A sombre day
Today at Radio Netherlands, as in thousands of workplaces and public places across Europe, we paused for three minutes at noon to remember the 200 or so victims of last week's bombings in Madrid. It perhaps meant a little more to us because some of our colleagues are Spanish nationals, and - especially at times like this - Radio Netherlands is really like an extended family.
For technical reasons we could not maintain "radio silence" for three minutes, and in fact our shortwave transmitters have to be constantly fed with some sort of modulation, otherwise the system thinks there's a fault and sets off all sorts of alarms. So on shortwave, we played out a solemn drumbeat, which - listening to the playback - was just as effective as total silence.
Many of us gathered in the entrance hall of Radio Netherlands at noon, and afterwards I wondered just how many times we're going to have to go through this procedure before the war against terrorism is finally won. The 21st century has not started well, and I wonder what historians will make of it.
9:33:53 PM 
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