But its true! Y has it suddenly increased to 3 minutes? Anyone know? My point remains,what is this obsession with public displays of silence? If you want to pause in your life to think about thngs like that,fine,go nuts.But y do some people expect to impose it on everyone else,in public? Surely its a matter of personal choice,whether or not 1 stops their activities in public,to think about something? It seems there is a growing need with some people to engage in recreational grief.I can understand people who have some kind of personal involvement in this disaster doing it,but the majority of people I see going on about this,upon questioning,admit this disaster had nothing to do with them!
It seems to be a big insecurity in some people,that is only dealt with by engaging in public recreational grief (even if they had nothing to do with it),in some morbid bid to publicly out do each other to show their sympathy! Individual sympathy for disaster victims is fine,but I have to wonder about people who feel a need to publicly out do each other in a bid to make a show of it.

And thus you smartly avoid my comments towards you regarding your use of the phrase “nostalgic old fogeys”…hmmmmm…

On the subject of Wednesday’s silence, I agree with the sentiment expressed by some in this thread that the championing of this particular silence was little more than political gesturing on the part of most politicians – but none more so than Mr Blair. On Wednesday I respected the silence out of respect to others who wished to observe it, but I feel it is more useful to donate money to the relief effort, in the belief that I am more use that way, rather than standing still for three minutes. I fully understand that people want to reflect on the disaster – remember those who were lost, and give thanks for those who survived, and I would never ever wish to take anything away from that. I just think the silence shouldn’t have been imposed by the EU, but then that’s just me.

I believe that anyone with a heart could not fail to be touched by the disaster, and that holding a three minute silence would not reach out to those missing such a heart.

Essentially I agree with what you say PilotDKH about recreational grief, just not with your comments re Remembrance Sunday.

Good luck Andrew…I hope it all goes well for you 🙂

Melv…can we start with Patty? 😀

Talking of the Puccara (is it one or two ‘c’s?) Anyway…when I was an MA, I was wandering around the site on invigilation duties, when one day by the flightline I came across a large chunk of metal complete with red light…it was obviously from an aircraft, but which one? This was not long after the civil aircraft had shifted down towards Hangers 4 and 5, plus there were several aircraft that had been moved outside for a temporary period (for the life of me, I cannot remember what for) So up and down I trotted trying to work out which aircraft it had come from, and simply could not work it out. So I passed the piece on to Conservation, and I believe it took nearly a month for someone to work out that it was part of the tail of the Puccara – right on the tip at the top. To this day we don’t know how it a) came off – wind? and b) how it came to end up by the flight line, but it certainly livened up a quiet day’s invigilating 😀

[fingers in ears]I’m not listening! I can’t hear you! Laaaalaaa![/fingers in ears]

I was being corporate and diplomatic; I haven’t heard about any specific ****-ups with aircraft movement 😉 For the sake of my blood pressure I’d rather not either!

PS That said, feel free to PM me any howlers!

Mwah ha ha! It’s not just conservation staff who should watch where they’re going sometimes…

My lips are sealed :diablo:

(And it wasn’t me :D)

Marty Feldman?

That’s the one, Robbo, thanks 🙂 I have to confess to never having heard of him until I got this DVD – it was my Mum who told me who he was.

Thank you Martin 🙂

As Mark12 pointed out, the thread in question was not deleted by the moderators. Chris, as I understood it, was looking for a new home for a Breitling watch (presumably in the belief that in offering it to a community of like minded people, it would be more likely to go to someone who will really cherish it) I saw the thread yesterday and decided to leave it. If the Webmaster or others wish to call that a bad call, please go ahead – maybe I was wrong.

However, I do appreciate that such “for sale” threads have the potential to swamp the forum, hence I fully support the notion of a sales/wants forum – an ideal way of finding homes for aviation related items among like minded people. That way, “for sale”/”want” threads will be easy to find in one forum, and those who are not interested in such threads will not have to sift past them to get to the “normal” (:D) threads. I for one have a number of aviation magazines that I would like to see go to a good home (not for profit, but for nothing or a small donation to charity) and such a forum would be a great place to do this. I don’t want to sell them on ebay, as I would rather they went to people who will really appreciate them.

A couple of points though – in my opinion it should be restricted to aviation/military themed items only, there should be no commercial sales whatsoever, and no personal details should be divulged.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

Becka