Thursday, September 30, 2010

tiresome Americans


Listening to Radio 4 I roll my eyes as some tiresome American is interviewed at 'ground zero' - that equally tiresome and technically incorrect euphemism for the site on which the Twin Towers once stood. He whines on in an irritating New York accent about Moslems who want to build a mosque at the location describing this apparently outrageous plan as 'emotional terrorism', having first prefaced his inflammatory remarks with the disclaiming "I'm all for religions..." I wait patiently for the interviewer to point out that a lot of US moslems died in the attack but she allows his bigoted rant to pass without challenge.

I seem to recall that Americans were rather less sympathetic to the plight of Londoners who braved Irish terrorist bombs during the seventies and eighties: indeed, they were quite happy to fund that 'terror'; but then that is my experience of Americans, it's never a problem until something happens in their own back-yard and when it does they pontificate and eulogize in the most sanctimonious way to the point where you feel like saying "just fucking deal with it". Thankfully, we were spared any mention of 'closure' otherwise I think the radio would have gone out of the window closely followed by a few choice expletives. Happy days.


Saturday, September 11, 2010

Mrs B


Mrs B died in her garden the other day. She was eighty something. Her husband of nearly sixty years died a few weeks earlier and she seemed to have given up. It wasn't a surprise to learn she'd passed. Guess it was the best way for her to go - pottering in the garden, the place she loved, on a beautifully sunny September afternoon. It has a poetic quality. Take care Mrs B.