Today is the first anniversary of the 7th July attacks in London.
I pointed to it at the time, but James Medhurst gave a powerful account of trying to get to work that day. Vaughan was articulate as ever and later got stuck on the Tube outside Stockwell Station, where Jean Charles de Menzes was mistaken for a suicide bomber and shot dead. Damon blogged as the news began to come in and described his experiences travelling by Tube in the subsequent weeks.
Since I have nothing useful to say on the subject and didn't really at the time, I shall direct you to this, probably one of my most sombre and reasoned responses to world events. Or perhaps not.
3 comments:
Wow, I can't believe it's been a year. I freaked out because I have a good friend living in London and it took him two days to get back to anyone because he was helping victims with trauma support.
ack.
i turned on the news and freaked for a moment because i came in right in the middle of a recap of last year; for a second i thought: oh, shit, *now* what?
sigh.
did y'all get the admonitions to get duct tape to seal in the windows in case of biochemical warfare and/or nuclear fallout? or were we just lucky that way? we *are* Number One, you know.
number one in fuckwittery, maybe, but: still number one! W00T! BOO-YAH. YOU ESS AY! U-
oh, sorry, mild case of possession. happens.
The government did update the general advice about preparing for the event of any disaster, man-made or natural following the events of 9/11, but duct-tape was not included.
There have been planning exercises for the emergency services in case of a small-scale biological, chemical or 'dirty' bomb attack, but I think the British take on all this is that it is impossible and perhaps unwise to prepare the individual for such events - until and unless they arise, we don't know what the appropriate advice would be. Presumably folks aren't carrying roles of duct-tape with them on their commute into work...
The silliest things got here was all this plucky Brit stiff-upper-lip stuff which I satirised in that last link.
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