I observed the 2 minutes' silence with a friend in a coffee shop this morning. When we were invited to do this at 11:00, all the customers kept the silence - except for two women who carried on with their banal conversation at normal volume ... it was rather sad.
Were they unaware that they alone were not silent or deliberately making a pathetic point? If, as I assume, the latter, then it is, as you say, sad... People! What to do with them?
I suppose (putting the concept of good manners to one side) that in the two minutes' silence we honour those who fought for our freedom to carry on talking even when we have been asked not to ...
But with freedom is not the same as selfishness. It comes with responsibilities to respect and preserve the freedom of those around you.If that is lost, your own rights will soon also be in jeopardy.
How sad, indeed. But are they are the sort of people, one wonders, who would have made any kind of sacrifice for others, given the choice.
In the changing area at the health and fitness club I go to (yes, Brian, I know I'm hardly a good advert for them), we thought there would be a tannoy announcement just before eleven. Since there wasn't,some of us stood in silence for the two minutes. We might have been fractionally late, but realised that wasn't too important.
I hope that we use at least a few seconds of those two minutes to remember war's non-combatant victims too - all those millions of men, women and children broken, burnt or blown to bits not because they chose to go to war, but because war came to them.
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I observed the 2 minutes' silence with a friend in a coffee shop this morning. When we were invited to do this at 11:00, all the customers kept the silence - except for two women who carried on with their banal conversation at normal volume ... it was rather sad.
Were they unaware that they alone were not silent or deliberately making a pathetic point? If, as I assume, the latter, then it is, as you say, sad... People! What to do with them?
I suppose (putting the concept of good manners to one side) that in the two minutes' silence we honour those who fought for our freedom to carry on talking even when we have been asked not to ...
But with freedom is not the same as selfishness. It comes with responsibilities to respect and preserve the freedom of those around you.If that is lost, your own rights will soon also be in jeopardy.
How sad, indeed. But are they are the sort of people, one wonders, who would have made any kind of sacrifice for others, given the choice.
In the changing area at the health and fitness club I go to (yes, Brian, I know I'm hardly a good advert for them), we thought there would be a tannoy announcement just before eleven. Since there wasn't,some of us stood in silence for the two minutes. We might have been fractionally late, but realised that wasn't too important.
I hope that we use at least a few seconds of those two minutes to remember war's non-combatant victims too - all those millions of men, women and children broken, burnt or blown to bits not because they chose to go to war, but because war came to them.
PS Anon regrets that he can type more quickly than he can think...! Best wishes.
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