feeling listless

TV When the recent Columbia tragedy occurred I was shocked, amazed and stunned. I hung on the television for much of the rest of the night waiting for news of what might have happened. But I wasn’t speechless. For most people 9/11 put paid to any such stay at home watching TV feelings. But for me it was years before when Challenger went down. I don’t actually have all that many memories of watching tv when I was young. Then as now I tended to be fiercely loyal and followed some shows to death, but other drifted past. But it was the event programming I really remember. Staying up until all hours while Gallileo flew past Halley’s Comet, for example. And a remember the details of sitting on my Mum’s lap (the last time I would do this) watching the Newsround report about the shuttle. People complained about seeing the World Trade Centre fall so many times? The BBC played the explosion footage over and over for the kids and speculated. In that half an hour, my young mind saw how frail humanity and its dreams actually are and I wasn’t the same again.