Brighton Bomb, 25 Years Ago Today

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8297216.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1480081.stm

Shameless Plug:

On Tuesday 3rd November at my church we're doing an evening with Pat McGee, one of the Brighton Bombers, and Harvey Thomas, then Tory Party Conference organiser and Margaret Thatcher's Director of Communications who was injured in the blast.

The two men have become friends and the evening will be a conversation between them, hosted by Jeremy Vine, about their reconciliation and the whole issue of forgiveness.

If anyone is interested then I can provide more details. I'll be putting a page on our church website about it this week, I'll post the link when I've done so.



You can come along just to shake the hand of someone who tried to blow up Margaret Thatcher, if nothing else...

Should be interesting. I have very mixed feelings about ex terrorists (I'm sure lots of people do). On One hand, I cannot see that they should ever be forgiven for the death and distress they caused to innocent people, but on the other hand, I think that if peace can be achieved, then it's worth any price.

On another note, I worked near Stoke-on-Trent during the 90s, and on one occasion, the IRA said they had planted bombs alongside the M1 and M6, and also on the main North/South Railways, all of which were close for the day. The result was effectively cutting the country in two and total disruption (my office was alongside one of the alternative routes, so I could see the permanently stationery traffic). Although I'm not in favour of terrorism of any type, this was a clever tactic that cost no human life at all.

There's quite a few buildings in Brighton that could do with bombing.

Done the web page about it

http://www.oakwoodbaptistchurch.org.uk/bombersurvivor.html



Pat looks a bit serious, but he is the baddie!

This is the video I edited together for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UETvGiHdrLk

At least pretend to be impressed, without getting boring I can't explain how and why it was such hard work, but it was. Clever me

Oooooh! Aaaaahhhh!

How was that?

You're faking it!

I'm impressed






Was that convincing enough?

Would I do that??

Where's an angelic and innocent smiley when you need one?


This'll have to do.

*tut*.

Well you'll just have to take my word for it, it was very fiddly but I'm pleased with how it's come out.

I'm a bit excited that tomorrow I'll be showing a video clip what I edited and it'll be introduced by Jeremy Vine.

I'm famous, me!

Who is this Jeremy Vine chap?

You know, him off the telly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/presenters/jeremy-vine/

(and radio)

Ooh! That was interesting.
Pat Magee comes across as very intelligent and he explained his point of view very well and clearly. I don't know what I was expecting but he just seemed so...normal.

Was an interesting discussion and it was well attended.
And the video I'd done for it displayed OK.
All in all, no major crap ups.


I had a quick chat with Pat after. I thought he might be a bit scary. He did, after all, plant that bomb and...well, I've no idea what other things he did but that's enough right there. But he just seemed like a normal bloke who while regretting the way the bomb affected Harvey still believes that the campaigns were their only option in the situation they were in. Don't really agree but I could sort of see why he felt that way.

Yes, he was great in The Avengers

Oh really Letters? My my. How very interesting