tunnel of terror.....

Look. What's going on currently in London is absolutely dreadful and horrifying. Make no bones about it. But honestly, it's a media frenzy. You can tell it was slow news day/ week/ month/ year. Or perhaps that's just London tabloids for you.... actually, correction, this kind of sensationalism is indemic in the media worldwide. Ahhh.... a sigh for the good old days of speculation on whether Michael Jackson is indeed a kiddie fiddler and whether Jordan (Katie Price) and Peter Andre are suitable parents....

Now I understand why Big Brother is such a success phenomenon. We can just switch off from the horrors of the real world. I think, if I was fully into conspiracy theories, I would almost believe that the media was in cahoots with the terrorists just to create a story, cos who honestly gives a rats about Micky J? And I'm coming across a lot of other garbage at the moment. This is a website an acquaintance sent to me just after the 7/7 bombings in London.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/Jul05/070705explosions_London.html

What is this!!!!

When I arrived back at work on the Friday after the bombings I was going into a city full of nervous and anxious people. No one knowing what was going to happen next.

I work at Network Rail right next to Euston Station. The public sector entity that owns all the tracks and rail land in the UK. I sit in an open plan office amongst the Safety and Environment staff, with the Safety Director situated right behind me.

My colleagues described how they heard (and felt a blast...via shaking of the building) and then saw smoke coming up from a location nearby. Woburn Place, Tavistock Square. It was the number 30 bus from Hackney Wick.

We discussed the bombing locations over lunch. Sure Kings Cross and Liverpool Street were obvious. Two major stations that included tube and overland trains as well as major bus terminals. But what about the bus and the Edgeware Road tube? On a simple inspection of the transport routes we realised that the bus would have passed through Euston Station bus terminal and the Edgeware Road train was only one stop away from Paddington. Euston and Paddington. Again major transport terminals, servicing tubes, overland trains and buses.

The point being.... the terrorists missed their targets!

.... Eye witness accounts on the no. 30 bus reported that the suspect looked quite agitated and fumbled in his bag moments before the explosion. This also would have been moments after leaving Euston.

So logically you'd think well that's too bad as they won't get the chance to bomb again being suicide bombers and all. So we're safe, yeah? No more bombings?

It appears not. And the events unfolding over the last two weeks have confirmed this. Station closures, security alerts.... searches....raids, arrests.... and two weeks from the first bombings a nail bomb exploded at Warren Street Station along with detonators, but not the bombs, as well as 3 other blasts at locations around London, including a bus. Do we see a pattern emerging here?

Yesterday a man was shot at Stockwell underground station. 3 plain clothes police accosted the man and pumped 5 bullets into him. It later turns out he was not connected with the bombings.

www.bbc.co.uk

I, like most other Londoners, also feel very nervous about travelling around on public transport at the moment. A good time to get myself a bicycle I guess.

There are comparisons being made to the times of the IRA bombings. The police, in a sad way, almost nostalgic for those days when they knew who the enemy was and a sinister kind of chivalry shown by the IRA with the warnings given before exploding a bomb.

So where do I stand? I was never in agreement to the Americans going into Iraq in the first place. They have managed to create another Vietnam. However, I think it would be totally irresponsible for this alliance to withdraw troops from there now and leave Iraq in this state. They fucked it. They should fix it.

Nor do I believe that the situation in Iraq is any excuse whatsoever for the atrocities committed by the terrorists. From a London perspective, this is a world city and the innocent people killed and injured came from backgrounds of varying ethnicities. It is senseless and wanton.

I really do think that the world has changed forever. And whatever lessons we didn't learn from the holocausts of WW2, Korea, Vietnam then I certainly hope this is the final wake-up call that we need. I just hope that we, and our leaders, can all find compassion within us and accept and embrace differences and all work towards a peaceful world.