So ordinary they named her once
Oct. 12th, 2006 11:19 amIf you can really be said to have a “favourite bit” of September 11, mine has to be when I was glued to BBC news, which had been covering events uninterrupted for hours, and a big blue banner suddenly appeared at the bottom of the screen saying “‘NEIGHBOURS’ STARTING NOW ON BBC2”.
Running that a close second was the “breaking news”, in among the estimated death tolls and the overwhelming confusion and fear, that “DUCHESS OF YORK IN NEW YORK BUT ‘SAFE’”. Someone had decided the nation ought to be told this as soon as possible. I still don't understand. If they thought that worth a mention, where was the banner saying “![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
webofevil’S MATE TURNS OUT STILL TO BE IN UK AND NOT ALREADY BACK HOME IN NEW YORK AS PREVIOUSLY FEARED”? Does it mean I’m an awful human being that my first reaction on watching the towers come down wasn’t “Please, Lord, let the Duchess of York have come through this atrocity unscathed”?
I ask this latter question because yesterday proved there’s something I’m just not getting here. Left jangled by the unpleasant experience of sitting at work watching another plane fly into another high-rise building in New York, knowing what that will have done to New Yorkers, the mental scabs it will have picked at and just how many stiff drinks will have been needed last night, I came home and switched on the news just in time to hear that “the Duchess of York owns an apartment in the building next door to the Belaire, but she left an hour before the crash”. Which in itself would maybe have been okay, but for the follow-up: “She is said to be fine.”
She left the building next door an hour before. How would she not have been “fine”, exactly? Just how slowly does this woman move? Or was this just to allay our fears that she might have developed a head-cold thanks to New York’s damp weather? Either way, why in the name of all that’s scrofulous did this warrant a mention on my fucking television?
Running that a close second was the “breaking news”, in among the estimated death tolls and the overwhelming confusion and fear, that “DUCHESS OF YORK IN NEW YORK BUT ‘SAFE’”. Someone had decided the nation ought to be told this as soon as possible. I still don't understand. If they thought that worth a mention, where was the banner saying “
webofevil’S MATE TURNS OUT STILL TO BE IN UK AND NOT ALREADY BACK HOME IN NEW YORK AS PREVIOUSLY FEARED”? Does it mean I’m an awful human being that my first reaction on watching the towers come down wasn’t “Please, Lord, let the Duchess of York have come through this atrocity unscathed”? I ask this latter question because yesterday proved there’s something I’m just not getting here. Left jangled by the unpleasant experience of sitting at work watching another plane fly into another high-rise building in New York, knowing what that will have done to New Yorkers, the mental scabs it will have picked at and just how many stiff drinks will have been needed last night, I came home and switched on the news just in time to hear that “the Duchess of York owns an apartment in the building next door to the Belaire, but she left an hour before the crash”. Which in itself would maybe have been okay, but for the follow-up: “She is said to be fine.” She left the building next door an hour before. How would she not have been “fine”, exactly? Just how slowly does this woman move? Or was this just to allay our fears that she might have developed a head-cold thanks to New York’s damp weather? Either way, why in the name of all that’s scrofulous did this warrant a mention on my fucking television?
