Who knows what was in the news on the day that I wrote this. These things happen, the doldrums, when ongoing catastrophes, no matter how current, have begun to bore the audience, and the heightened trivia that is today's news may not last until tomorrow. So when in doubt, talk about the news itself, and pick a theme at random on which to hang your punchline. That'll work.

No news is good news, so they say, but listening to the bulletins it often seems that bad news is virtually the only news there is. Fortunately, most of us learn early to see the news as a counterpoint to our lives rather than a reflection. So even though we may not see our own deaths reflected in the strange circumstances of a celebrity murder, it can yet serve as a useful reminder of the temporal nature of existence, and instill gratitude for our own lives mercies.

Somehow the death of an individual seems to bring death closer than the mass casualties of war. Talk of war is often more to do with the meaning of life and the principles without which life is not worth living. Both events require us to think about justice, however, and how it’s implemented as law for individuals and societies.

But justice not only concerns the protection of life, but also the protection of property. And mention of property brings in economics, another key constituent of our news, considering definitions of wealth and poverty, necessity and excess - brute force and economics, the principles and practicalities of power as they relate to individual and society.

Which, I suppose brings us to politics, the other main constituent of news. Our new Parliament is supposed to change the old confrontational system, with its opponents two swords lengths apart. But old campaigning habits die hard, and we still tend to apply the language of war to our politics. What hope for consensus when so many candidates still seem to prefer the traditional politics of dissembling and abuse.

Let them remember - when appointing governors Muhammad said ‘ Be gentle to the people, and be not hard on them, and make them rejoice, and don’t incite them to aversion.’  His Companion Umar, told them ‘don’t eat bread made of fine flour, do not wear fine clothes, and never close your doors against the needs of the people.’

The Prophet said ‘If God grants a man to rule over a people and he doesn’t manage their affairs for the public good, he will never smell the sweet perfume of paradise.’