Crikey, it's 9/11

Where did that come from?

For the record, not that anyone asked, six years ago I was waiting at the Frilford traffic lights on the A415 en route to Witney when the 2 o'clock radio news announced breaking news that an aeroplane had collided with the World Trade Centre. And like the rest of the world, I assumed it was some idiot trainee in a Cessna. Funny how you never actually see the world change around you. Once the facts caught up, tragic though it was, it did occur to me that maybe it was a bit like the sinking of the Titanic, which ushered in a new world of stringent lifeboat regulations and safety precautions and ultimately saved more lives than it lost. On 9/10 you could have smuggled an elephant through US customs; on 9/12 you couldn't get a gnat in. The attacks might have led to the present mess in Iraq by means that still aren't entirely clear, but they could also have prevented the Great Al Qaeda Nuclear Strike on Manhattan.

Drove home that evening in sombre mood, and for the first time in my life almost had to pull over with streaming eyes as Classic FM played "Lacrimosa" from Preisner's "Requiem for my friend". Or maybe that was the next day on the way back in.

That afternoon I had set my video to record Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh in That Hamilton Woman. I watched it that evening, and during one of the commercial breaks John Sissons popped up from Channel 4 News to announce the same breaking news. Then it was back to the film, then another news flash and this time the film never re-started. I had to wait for a repeat many months later to find out how it ended, though I had my suspicions.

A year later - five years ago - I was in the US for my first ever visit. And great fun it was too. The world SF convention in San Jose, fly to St Louis, stay with friends in the strangely named Highland, Illinois (it's flat), sleeper train to NYC via Chicago, train to DC, fly home. Memorable experiences/ticked boxes in the great checklist of life:

• first night in America, eating in a diner straight out of every movie you ever saw
• San Francisco, including obligatory drive over the Golden Gate Bridge, but sadly my host vetoed a reconstruction of the car chase from Bullitt
  
• the Winchester house, San Jose
• the Cahokia Mounds and the St Louis stargate gateway arch
• said train trip: a space age sleeping cabin all to myself and astonishingly beautiful scenery outside
  
• New York and the Empire State Building: an ambition ever since I learned of its existence aged about five, in the Thunderbirds where it falls down
  
• trying to cash a traveller's cheque in said Highland. Banking lady could not believe someone would come all the way from England just to cash a cheque in her bank. Once the concept had been explained - no, I didn't have an account, that was the whole point - and run past her manager, we had the following memorable conversation as the computer did its stuff.
• Lady: so, you're from England?
• Me: that's right.
• Lady: my stepfather is from Croatia.

I had deliberately timed my departure from the US for 9/12, thinking that if I flew back on the first anniversary the security would be so tight as to be unbearable. As it was, JFK was so packed I missed my connecting flight from Dulles by minutes, and everyone was saying I should have been there yesterday when the place was deserted. The first anniversary itself wasn't too bad. All the hoopla was over by the time I woke up, as all the commemorations were timed for the time of the attacks, early in the morning by US time. Later in the morning I wandered around Arlington (which seemed appropriate), then in the afternoon went with my friends to tour George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. As my friends' kids were home schooled, this counted as edumacation.

Earlier on in New York I had the slightly surreal experience of sharing a lift an elevator in my hotel with a group of police officers from the Met. They were there, of course, for the forthcoming commemorations. A WPC had an itty-bitty truncheon about two centimetres long and an American who was with us observed, "ma'am, that ain't gonna stop nuthin.'" But I think he was impressed that anyone would even try.