Did anyone else do the silence today? We all stood on the steps at work to do it. When we first went out there were a couple who had just got married getting their photos done on the steps and I thought it could be a bit awkward, but they soon buggered off.
I'm not sure what I think about doing these silences. Obviously, I care very much about what happened on 7th July and spending time working at the mortuary made it feel very close to home. But, it's hard to know what justifies a minute's silence. Atrocities happen every day and we can't have a silence for everything. In some ways I wish we'd just stuck to a minute on rememberence day and found another way to mark other events. This two minutes thing is a joke aswell. Will the next atrocity be a three minutes silence to show that we're very very sad about it? Also, I can see why you might need to commemorate the death of many people, but when people did a minute's silence when Diana died, it was ridiculous.
I'm pleased we did the two minutes today though. I'm just glad I'm not the person who decides when to hold them!
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I was at Waterloo catching a train which was due to depart at twelve noon. I was keen to stand and see what happened there - I've heard that when things like this happen at Paddington it's all a bit eerie but quite cool. But instead I had to go get on my train....as it happened the driver sat waiting until 12:02. I didn't mind, but there were people on the train with kids and they didn't shut up, so I put my walkman on and considered myself "not included" in the two minute silence.
I agree that it's odd. And sure, if the length of time is a reflection of just how big the berm was, surely we should've all been standing with our gobs shut for hours when all those thousands of folk were killed in the "tall towers hit by airplanes" attack. (Which I refuse to refer to as 9/11 because of my fondness of a particular car made by Porsche.)
I'm curious if religious nutjobs follow these minutes of silence things. They shouldn't. Die hard catholics would probably not give two minutes of their time to "remember" a bunch of christian shepherdy folk who are killed when a berm goes off on a train.
So, where do we draw the line? I mean how many times do we stand in silence when a coach load of tourists are killed when their bus (or coach) rolls down a cliff? Or is that not counted because it wasn't because of terrorism?
If that's the case, is the eleventh second of the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh week in the eleventh year of the eleventh whatever it is next a rememberance of a terrorist attack?
And were we the terrorists?
Did the first world war actually make terrorism trendy?
And do all genocidal leaders have to have their own brand of facial hair?
Ooooh blimey, I've gone too far...where's me brew?!
I refuse to refer to it as 9/11 becuase i have nothing against the nith of november.
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