Ops-Normal.org

That merits a few moments of silent contemplation. Thank you.

Someone has mentioned that a big events is when you remember where you were when you hear the news: PA103 was the second event (the Challenger disaster was the first). Only know I realize the pain the relatives felt as they were learning the news just four days before Christmas at their seasonally decorated homes. And how Christmas would first be connected with their loss.

I drove past today (at about 2pm).
My son-in-law (who was there in 1988) says it was a few minutes after 7pm.

Log books are useful things. Looks as if I was at home in the Cotswolds but really can't remember it. HRH The Princess of Wales yes. Bad night in the pub the night before heard it on the radio in the car driving into Burford, don't know why I was going there. Got home, Mrs Ex-Ascot moaning about her head. I said forget about that.

11/09 yes in a taverna on the seafront on Amorgos when it came on the news.

The usual last minute “got to do this before I go” run up to Christmas. The wing commander in charge of the section next door to mine in Adastral House, MOD was scheduled to travel on that flight but rang up that morning to reschedule and take him, his wife and kids off that flight.

Being in South Africa and not having a television set, I didn't hear about it until the next morning when a friend rang me.

TV did exist in ZA, it started in about 1975, bilingual, alternating Afrikaans and what passed for English with the SABC then, only one channel, the local content was abysmal and the imported content was out of date US and UK crap. If you spoke Afrikaans and you could string together a few words of heavily accented English, you was tweetalig (bilingual.) If you spoke proper English and could manage a bit of Afrikaans, you were a **** rooinek.

More or less the same now, except that most of the local programmes are aimed at the indigenous population, so the minority get packages such as DSTV, Netflix etc. I can get the ZA channels on my IPTV box wherever I am, and with a few exceptions they are mostly a waste of time.

Mrs C16's nephew, now a Doctor at a London hospital, was still in his mother's womb as she and his Dad drove north to Glasgow that night. His Dad told me years ago that when he was a couple of miles north of Lockerbie he saw a sudden orange light fill his rear view mirror but at the time had no idea what it was. Realisation dawned later.

Does anyone here believe the official explanation for the bombing and that the conviction of Megrahi was just and fair?
Supposedly the Scottish Court is due to perform a Criminal Case Review but once again it seems to have been suppressed/buried...

He was almost certainly guilty of something.

The only concern I have is the waste of taxpayers' money.