Two minutes' silence

Just had this e-mail

"Following the terrible events of the London bombings, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell, and Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone have announced that a two-minute silence for victims of the London bombings is to take place at 12.00 noon today (Thursday 14 July 2005).

Staff may wish to observe this silence as a matter of respect if they are able to do so.

Regards

Communications Officer"

In other words: "Shut the fuck up, or you'll be seen as an uncaring cunt!"

No doubt, we'll also get the usual, "I don't know if you know, but we're having a 2 minutes' silences for the London bombs at midday, so..." from somebody hovering at the door, but only after going on about how hot they are and how hot it got in the office yesterday afternoon and how it's going to cool down and how they can't cope!

I wouldn't mind, but they've only just stopped talking about the attacks here. Thank fuck they didn't happen in the local bloody town!

I think all these two minutes' silence are getting a bit much. Is there a sliding scale of grief or respect? I mean how do the holocaust and the World Wars compare with the Asian tsunami, 11th September, Madrid and London? I think we should have at least 30 minutes' silence for the World Wars if that's the case. And what about the 1918-19 flu pandemic? That one got about 50million people worldwide!

I'm not saying that people shouldn't demonstrate their respect for the victims, or their outrage at the attacks and the twisted philosophy behind them, but for some things, we really do need to get a grip or we'll never get on with our lives.

Perhaps I'm just a twat.

An Edit: Our Communications Officer (who is lovely, but has a duty to communicate anything that people ask her to) has just sent out a "thought for the day", which has been put together by the Chaplaincy Team. It "may be of comfort to staff at this time". Is it just me? Is there something wrong with me that finds this sort of thing utter bollocks?

And they wonder why we're £7 million in debt.

For fuck's sake it was a terrible event, appalling, outrgaeous, disgusting. I have sympathy for the victims and their families. But please, get a fucking grip people!

I blame Princess Diana.