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I was living in California on September 11 2001. I'd just had my 33rd birthday, and on the 10th I'd dropped a friend by the kurb at San Francisco International for him to fly back to the UK. The next morning I turned on the TV to watch what passed for the morning news and watched the World Trade Center collapse.
What surprised me more than the event itself was the general reaction around me. Our offices in California closed, we went out for lunch and watched people milling around stunned, for the next few weeks doing business proved impossible. Over and over again I was told this was not a time to be thinking about work and commerce. I recall thinking, or rather hoping, that if the same had happened in Britain, we'd react differently.
Well yesterday was not 9-11, certainly no where near in numbers or in terms of scale, but I still feel proud of what I've seen. Particularly of today, with people, as best they can getting back down to the business of living and moving forward. Perhaps it means that I share a relatively small Island with a bunch of other people who live far tooo far along the autistic bell curve. However, I prefer to think that it means that we don't let the bastard's get to us. We're better than them, and at times like this we show it.
Good on us chaps and as my old house master used to say, chapesses! Now if you can excuse me, I'm going to have a hot mug of dark brown tea and a biscuit.
What surprised me more than the event itself was the general reaction around me. Our offices in California closed, we went out for lunch and watched people milling around stunned, for the next few weeks doing business proved impossible. Over and over again I was told this was not a time to be thinking about work and commerce. I recall thinking, or rather hoping, that if the same had happened in Britain, we'd react differently.
Well yesterday was not 9-11, certainly no where near in numbers or in terms of scale, but I still feel proud of what I've seen. Particularly of today, with people, as best they can getting back down to the business of living and moving forward. Perhaps it means that I share a relatively small Island with a bunch of other people who live far tooo far along the autistic bell curve. However, I prefer to think that it means that we don't let the bastard's get to us. We're better than them, and at times like this we show it.
Good on us chaps and as my old house master used to say, chapesses! Now if you can excuse me, I'm going to have a hot mug of dark brown tea and a biscuit.
