For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By Cowshed
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541578
Maybe there is less of a reserved stiff upper lip these days. Most people are shocked and saddened by what has happened recently (the Glenfell fire, the terrorist attacks etc) and most of us can’t do anything directly to help those affected. A minute’s silence is perhaps a token, but it is a symbol that we do empathise with those affected. Perhaps it is pointless. And yes, as a nation, we are inconsistent with when a disaster merits one and when one doesn’t. I'm not going to get too worked up about that. We also don’t officially remember all the small disasters that happen to people every day. But that is life – some things are of a scale they hit the national psyche, some don’t. Ultimately the best memory to those killed and injured in the fire is to apply lessons to reduce the chances of it happening again – only time will tell if this indeed happens.

One thing different that strikes me about the fire is that for the survivors, in addition to possibly losing friends and family, they have lost 100% of their things and their homes. That makes recovering from their own individual disasters massively more difficult. Thus far the official response to dealing with the aftermath seems patchy to put it mildly. I guess we haven’t needed a FEMA type organisation because we don’t tend to have weather-related disasters in the UK such as these that often occur in the US. The system of the local authority dealing with things appears to have been overwhelmed.

I’ve just seen headlines that 57 people have been killed in forest fires in central Portugal (a disaster of not dissimilar scale to Glenfell). Grim.
By Bill McCarthy
#1541597
Let's get one thing straight - I am an ardent adherent to remembrance day ceremony, but come the day when the public start clapping at the Cenotaph I will blow my top ! I suggest that clapping during solemn moments are crass and insensitive.
I get thoroughly cheesed off with quasi bleeding heart do gooders who push themselves in front of media cameras in order to grab a piece of the action and blame anyone around. In addition, vehement Muslims may take offense that Christians pray for them during this crisis ?
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By Rob P
#1541617
Bill McCarthy wrote: I am an ardent adherent to remembrance day ceremony, but come the day when the public start clapping at the Cenotaph I will blow my top ! I suggest that clapping during solemn moments are crass and insensitive.


Many of you will know the Menin Gate sunset ceremony held each and every day in Ypres?

The MC now has to remind people that the final note of The Last Post is not an appropriate moment for applause.

Rob P
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By kanga
#1541623
Bill McCarthy wrote:... In addition, vehement Muslims may take offense that Christians pray for them during this crisis ?


??

[Obviously, the Muslims I have known have not been vehement enough .. :roll: ]
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By GAFlyer4Fun
#1541648
Places where I work mark the start and finish of a one minute silence using the fire alarm. Usually we are notified this will happen. Recently the fire alarm went off unexpectedly and I said to a colleague it is not the weekly alarm test day/time and I started to get up leave the building when he said its for a one minute silence....

The next one minute silence was notified....

I think I have lost touch with the reality of what level of tragedy justifies a national one minute silence in comparison to the 2 minutes silence for Remembrance Day for the millions that died.
By masterofnone
#1541655
From a distance, it seems that "feeling good" generally beats "doing good".

For example, I've never really understood the compulsion for laying flowers. In the event of a disaster, rather than line the pockets of the nearest florist, I donate the cash equivalent to the survivors appeal. This seems a bit more constructive than creating a very expensive, massive pile of organic matter that will be rotting a few days later.
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By Chris Martyr
#1541659
The modern day concept of having a minutes silence has turned the whole process of acknowledging those deceased into a somewhat frivolous commodity.
There was a time when a period of silence was held as a gesture of acknowledgement to our peoples war dead. Whilst I don't wish to show any sort of disrespect to those whose lives have been taken in recent events , it has to be said that the blanket mourning that we have been seeing , has put a rather different perspective on something that in the end will get all of us.
I would certainly like to think that when I drop off my perch , people will maybe remember me as I was with maybe a nice eulogy and maybe a couple of drinks in my memory, but if people who I had never met before were having periods of silence for me I would find that a bit worrisome.
One of the more human aspects of the recent Grenfell Towers disaster has been the amount of help that has been offered by anonymous volunteers in the form of food ,baby clothing and other aid. It is gestures like these that bind the community , regardless of creed , colour , religion , or whether you believe the whole thing was caused by Theresa May or even if you're one of Jeremy's university cultivated socialist worker children.

One day , all the deceased will be accounted for and the politicians will all be spouting off about 'lessons being learned' .
Hopefully , the lesson which they learn will be a real one , one which we all thought was learned years ago .

As a footnote : I took my grandson to an away match in his junior football team a couple of years back. Just prior to the K/O , I noticed all the lads standing in a circle facing downwards. When I later questioned him , his answer was "it was for someone who'd died".
Let's not insult the poor unfortunate folk who have perished in recent events with hollow , meaningless gestures like these.
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By Bill McCarthy
#1541727
As I get older I seem to be attending more funerals these days. As we huddle round the graveside I often look out beyond the cemetery and see traffic trundling by with the hustle and bustle of daily life going on as normal. Life goes on.
By Spooky
#1541745
I think it is more to show unity than mourn. I don't think it does much, but it makes people feel good that they've done something and gives the media something to report.
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By Lindsayp
#1541760
It's all created by the meedja though and then reported in many pages by them. I really doubt there is much actual empathy going on; some sympathy yes, but very very few of us could begin to truly empathise with those who've been involved in a tower block fire, maniac van driver attack, suicide bombing, etc. However the media whip up a storm of sympathy and oblige the susceptible to exhibit the required behavior, which fills the tabloids with copy for a week or so with personal accounts, dud insights, etc.
When I sympathise and think about victims of some event, I am quite capable of doing so without instructions from the media or anyone else. I deplore the grip the media has on the national psyche and popular culture these days.
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By The Admin Team
FLYER Team Member  FLYER Team Member
#1541838
C57 - no need to rehash your post from page 1 to reiterate your dislike for these events; think we got it the first time around.

Expressing and sharing views is fine, grinding axes a lot less so.
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By GAFlyer4Fun
#1541922
PeteSpencer wrote:Well, there's another one at 11.00 today (Monday 19th) for us all to have a moan about...... :roll:


We had the fire alarms going off (unannounced) for that. I did not moan about it but others did. Some knew it was going to happen, some did not... inconsistent use of email distribution lists. Someone that got the email said didn't we have a 1 minute silence for that tower last week?

There is a risk that we get so accustomed to hearing a fire alarm at the non-prescribed test day/time that eventually someone will not evacuate when they really need to. That would be tragic.

Some parts of the country are becoming tinder dry, and I don't understand smokers that flick cigarette ends out the car window rather than put them out properly and leave them in the ash tray. If it causes a fire it could lead to another one minute silence.
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By TheFarmer
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1541927
I was in Costa Coffee at Chieveley services yesterday morning at 11am, the morning of the Finsbury Park incident, and someone tried to start a one minute silence. It's clear that these silences aren't taken as seriously as they used to be, as he was ignored, and everyone carried on what they were doing.

The way this country is going, if we aren't careful, the 11:00 ton11:01 period will become a national silence slot for any human, cat, bumble bee or earthworm that has recently died.
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By Rob P
#1541933
The simple solution is that we have a one minute silence every day between 1100 and 1101 with a smartphone app available that plays the Last Post whilst it scrolls through the names of everyone who died or cut their thumb or whatever the previous day.

Rob P