Few things could be more civilised than life aboard a long-haul airliner: entertainment on tap, food when required, attentive cabin staff, the latest technology to ensure safety and comfort, and all amid the beauty of the sun-split clouds. It is this that makes the sudden disintegration of an aircraft such as MH17, in an instant of extreme violence and bloodshed, one of the most disturbing experiences the human mind can imagine. Images from the sunflower fields of eastern Ukraine, where the wreckage fell and the corpses lay, only added to the horror – here a child’s fluffy toy, there a woman’s purse; and around the smouldering ashes, the brooding menace of men with loaded guns and surly attitudes. And journalists, representing at this scene of disaster the rest of shocke