Meme thingy: what were you doing when ...?

Cool - this is a blogging first for me: Iain Dale's tagged me to answer questions about what I was doing at the time of various historic events (answer: probably in the photocopier room, totally oblivious). So:

Princess Diana's death - 31 August 1997
I wandered downstairs and my parents were watching the television, which was unusual because my parents disapproved of much that wasn't Educayshunal. I think my dad was the one who told me, by way of apologetic explanation for cranking the evil "goggle box" into action, that Diana had died. I was a conventionally selfish teenager - I recall I spent most of that day in tortured adolescent relationship introspection with my then-boyfriend, and in fact we split up later that afternoon for angst-ridden reasons that I can now no longer recall. Naturally, the combination of the Prince Charles backlash over his treatment of St Di, and my broken heart, meant I never went near a man ever again. Ahem.

Margaret Thatcher's resignation - 22 November 1990
I was at primary school, struggling through a maths lesson when the headteacher burst in and breathlessly told the teacher the news. Given I was about ten at the time and I hadn't been brought up in a political household, my thoughts on the resignation probably extended no further than "where can I get more sweets?" and "boys smell."

Attack on the twin towers - 11 September 2001
My first week as a bag-carrier in Parliament to John Mann MP. I still thought boys smelled, and had just completed three years at university where I had spent a lot of time sniffing them. John had only just been elected and I didn't have a computer in my room so I was reading a book on the Private Finance Initiative (hot, eh?), oblivious to what was going on. In the course of wandering to the jimmy riddle over the afternoon, I gradually became aware that something horrific had happened as I periodically passed the television on the corridor that was showing News 24, but it didn't quite register properly - it was just too big somehow - until John, who was in Parliament that day for some reason, told me to go home. Nobody thought to evacuate us, incidentally.

I was still living with my parents in Bognor Regis at the time, so I went to Victoria to wait for my dad where it was mayhem: the Tube was being held up and lines cancelled periodically, the concourse was filled with people watching the screens (I don't think they had that big screen there then, but there was some sort of news ticker), all the phone networks were down. I tried to call my brother, Geoffrey, to tell him that I was coming home early. Geoff responded, okay, but he had to go because he was boiling a sheep carcass. He's an archaeologist - don't ask.

Dad and I got home to my mum glued to the television whilst a huge pot of stinking, boiling, sheep bubbled away on the stove. Then we hit the gin.

England's World Cup Semi Final v Germany in - 4 July 1990
No idea, I don't do sports. Actually, was that the one we lost on penalties?

President Kennedy's Assassination - 22 November 1963
The olds were only about fourteen at the time, so I was not yet even a glint in my father's eye.

Right, apparently we have to pass this on so I'm going to do so to:

Hopi Sen
Tom Watson MP
Kerron Cross
Bob Piper
Pooter Geek

Well, what else you gonna do on a Sunday, eh?