......................

[bogey]

[PMowdes]

Wellsaid, there are no words to describe how shit it was waking up to the news this morning.  Utterly senseless.

[Silver Blues]

Completely agree, I was astounded to hear of this as well.

[Hozy31]

Utter madness. Living in Sheffield which is just over the peak district from Manchester its were i go to see most gigs. When i saw this it made my blood boil. Heart goes out to all victims and families

[IvIark]

No it wasn't a good night.  I had a few friends there who I couldn't get in touch with for a while and so it was a nervy time until I found out they were ok.  A few of them saw things that no one would want to see and one was only saved because she was the other side of a door when it exploded.  5 seconds later and she'd have been in the line of fire too.

My daughter wanted to go but thank God she didn't end up getting tickets.

And John Atkinson who died is the brother of the landlady of my local, The Melville in Stretford.  So it's hitting harder because it's so close to home and my friends.

Anyone who would target kids is complete and utter pond life.  The lowest of the low.  I hope if they find other people in his "network" they just leave them to fend for themselves in Manchester for 24 hours before taking them away.  There wouldn't be much left of them.

[Travis]

Out of respect for the victims, there isn't much that I feel comfortable saying about this subject

All I can say is that I'm very sorry to all my U.K. brothers and this was truly a sickening tragedy

[Pavlos]

just been speaking to my daughter on the phone, her best mate is studying at Manchester University and  only lives about a mile from where it happened, she heard the blast, they found out later that another friend of theirs was at the gig with her boyfriend only a few metres from the explosion. Though she is currently in hospital where she has had surgery to remove shrapnel and some damaged bone from her leg (He's got cuts and bruises) with a bit of recovery time they will thankfully be ok. Sadly so may others were less fortunate though and here are no words I know of than can comfort, at least none that sound like anything more than pale shadows of how we feel and what we want to say, but along with a great many people from around the UK and also the rest of world my thoughts are with the victims of this atrocity, their friends, their families and their loved ones and I hope it helps them to find the strength they need to get through these darkest of days.

[rocket88]

I can't say anymore then what's already been said. While I'm known for it really having much of a filter I'm going to do my best to have one. I've got family in Israel, and can't tell you the number of close calls they've had. Hell while one of my cousins was in a shopping center at the register a missle landed in the parking lot, and thankfully was a dud. I've been on buses that ended up having an attack no more than 10min after I got off it. It's sad and disgusting that we live during a time where shit like this happens.

No one in their right mind could ever rationalize any attack on civilians, let alone mostly kids, as being even remotely acceptable. It's simply inhuman. There is no place terrible enough in the afterlife, or hole deep enough for people like these. To be clear, not all muslims are extremists, I'm referring to those that are.

I'm glad to at least hear that most of you I know from here in the UK are safe and are your family. While I'm not the most religious man, I pray that those injured make full recoveries and can return to their families, friends, and lives as unscathed as possible. Pavlos, I really hope your daughters friends recover quickly.

[Pavlos]

Thanks Zach, it's astonishing that such inhumane acts rather than dividing people, actually bring us closer together, make us realize that our differences are quite insignificant compared to what we have in common. I spent 10 years in the Air Force, 3 of them in Cyprus working alongside both Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and even though they are on opposite ends of the political spectrum in a divided island, I saw some of the closets friendships I've even known, people just getting on with being people and waving aside trivial arguaments about meaningless details, after all a good game of cards or a coffee like tar are what life is really all about! made  (An early 20's) me do a lot of thinking and growing up that did. Saw a few other thought provoking things around the fringes of the Balkan conflict as well, had the IRA actually en route to launch an attack on us a few times (They aborted thankfully) and were being recce'd the rest of it. I was in the military though so having those who see you as their enemy wanting to do you harm, however unpleasant an experience it may be, is something you accept as going with the territory. Targeting civillians can never be justified though, it is quite simply murder, to knowingly target children......there are no words to describe how abhorrant a crime that is.

Religious or not, I think we're all 'praying' in our own ways, to any God that might be listening, or just to try to put some positive feelings of hope, love and support out there, to try in our own small ways to overcome the fear and horror of what has been done. As you say, not all muslims are extremeists, most of them are just people getting on with their lives and likely to be as horrified as the rest of us. You can take any subset of humanity, race, colur, creed, religion, gender, sexuality or however else care to split the deck and you will find the worst of humanity, but you will also find the best, the most amazing, warm, kind and brilliantly inspiring too.