Morning music
11 September 2001
Well, here we are again. On the “original” 11 September, meaning “9/11” 2001 (in the American format), I was in the back of a taxi driving down the Strand in London, with an American colleague. Mid-morning. He received a call from his wife in Charleston, South Carolina. Something about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center in Manhattan.
My colleague relayed the news to me, and the typically know-all London taxi driver told us that he already knew all about it.
My American colleague asked me where we could get to a TV. I replied that our office in London (off Berkeley Square in Mayfair) had one, but that there used to be a Dixons (electronics and home electrical goods store) in the Strand. We saw it, disembarked and went into that store. Hundreds of TV sets, all showing what looked like a disaster movie. A few customers wandering around, looking at the goods, seemingly unaware of the enormity of what was happening, vicariously, in front of them.
After about 10 minutes looking and listening, we left and went to my then office. The staff there were getting the latest on-the-ground and diplomatic news.
My American colleague was both grim and angry, and muttered something about how “we” should respond in the same way the Israelis always did. Needless to say, I disagreed, though as politely as I could. For one thing, the origins and motives of the perpetrators had not yet been established (he was saying that it must be the Iraqis, which of course turned out to be wrong). I do recall remarking that if a state was proven to have been behind the attack, then it was undoubtedly an act of war in terms of international law.
Of course, the 2001 WTC attack was used as the fuel for the American-led invasions of both Iraq and Afghanistan.
I well remember my American colleague’s anger, which I think was general across the USA, from what I not only saw on TV but also what I noted once or twice in the USA not long afterward; I flew to Washington about a week or so after the attacks.
I myself was relatively unemotional about it, despite the horrible images and evident suffering etc. That’s just me, I suppose. After all, many horrible things happen in the world, and the Americans themselves perpetrate quite a few of them. Having said that, the attack was an appalling outrage from almost any point of view.
Since then, of course, the Trade Center attack has spawned a hundred “conspiracy theories”, including the so-called “Dancing Israelis”: see https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12768362.five-israelis-were-seen-filming-as-jet-liners-ploughed-into-the-twin-towers-on-september-11-2001/.
That report is really worth reading. The Israeli intelligence connection to the “9/11” attack is more than a simple “conspiracy theory” that can be simply laughed off.
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_conspiracy_theories.
“After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said: “It’s very good.” Then he corrected himself, adding: “Well, it’s not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy for Israel from Americans.”
[Herald Scotland]
As with the Kennedy assassination, some of the “9/11” conspiracy theories, mutually contradictory as some are, cannot be entirely discounted.
One thing that I found odd at the time was that members of the bin Laden family living in the USA at the time were flown out of US airspace on private jets only a day or two after the attacks (the Pentagon also having been hit), and authorized in person, it seems, by George W. Bush, the U.S. President, and at a time before ordinary commercial flights were allowed to resume.
Of course, since the attacks of 2001, the area of the attack has been redeveloped.
The original “Twin Towers” complex was a very powerful architectural statement, partly because of the two almost identical main buildings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)
In fact, there were minor differences. I went up both towers. Once only, in 1989, onto the open observation deck of the South Tower:
…and also once only to the Hors d’Oeuvrerie and Cellar in the Sky near the top of the North Tower, where I enjoyed the view and a couple of glasses of Californian Chardonnay with my first wife, an employee of the Federal Government. That would have been in 1990 or 1991.
In fact, during the years 1989-1993 I was occasionally at the World Trade Center, but only because I sometimes used the PATH line from Newark (New Jersey) into Manhattan, a service that terminated either at the WTC or at 33rd Street/Herald Square in Midtown (I more often went to Midtown).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PATH_(rail_system)
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein#September_11_attacks
The rebuilt area is still quite striking but perhaps not quite so much as the original:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(2001%E2%80%93present)
Incidentally, one of the things I noticed about the South Tower was the speed of the very large express lift/elevator (the size of a room), which transported tourists to the floor below the Observation Deck in a matter of only a couple of minutes, if I recall aright. I think 107 floors. There was a staircase from there to the outside Observation Deck.
Tweets seen
I did not see the U.S. Presidential TV debate. Such “debates” are always rubbish (going back as far as the famous Nixon-Kennedy ones). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960_United_States_presidential_debates.
Having said that, such shouting matches and trivia do have their effect on voter response.
At this point, I have no idea who supposedly “won” the TV debate, or who is going to come out on top in the election.
The “Twitterati”, or Twitter/X twits, heavily pro-Kamala Harris, think that she has “won” the TV debate, but that is near-meaningless: they were also sure that the Remain side would win the Brexit Referendum, and that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.
America is now so polarized that it would take a President ten times better than the two present contenders rolled together to patch it up.
Starmer-Labour is a Labour Friends of Israel project.
More reminiscences
It seems that today is a day for Memory Lane.
I notice that Larkbeare House in Exeter, not far from the barristers’ chambers where I was professionally based during the years 2002-2008 (though actually resident much of the time after 2005 and until mid-2009 in France), is up for sale.
Larkbeare House was, at that time (and, indeed, since 1876), the Judges’ Lodgings. High Court and Circuit Judges on the Western Circuit of the Bar [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuits_of_England_and_Wales] would stay there when sitting at Exeter.
