Well today was the 1 year anniversary of the London bombings and being the puppets to the Government and Media that we all are we had to give up two minutes of our time to think about those that died.
Firstly I don't like to be told what to do like this. Secondly the people who died, as unfortunate as it was, were not known to me nor to anyone I know. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and being blown up does not make them heroes or worthy of my time. Why should I think about people I don't know?
I have no problem putting aside a couple of minutes when the cause warrants it e.g. those that died for their country during two World Wars but these little media exercises dilute the genuine moments of reflection such as those.
This started to annoy me last year when someone decided that Ken Bigley was entitled to as much time as the World War commemoration. This man ignored Foreign Office advice in pursuit of quick monetary gain and ended up dead, and because of that he deserves a moment of my time? Not a chance. The same is true of the London bombings.
Why celebrate the one day that the terrorists got one over us? We never did this in the 80s when the IRA was launching its terror campaign on the mainland; we just moved on and returned to our lives to show that their actions did not affect us.
The Evening Standard ran a headline today "Commuters defy bombers". How sensationalist is that? I doubt anyone woke up and thought "I'm going to work today to show the bombers that I'm not scared". I think you'll find that most commuters went to work because they had to.
So how did I spend my two minutes today? On the toilet. In Spain they recently gave five minutes to victims of a train crash caused by a driver exceeding the limit. If we start spending that much time here I'm going to have to take a paper into the toilet with me.
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1 comment:
Thank you for confirming much of what I've been thinking: 7th July last year was obviously a very sad day, but the people who died didn't give up their lives for their country, they didn't die as heroes. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As for the ridiculous sensationalist over-emotional media coverage - I expected more of at least the BBC. Surely we don't need to see world-class journalists asking tube workers dumbed-down questions like "Do you feel sad?"
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