Saturday 30 June 2007

oh, and about today

(3rd post today - sorry if I'm spamming your blog readers)
I have the news on in the background and they're talking about the car bomb things and I thought I should say something. I don't feel as though I'm very articulate when it comes to talking about serious things, I blame it on spending the majority of my time with teenagers, but today has been weird enough that I feel compelled to talk about it.
We woke up to the news this morning that Piccadilly Circus and all the streets that led to it were blocked off because they'd found a car bomb. Freaky. Graeme catches the Picadilly line to work, which as you can imagine goes directly under that area. But being Graeme, he seemed totally nonplussed and went off to work, encouraging me to come in and meet him at work for lunch. By the time I went through it, Piccadilly Circus station was open and everyone was just going about their business.
We had our lunch and I headed towards Oxford Street to do some shopping. As I got further along Oxford Street and started to think about how I was going to get home, I realised that the traffic was not moving. I got to Marble Arch and there were police everywhere and a massive chunk of what is basically London's biggest and busiest roundabout was blocked off. Unlike everyone else, I didn't feel the need to hang around and try to see what was going on - it seemed really dumb to me. After what happened this morning, why would you want to be near a potentially dodgy situation? Anyway, the only way it affected me was that all the buses I wanted to catch were stuck in the traffic jam, so I walked a long while (got some good exercise) before I noticed that the buses seemed to be running again and stopped and waited for the next one.

One positive thing I can say is that it is quite impressive how much the British have a "just get on with it" attitude. I guess after Blitzes and IRA bombings and whatever else, they are just used to continuing on with everyday life while potentially fatal situations occur around them. I don't think I'll ever be able to just accept that people could blow up a car as you walk past it in the city.

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