Meme: Where was you?

James over at Two Doctors sent me this and cooperative son of a gun that I am I'm always willing to oblige. The theme of the meme is "where were you when..."

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997

I heard the news whilst I was watching the end of Reds on TV, which is a very good Warren Beatty film based on the stupendous 'Ten days that shook the world'. At the time I was living with a young(ish) child who was absolutely horrified the next morning that TV was cancelled - something that continued for some time.

I better not go on - I get in trouble when I talk about this.


Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990

Oh the joy. I was watching the news with my (Tory) Dad. Oh the bliss. Two birds. One stone.


Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001

I was wandering round Cambridge (before I moved here). One of my workmates rang me up when the first tower was hit. Unfortunately we had this kind of jokey, trick each other into believing things going on so I did not believe him. ESPECIALLY when he rang up to say the other tower had been hit. I kept wracking my brains to thin what the punch line would be.

Then I passed Dixons and everyone was crowded round the TV sets and I thought "Hello."

I then spent the day watching the same footage over and over again knowing that this spelt a lot of trouble for the coming years. Everyone knew this would mean war - we just weren't sure who it was going to be against - turns out it was against everywhere.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990

Not sure. I avoid all England sporting events like the plague, and always have. The machismo and dogmatic jingoism that surrounds them is just unbearable to me. Sometimes I dress this up as some sort of revolutionary stance - but actually I just don't like shouting.

I do remember the level of racism really spiked over the next couple of weeks. Which was also very unpleasant.

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963

I was on the grass knoll. Picnicking.


As you may know I don't pass these things on - but please do feel free to take up the baton from here if you so desire. Update: Phil, Stroppy, Steve and Harpy Marx have all taken up the challenge. Anyone who takes up the baton from here feel free to let me know and I'll link to you in a bit of retroactive tagging.