Westgate Mall, Nairobi, Kenya

Some of you may notice that often I am absent from the site for varying periods of time and this is usually because I am on my travels.

I have just returned from Nairobi, this was my third visit in eight weeks, and my hotel was a few hundred yards from this horrendous incident.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24280328

Over 60 men, women and children were slaughtered here and over 170 "injured". I always hate the description "injured" because it conjures up cuts and bruises rather than the devastation bullets and grenades inflict.

For as long as I can remember, London has been subject to bomb threats and bomb attacks, but I have not known anything on this scale with the targetting that took place in Nairobi.

The Westgate Mall is tiny compared to the "Malls" (Shopping Centres) in and around London which are themselves miniscule compared the those in the USA. It is unimaginable to me what would happen in a mall supporting thousands of shoppers, as opposed to hundreds, being assaulted with AK47s and grenades!

This was a very distressing turn of events for the people of Kenya and the World's security teams have focussed on this because of the potential for repetition.

I left a very subdued capital city!