The Old Tin Shed

I was reminded today, of how much we have, how much we take for granted, and the huge cost that it has come at. We in the west have a lifestyle that is unequaled in human history, we live in vast cities, and can travel around the world in hours not days.  We are the most traveled peoples ever. But at what cost? Since the start of the 20th century we were embroiled in conflict after conflict, the first world war saw an old way of life, of royalty and empire thrown against each other.  The huge industrial complexes on each side created a meat grinder when men, flesh and bone were pitted against hot steel.  At the end the west was decimated, the cost in human lives unprecedented in human history.  It carried the catch phrase of the war to end all wars.  Yet it was the peace thrashed out after the first world war, that laid the seeds for a war on a scale we had never seen before. I wont go into the second world war, suffice to say that it was horrific with ent...

This unlike thousands and thousands of blog posts is not a tribute to those that were lost on that day but more of a reflection of what has happened since and how our worlds changed forever. This month Discovery Channel have been running a series of programs as September 11 draws closer and 10 years have passed.  I remember like millions of others watching the whole thing live on BBC World, I remember the horror as the second plane flew into the towers.  I remember thinking oh my god please let them get out. Even today nearly ten years on I cant watch documentaries that show any images of that day, I simply burst into tears, in fact even writing about it now is upsetting.  In those short hours our worlds changed for ever, our feeling of safety removed.  I was interstate on September 11 the following day I attended half a dozen meetings and it was all surreal, no one wanted to work, we were in a state of shock.  One of the meetings that day was in North Syd...