In Other News...

I've just listened to an old Stewart Lee Resonance FM show (I mentioned them before). This one was from July 3 2005.

At the end of a show, there's a short political message, highlighting the importance of climate change, and the need for action. This radio show and the message coincided with the G8 Summit, where the leaders of the biggest world powers all got together and looked at the floor, slightly ashamed, and reluctantly agreed to send a case of Weetabix to Africa or something (I'm no historian). Weetabix, it was said, had such absorbency that it could account for the rising sea levels, and everything would be OK. The cereal could also feed the hungry and stop tsunamis somehow (I'm no scientician).

Anyway, as part of the campaign, this message promised a clarion call to action that would take place at a certain time and place - a statement making it clear that we demand real action.

I don't know whether it happened in the end, because it was arranged for 7 July. If you don't like letters, you might know it as 7/7. And something big happened to distract everyone.

It's always annoying when your plans are superseded by an emergency. People probably had hats made for the G8 protest day. I'm sure there were banners. But unfortunately, no one was looking at the banners. The incremental rise in sea temperature played second fiddle to the significant and rapid rise in temperature on the No 30 to Hackney Wick.

On another occasion, Henry Kissinger was about to have a criminal case filed against him for his part in various gun-based democratisation exercises in South America. It implicated the US government as possible co-conspirators in Operation Condor, which killed a lot of people who, I assume, didn't love freedom enough to be allowed to live (I'm no historarianist).

But the case was filed on September 11 2001, and it didn't make the news.

I sometimes wonder what else happened on that day. I struggle to think of anything that would have made it into the news coverage. An alien invasion, perhaps. But I think it would have to have been US-based. A tsunami wouldn't cut it.

The President being assassinated probably would, but I think people would be justified in assuming there was some connection to the other terrorist attacks. Unless there's really bad communication in the Axis of Evil, and they both chose the same day.

And like turning up at a party and seeing someone else wearing the same outfit as you, it would be very embarrassing. Even if it was a really nice outfit.

The assassins and the hijackers would probably meet up in Valhalla (or wherever it is that Muslims go), and be all sheepish. If only one of them had written it on the calendar. I mean, the infidels were crushed on all sides, so no harm done (except for the massive amount of harm). But still. It's a bit bush-league to arrange two attacks on the same day.

I think I'd like to write a story about the other news events of 9/11. A baby could have been born with a full beard, smoking a pipe, and it still wouldn't have made the paper. Alf-Inge Haaland could have drunk the channel. Nothing.

And you can't come back to these events later. In early 2002, when the United States is attempting to return to normality, trying to repair the damage of that terrible day, it would be poor form to invite the papers round to see your now six-month old bearded baby.

"How do we know you didn't give it the pipe?" they'd ask. "If it had been like this at birth, that would have been a story!"

"But if we ignore bearded infants, the terrorists have won!" you might shout, clutching at straws.

"But the Muslims love beards," a young reporter would cry. "In fact, how do we know your baby wasn't flying one of those planes, igniting the engines with his pipe?"

And then the others would start to rally round, but the press, the baby, the parent, and the narrator of this story would all realise that there wasn't much comedy mileage in this idea. And we'd all just stare longingly at the skyline, until carried by the winds of reality back to the computer keyboard and the promise of an afternoon's work.