There’s been an outpouring of blog entries about this week’s events but strangely I’ve felt no desire to write myself until now.
I was lucky – running late for work I was still waiting at my suburban tube station when the network was shut down. That meant I spent the day at home, watching things slowly unfold on the net and the TV. Like many others I know people who were more closely affected, though so far as I know so far all have had lucky escapes.
The desire not to write (until now) has I think been to do with my own preferred way of dealing with new and disturbing events in the world – in that sense at least I am an introspective person. I’ve discussed things with people close to me, but not felt that there was something I wanted to write.
I’ve used the tube since Thursday, and like others admit to being a little more wary, a little more alert to what was going on around me – but not really any more so than during other times when terrorists were active in this city.
But as the days pass the other emotions come to the surface – anger that this has happened in the city that has been my adopted home for nearly twenty years, a belief that the most one individual can do is be determined to get on with their life and enjoy the freedom that London grants, and a feeling of utter contempt for the perpetrators who think they can drag us down to their level.
The London News Review says it bluntly, Ken Livingstone has risen to a surprisingly good level of oratory and unsurprisingly Tom Coates has said almost exactly what I wanted to say about not writing before I did.
It happened. I feel very sorry for those who have lost loved ones or suffered life-changing injuries, and extend them all the empathy in the world. And now the people who live here are going to just get on with things.
The end.
