The curry devouring bods over at the Greenwich Curry Club have an award to dish out...and the lucky winner can be selected by you guys - please fill in the very short survey here to nominate your best curry nosh place.
Tuesday, 13 September 2011
Saturday, 10 September 2011
I do not know your name
A poem written by Kenny Harris begins and ends with the following line:
I do not know your name, but I know you died
I do not know from where you came, but I know you died
He wrote it after visiting some war graves. I couldn't find any poems of remembrance for non-military people who had died in a war but these lines really sum up how I feel.
As we approach the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I'm sure many of us will reflect on where we were when the first of the planes struck. I was in an office in Central London in my first design job. My colleagues and I watched it all happening on the Internet. At first there was laughter as it looked like a hoax but as we watched people jumping to their deaths and news came from other sources, it became vividly clear that this was real. Did the world change that day? I grew up in a London that was terrorised by the IRA - and on occasion at work on Oxford street, would be warned to keep away from the glass windows in our office building. The IRA gave warnings and I think mostly, hit military targets.
9/11 reminded the West that in war, it wasn't just soldiers who died. Was this the first time since Pearl Harbour that Americans had been attacked on their own home soil? The most shocking thing was these were people who were just having ordinary days the same as I was - going to work, having breakfast, doing their day to day. They weren't aware of any war, nor that they were potential targets. And it still doesn't feel like war, it still feels like murder as it did in London 4 years later.
I didn't know any of them, but I know they died and tomorrow I shall be saying a prayer for them and their loved ones.
I do not know your name, but I know you died
I do not know from where you came, but I know you died
He wrote it after visiting some war graves. I couldn't find any poems of remembrance for non-military people who had died in a war but these lines really sum up how I feel.
As we approach the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, I'm sure many of us will reflect on where we were when the first of the planes struck. I was in an office in Central London in my first design job. My colleagues and I watched it all happening on the Internet. At first there was laughter as it looked like a hoax but as we watched people jumping to their deaths and news came from other sources, it became vividly clear that this was real. Did the world change that day? I grew up in a London that was terrorised by the IRA - and on occasion at work on Oxford street, would be warned to keep away from the glass windows in our office building. The IRA gave warnings and I think mostly, hit military targets.
9/11 reminded the West that in war, it wasn't just soldiers who died. Was this the first time since Pearl Harbour that Americans had been attacked on their own home soil? The most shocking thing was these were people who were just having ordinary days the same as I was - going to work, having breakfast, doing their day to day. They weren't aware of any war, nor that they were potential targets. And it still doesn't feel like war, it still feels like murder as it did in London 4 years later.
I didn't know any of them, but I know they died and tomorrow I shall be saying a prayer for them and their loved ones.
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Lazy sunday
It was my child's birthday yesterday. The years are truly going fast. After a manic week of getting presents and food sorted, we had a great get-together with the Scottish family in Dundee (plus my dad - who surprisingly came up for the weekend).
This morning, after dropping Dad off at the station we took the little one to Callendar Park in Falkirk to try out her new bike. Just by luck, there was an ActiveSunday event on so we were able to briefly watch some kids cheerleading and doing karate among other exhibits.
After lunch, we headed back home and had a lazy afternoon. Thanks to our neighbour's buddleia trees, we have many butterflies in our garden. While I was napping in the garden chair, one even landed on my nose! I didn't get a picture of that one but got a rather fuzzy one of a red admiral. It's very hard not to be chilled with these beauties fluttering about.
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