Relief.
In parallel to the sorriness for people who were hurt - this has been a relief. Unless they are going to do it again. I have been worrying about something happening for years and not helped by the government constantly telling us that they have cleverly foiled various plots that would otherwise have had 'serious consequences', as if it was only by chance that bombs weren't going off every few months.

Every time any kind of anniversary came up or major talks about Ir@q or revelations about cruelty to prisoners, I would be on the phone to L0ndon giving them the fear about taking the Und3r gr0und and trying to get them down here. And they always spoke kindly to this hysterical over-reactor and explained that they were, for various very good reasons, going to ignore me totally. So I would put the phone down and cry with terror for them ... and then nothing would happen.

So now it has come but, after all that, in an incredibly unstressful way. If something like this has to be ... then to be rung up out of the blue by your daughter to tell you that bombs are going off all over L0ndon but your family are all safe. And as long as they stay where they are then they should not be affected at all. Is so far removed from my imagined scenario of days of terrified build-up; thwarted attempts to leave the city; viruses let loose and no way of getting hold of an antidote; nucl3ar weap0ns let off in the centre near my husband's office; food running out and water c0ntaminated ... and me alone here and unable to help them ...

So in an absolutely selfish way .. and if only it follows the pattern of Madr1d and they move on now somewhere else .. then it could have been so much worse.

I don't want to tempt Fat3 by saying this ... but the main t3rr0rist coup seems to be with pr0paganda. The things they have actually done really haven't been that big when you think what is possible. Isn't it true that 9/11 was a fluke? That the design of the buildings was very unusual and that most sky scrap3rs wouldn't have collapsed like that? That the terr0rists don't have incredible expertise and cunning and funds but are just very determined and obsessive? By chance, last night, I was watching a programme about London's travel netw0rk being brought to a standstill for twelve hours a couple of years ago by the 'wrong sort' of snow. On the news today they were saying that one of the main aims of today's b0mbs was to bring Lond0n's travel netw0rk to a standstill. The trouble, for them, is, that here it happens all the time. And we have had so much experience of the ARI* and more recently endless 'alerts' and evacuations that this isn't the overwhelming shock that it would be for, say, Cal1f0rnia.

The news reporter was standing outside one of the b0mbed stat1ons a few hours after it was over and saying, 'To look around at the passers-by now, going about their business as normal, you would hardly believe what happened here earlier today'. It's true .. it is our old wartime sp1rit .. I am proud to say that the British really are pretty tough.
- posted by Iris @ 7/07/2005 11:52:00 PM comment