a mark of respect

I'm not sure if Australia observed the 2 minutes of silence held for the bombing victims as we did at 12pm on Thursday, a week after the event ... it was incredibly powerful and for the first time I really allowed myself to feel what had happened. I guess with the news being the way it is we are so easily desensitised to events like this or graphic images, but seeing an entire city (and most of Europe) stop still for two minutes in absolute silence was so moving. Cars, buses and bikes stopped in the middle of the road, and pedestrians stood, heads bowed, as Big Ben chimed twelve strokes. Kings Cross, whose buildings for the last few years have been covered in scaffolding, and whose streets resound with the noise of demolition and construction, too fell silent.