I have met many people over the last number of years in my business line of work, stammering tuition, and have heard a couple of remarkable stories of how they narrowly avoided a terrorist attack.

The first was a man who was in New York at the time of the attack on the twin towers. He and his friends from England had been in New York for around a week and were due to fly back home on September 11th. On the tenth of September they decided to go to the twin towers, firstly to have a look and secondly to take some photos from the top.

They had to wait a long time until it was their turn to purchase their tickets. The man who was serving behind the counter asked the a question: "Are you here to take photographs lads, or just a general look around? If you are here to take photographs it might be worth waiting until tommorrow, as it is quite cloudy up there today. I can sell you the tickets today, so when you arrive tommorrow you do not have to wait etc."

They agreed this was a good idea and planned to return early in the morning.

"What shall we do now then" said one of the group of lads.

They discussed the options and decided to go to a bar and to have a few drinks. A few drinks turned into a lot of drinks. In the morning they all slept in to recover from the alcohol and when they awoke they quickly heard the news.

Alcohol had possibly saved their lives.

I met another man who had been in Bali on the night of the terrorist attack there. He and his girlfriend had planned to meet another couple in one of the bars which was eventually bombed.

Earlier in the day the couple had phoned to cancel as one of them was ill. Another lucky escape!