They got us. They said they would. We knew they'd try it. And today it happened. Seven bomb blasts in London. Terrorist attack. Near the City. No report of casualties so far from the international bakery's London office. Tony Blair grim-faced, almost near to tears I thought, due to fly down from Scotland to survey the wreckage. Two people reported killed - at least two. No report on the Beeb yet of how many injured but it's going to run into hundeds, I expect, if not thousands.
And it was the TV shot of the red double-decker London bus blown apart by one blast that really turned my stomach. Why? Why does the sight of a mangled double-decker make my insides churn more than the sight of a bus in Tel Aviv or Baghdad with its windows blown out - one of those pictures we've seen so many times on the box? Why is the sense of outrage any greater? The sense of 'this shouldn't happen here', when, in fact, I'm not even in London, not in the UK; I'm watching it all via TV and internet from continental Europe? I suppose it's because I'm more of a local, more patriotic and less internationally-minded than I like to think I am. Perhaps because I've walked around those streets, I know that place, I've been in Liverpool Street Station not so very long ago - and because I'll be going back there in a few months time...
"Don't use the undergound next time you're in London," my mother said. I called her just to reassure her that I wasn't anywhere near the scene (illogical as she knows I'm abroad but she was glad anyway).
And only yesterday, London was announced as the venue for the 2012 Olympic Games. As someone said, Al-Q obviously didn't want Paris to win either...
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