Where were you on 9/11? No, seriously

[JohnnyCouncil]

They did, although the pre-smoking ban covered it somewhat.

[manticore]

There's something weirdly poignant about the Pingu clips being stuck in there. The BBC must have decided to keep running their children's programmes on the other channel as a sort of safe haven for children to escape the horrors of the news. I remember hearing that Channel 4 did something similar on the day of Princess Diana's funeral, giving kids a chance to escape the gloom.

The day after the Munich massacre at the Olympics in 1972, when I was 10, our teacher sat and gave us a talk about how not all grown-ups were bad and the world was not just full of evil people who wanted to kill. It was nice of her to do that and I appreciated it, and I suppose it would have been a bit much to have expected her to tell a bunch of kids about the murder of Palestinian people at the same time.

I guess teachers were doing similar things on September 12th.

[Phoenix Lazarus]

Unemployed at the time, I got back in after doing a bit of shopping, and turned my TV on, at about quarter past two in the afternoon.  The first plane had not long hit and it was being reported as an accident.  I think I rather underestimated the size of the smoking tower block, as I was using those in Leicester as a guide, and that city is not notable for the size of even its larger buildings.

[timebug]

I was on an afternoon shift at our local Hospital at the time. We came out from our handover meeting and the TV was on in the ward (It always was back then!) and an old lady patient told us that 'a plane had crashed into a skyscraper'. We assumed a small two seater job, with an inexperienced or chemically diverted pilot. But then we saw the scale of the thing,as the BBC stayed with it as it unfolded. Twenty minutes or so later of course,plane two arrived and flew into the other tower.
They cut away now and then to show what had happened at the Pentagon,but mainly stayed with it. I remember it being on the Beeb all afternoon, and no one could believe the scale of the thing. Positively chilling.

[a duncandisorderly]

I first visited NYC in the summer of 1999, & a trip up the WTC was part of the itinerary. I had a dv camcorder with me, & made a pest of myself with it, but one thing I did do was point it at the floor-counter in the high-speed elevator used by tourists &, as it turned out, employees, to get to the restaurant at the top of the world or whatever they called it.

the counter went up to 109, I think, & throughout both the up & the down, the audio is of RATTOTW employees bitching about their boss & not being able to get out of the building on their breaks.

[at the time, I had a mate working for viacom on the 45th floor of 1515 broadway, & he said he was taking his own lunch to work every day because it would take him 45 minutes just to get out of the building.]

I got good footage from on the roof- planes going past down the river for which I had to tilt the camera down, wacky stuff like that. incredible view. the windows on the observation deck below this roof were curved out from the floor, so you could look straight down the side of the building. outside, at ground level, the towers seemed to be quite small, footprint-wise, & quite close together. I suppose that was a consequence of their enormous height- watching 'man on wire', I was surprised how far apart they were. it seemed like about the length of a cricket pitch at the time.

I visited the WTC again at easter the next year, & we couldn't go outdoors because of the fog. the girl I was with was terrified of the height so we didn't linger. they had this thing where they took your picture at the bottom, as you went into the lift, then handed you the prints at the top as you got out, for $12 or something. nice gimmick. proper chemical prints, none of your inkjet junk.

[JohnnyCouncil]

Unemployed at the time, I got back in after doing a bit of shopping, and turned my TV on, at about quarter past two in the afternoon.  The first plane had not long hit and it was being reported as an accident.  I think I rather underestimated the size of the smoking tower block, as I was using those in Leicester as a guide, and that city is not notable for the size of even its larger buildings.

Attenborough Tower surely.

[Noodle Lizard]

I was 11, so I was at school.  I noticed teachers being especially glum or distracted that afternoon, but they'd obviously decided not to tell us.  My mum told me when she came to pick us up.  We had just visited NYC not long before and gone up to the top of the WTC - there's even some janky video message we e-mailed to our dad from one of those futuristic machines they had - so it was especially weird to see. 

I remember being confused as to whether or not it was an accident, didn't quite get the concept of terrorism back then.  Fortunately, my mum set me straight and reassured me that it was just an inside job.

[gmoney]

I twas queuing for the school bus home in the assembly hall as usual, when I noticed my absolute knob of a form tutor at the end of the hall, he was wide-eyed and almost physically miming a plane hitting the a building to another teacher. I remember thinking it was really odd to see him so animated, and what on earth was he playing at. I don't remember actually finding it out, though we always had the radio on in the school bus, so no doubt I would have heard it then, but it's odd I don't actually remember actually learning what happened. The next thing I can remember is being at home and watching it on TV, flicking between CNN and NBC.

[king_tubby]

Did the Gents' toilets fucking stink back then, too? I mean aside from how you'd expect them to smell.

Can confirm they fucking reeked when I was in there earlier in the year.

[dallasman]

OK, seriously, this is what I posted last year:

16 years ago, I was working on some music, spazzed on coffee and hash, when my girlfriend called (on a land line!), telling me to turn on the news. Long story short, I felt weirdly inspired by the carnage, adding a whole new middle section and some additional orchestration. The piece is called "Bruno The Prune". The end.

Now, in the new spirit of whoring out old art, I've uploaded the track to Soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/bruno-faetten/bruno-the-prune/s-t7p9v

It's like the score to a cheap 90s children's animation, with ideas above its station. Or a hypnotic blend of trance, baroque and pop. To me, it still conjures the smoke, rubble and endless replays of the second plane hitting, though it was obviously intended as a mostly joyful piece of music.

