saturdays, some Sundays, telling yourself that it's all about the money, you thought you wouldn't enjoy it.

You are at the till, waiting to serve, when two young boys of about four or five run up to the counter, they stand side by side looking up at you (they have to be really small to do that), smiles beaming from ear to ear and they ask so politely:

'My name's Tom and he's Oliver. Can we have two ice creams please? Thank you.'

As you served these two young chaps, you began to pray, that they won't have to see the things that make this world a terrible place to live in, that they won't ever feel so depressed by the actions of others, that they won't ever be reduced to being so angry that they want to kill.

That they won't ever have to see disgusting squalor that makes them want to be sick, see a woman so racked by drug addiction that most of her teeth are missing and those that arn't are eroded by malnutrition, have to watch a family cry because their lively hood has been taking away by three drunk men using chairs as weapons, to find a woman holding a knife because she can't stand to live any longer.

Gerald Coates, a christian preacher, the founder of Pioneer Network of Churches once said that he purchased a Television set, on the side of the box was the slogan:

'Bringing the world into your home!'

He told the delivery men they could put it straight back on the trolley and take it straight back out again.

Reading this article, you can understand just why he would make that request.

'Your feelings will always be a part of your police work. The more you try to deny that, the more control they'll have over you. We work with different permutations of sex all day, sometimes all night long. Don't worry when you feel something. Worry when you don't.'

Capt Don Cragen, Law and Order: SVU.