It is a tragic beginning to 2014 for two police women and one police man. These poor souls have suffered extreme burns to their bodies when they answered a call to come to the aid of a man who was threatening to blow himself up.

Something had upset him, some romance gone wrong or whatever and so the place blew up when the police entered his apartment. One police constable has burns to 90% of her body. What horror!

The explosive guy has survived, unfortunately, while the innocent police folk are scarred for life. That’s if they live…

I can’t help thinking that there is something wrong with society that puts up with these people who want to cause so much grief to innocent hard-working citizens like the police who tried to help him.

I have to be frank here and state that if someone threatens to self-harm or go on a hunger strike we should call his bluff. As Nike says “Just do it.” It will save us a lot of trouble and will get rid of these publicity-seeking pests.

So a person refuses to leave his apartment, so what? Hours of negotiations would be avoided if they just told him “Go ahead, make my day!”

In my opinion, the only time that we should interfere in the displays of stupid egotism is in the case of an hostage situation in which innocents may be in danger. That’s when the authorities have to become involved.

Quite frankly, I would have organised for the other residents in the apartment block to be escorted out of the building and then, for all I care, he could blow himself up to smithereens.

It breaks my heart to see three innocent people have their lives ruined just because this idiot was having a tantrum. It’s simply not right.