About the title, "prune" basically means "schmaltzy oldie" in Norwegian vernacular. "Strangers In The Night" is a prune. "This Boy" is a Beatles prune, and so on. It's a companion piece of sorts to "Rael The Raisin", and there's also a "Prune Prelude". Rael and Bruno are psudonyms I've used, as all these instrumentals are obviously about me. As far as the terrible events of 9/11 are concerned, however, the middle bit of "Bruno The Prune" is where it's at.

Also, the comedy rap side project I was in at the time, recorded a song that summer, threatening to make our city "the new Afghanistan", which would've been sort of prescient if it hadn't already been such a notorious shithole, and it would've been pretty racist to pick on them if it weren't. Hey, it's not the Afghans' fault, they just got a rotten deal out of the Cold War and got stuck with the Taliban. It worked out well for us, though, as the allied military campaign (just entering its 18th year) soon lent our threat some spectacular weight. So here's a link to that as well, even though it's not a great song and the only word you'll understand is "Afghanistan" (which appears at about 3:02) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DC6EYEfWxY

[Head Gardener]

I was watching the TV as I mentioned earlier but saw this shirt and thought of this thread

[a duncandisorderly]

I was watching the TV as I mentioned earlier but saw this shirt and thought of this thread

that is almost as tasteless as the beasties t I described earlier or possibly elsewhere. nice.

[daf]

9 November?

At home - tracking down early Mansun b-sides on Limewire.

My favourite find : GSOH

[phes]

Working on a secure acute psychiatric ward. The residents were not so interested on account of being extremely acutely mentally ill and airplanes crashing into and felling NYC skyscrapers being an entirely predictable weekday morning at that point in their lives

[remedial_gash]

Was working in an awful AA call centre and suddenly the phones went dead, some managers rushed around to see what the technical problem was, but told of the news they relayed it sombrely to us.

At the time, or at least very recently prior to this, the CIA in Cardiff called itself the 'world trade centre' so upon hearing of this tragedy looked out of our very tall window and could see the 'world trade centre' intact.

I was perma-pissed at the time and not very bright, had probably pissed the bed the night before and was even more of a fuckup than I am now. Anyway, in lieu of telly in the office my 'team' just played board games all afternoon and didn't quote insurance at all. It was only when I got home I could understand it.My housemate evil dave was transfixed and probably had a few sneaky wanks.

I got into to trouble with one of those of privatised re-start agency cunts for declaring that 9/11 was my favourite day of working because of the board games.

[jobotic]

I was working hard on a building site, melting steel beams with aircraft fuel so I didn't hear the news until later.

[yesitsme]

We were in work and one of the girls said 'Someone's flown a plane in to the World Trade Centre'.  We all thought it was a Cessna or something like that but because we weren't allowed to use the internet in work (imagine that now) or send emails (because it cost and they cost 10p each respectively*) we knew nothing about it.

Then the phone started ringing off the hook with people trying to get home.  They'd heard that there was a flight coming back from Miami - they'd drive it, they'd heard the QE2 was in New York - they'd catch that, they'd heard there was a train that ran under the Atlantic - why hadn't we put them on that?

No matter how many times you told them all US airspace had closed and would be closed for a week at least these stuck up wankers knew better.

The account I workd on was Arthur Anderson, I was glad when they went tits up.

It was the same with that big ash cloud a few years back.  Madrid was the first airport to open and the clamour to get there was unbelievable.  The ports were blocked out but these cunts wanted to push their way to the front.  One of them told me he'd heard there was a 'disco train' that ran from Paris to Madrid, 'get me on that'.  He was right there was but it was full of 18 year olds who'd eat him alive.

When 7/7 happened I was at home with eldest.  We went to Twins and Triplets Club (he was neither - I used to say 't'other one's at home' then we went to the park then we did other things and I knew nothing about all of it until my missus got home from work.

Amazing to think how mobile phones weren't as ubiquitous such a short time ago.

*The internet had really only just come out.  Our manager was convinced that the internet cost money to use and despite the number of conversations, arguments, blazing rows we had with her banned e-mail due to it's 10p a time cost.

Fuck me.

In the end they relented and let us check in the net for info.  We weren't to use the BBC though as that was fire walled.  The only site we could get on to was Talksport.

That's right.  All the latest from Ground Zero from Alan Brazil, Mike Parry and the Moose.

Christ almighty.

[Neville Chamberlain]

10p to send an e-mail?!?!?

What kind of half-assed goddamned place did you work at?!?!?

[Cuellar]

we weren't allowed to use the internet in work (imagine that now) or send emails (because it cost and they cost 10p each respectively*) we knew nothing about it.

I remember when my uncle from Minnesota came to visit and he had the internet. Using it to look up basketball scores but having to keep an eye on the clock as it cost money.

Nothing to do with 9/11, sorry.

[yesitsme]

10p to send an e-mail?!?!?

What kind of half-assed goddamned place did you work at?!?!?

It was just that the manager was a crazy bitch.  She wouldn't have it that it was free.

She's area manager now for 'the North'.

[Captain Z]

I remember when my uncle from Minnesota came to visit and he had the internet. Using it to look up basketball scores but having to keep an eye on the clock as it cost money.

And that would have cost even more to look at pages in the US.

[Neville Chamberlain]

She's area manager now for 'the North'.

The North of Hell, I hope!