Archives: 9/11

Been messing about with this part of the site – the diary – when I’m supposed to be whipping myself over sorting out the ZUM! stuff… Still, I’m quite please with all my messing about. The code for the pages is a damn site better/cleaner & It’s good practice. I should start doing the same with the ZUM! site. Plans… plans…

Jack asked Louise yesterday if there was anyone on the plane? It’s not like he has seen pictures on the television or anything. We are worried at this age the glamorisation of such an event would take precedence over the reality of it. Talking of that… I managed to catch a few moments of early evening ITV news, & while there was some meaningless news waffle they showed pictures of the second plane hitting the tower repeatedly from differing angles. Once or twice would have underlined the horror, but this was again, & again & again! If that is not glamorisation, I don’t know what is. Yes, anyway… I thought Jack’s question was very well… attuned. He has heard things on the radio (as we have Radio 4 on the background most all the time) & may have heard the teachers talking bout it at lunchtime, from what Louise gathers. Anyway, Louise was a little taken aback by this question, but gave a very good answer of, ‘Yes, & there were people in the building too’. To which Jack seemed sated in terms of curiosity.

Eve is comprehending books more. To start with she really got fixated on books illustrated by Stephen Cartwright as he puts a little duck or something on each page, & Eve would want to look at these books to find the duck, or as she says “Wack-wack!”. Louise says that she’s heard that this is a good 1st step in reading… heard somewhere that academics say that encourages the child to look for patterns, or some such. Now we have a ‘Goldilocks & the 3 bears’ illustrated by this fella & Eve blows the hot porridge & empathises with the baby bear when his chair is broken (“Daddy fix it” says Louise). An interesting development – empathising with the book.

‘The News’ was breaking as I was winding up at work yesterday… Oh, that sounds just too stupid… We tried to get some web cam footage from NY as all the news websites were timing out. The BBC eventually dropped ‘off the map’ under the strain. We managed to get some pictures just as I was leaving & it all looked worse than we thought.

It was, of course, much worse. Such platitudes are written worldwide at the moment.

When I got home, (when the kids were away in the garden playing) Louise & I turned on the TV & winced as they showed pictures of the event.

When the kids were in bed we looked again. News saturation does not suspend disbelief.

The NY skyline will never be the same. It will cease to be recognisable – just another city.

Paranoia about the future begins all over again. Media speculation is rife, & centres at the same hot point of speculation that was focused on after the Oklahoma bombing (we were actually in America then). Time may never tell. Truth may be lost in expedience.

I sat in my corner pollyfillering my wall.