I attended a couple of receptions there in 2006/2007.
Judges’ Lodgings, which go back hundreds of years, came into existence as a way of isolating judges from the opinions and potential pressures of the local populations, and also protecting them from potential intimidation or protest.
The sale is a sign of the times. The misgovernment of David Cameron-Levita and George Osborne decided to sell off most of the remaining Judges’ Lodgings. Judges now often stay in hotels when on circuit; to my mind not entirely satisfactory.
Incidentally, if anyone wants to buy the property, the “guide price” is £4M.
More tweets
More tweets
Listen to that little bastard (Hamish Falconer MP). Parroting the exact same words that many “Conservative” MPs did 2010-2024. No difference whatsoever. “Tough choices” etc. The little bastard has never had to make a “tough choice” in his life, let alone one that impacted him personally.
Incidentally:
“The son of Charlie Falconer, Baron Falconer of Thoroton, who served as Lord Chancellor under Tony Blair, Falconer attended Westminster School and then St. John’s College, Cambridge, graduating in 2008 in Human, Social and Political Science,[4] before joining the diplomatic service. Falconer worked in the UK government’s Department for International Development from 2009 to 2013, and then the Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2022.[5] His diplomatic career centred on national security and humanitarian relief, including hostage recovery.[6][7] Whilst in the Foreign Office, he spent a year at Yale University as a “World Fellow”.[8]
Since leaving the Foreign, Commonwealth, and Development Office, Falconer worked as an associate fellow at the IPPR,[6] and was a Policy Fellow at the think tank Labour Together alongside standing as a candidate for Parliament.“
[Wikipedia].
A horrible little System-careerist bastard, in short. Moreover, one born with a double-size silver spoon in his mouth.
Starmer and his cohorts, including the said horrible little careerist bastard, are sending £3 BILLION a year to the brutal Jewish dictatorship in Kiev, apart from anything else. More than they are confiscating from British pensioners.
The “Conservative” government of that little Indian money-juggler had to go, had to be binned, but what has replaced it (as I predicted, though not alone) is a kind of useless, pointless, sleazy, box-ticking Blair Mark Two government of would-be dictatorial idiots, headed by chief idiot Starmer.
Everyone and every organization helping to facilitate evil rubbish of that sort should be purged.
Also seen there, jeering, is bad-joke “Lord Chancellor” and Secretary of State for Justice, Shabana Mahmood, a Pakistani woman whose entire “legal career” (even including Bar pupillage) lasted for only about 3 years, mostly spent being a “gopher” at a firm of solicitors.
What a line-up of unpleasant individuals. Look at sour-faced would-be dictator Yvette Cooper! Has she been told that her Labour Friends of Israel subscription is due? Have some of her latest fake expenses claims been queried?
They are already worse. Starmer-Labour, Friends of Israel-Labour, has nothing it really wants to do, except sit as a “government”, get paid well, make connections with big business, and “govern “, punishing anyone who expresses alternative views of the world.
They have no policies worth a plugged nickel, and they have no mandate— only 4 out of every 20 eligible voters voted for them, and most of those were people wanting only to bin the “Conservative” Party.
Starmer-Labour has a list of people they want to kill off or at least imprison and/or silence: pensioners (hardly any of whom vote Labour now), alternative political voices, those opposed to Israeli war crimes and the UK Jewish lobby.
This is a (barely-)”elected” dictatorship, composed mainly of people who can fairly, if loosely, be described as traitors.
Talking point
Britain (and some other countries, such as Sweden) in 2024?
More tweets seen
That Dunt individual is not objective. I believe that he tweeted or retweeted about me a few times in the past. Unpleasant, and usually wrong in his views.
Starmer and his cabal think that the recent protests and their “riotous” offshoots are as bad as it gets for him and Labour. Think again. 4+ years of this type of quasi-tyrannical misgovernment and anything could happen.
From the newspapers
“Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves are set to be insulated from the impact of energy bill hikes as pensioners face a struggle without winter fuel payments.
The PM and Chancellor only pay a taxable benefit on running costs at the grace-and-favour apartments – capped at 10 per cent of their ministerial salaries.
It means that they contribute around £3,000 to cover all utilities and other expenses, and the sum will not go up when the Ofgem cap increases by 10 per cent next month.
…critics have warned that thousands of pensioners on low-incomes could die through lack of heating when the weather turns.”
[Daily Mail]
Late tweets
Well, here she is: aged about 28, and her only work experience has been a bit of “intern” and “volunteer” activity: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helena_Dollimore#Political_career.
These are the know-nothings that purport to rule over us (of course, just lobby-fodder; and a kind of much better-paid advice centre worker).
As I have said, Iran’s tactics of uncertainty keep Israel off-balance, but such tactics cannot be kept in deployment forever. In the end, Iran will have to either put up or shut up.
The way things are going, Britain’s future looks very dark (literally), but I should still much prefer this country not to be blasted and irradiated by nuclear war…
The UK must withdraw all support from the Kiev regime.
Tell me about it!
A few of my own experiences of persecution over the past decade:
I shall have a little more to say about all that either tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 