Horizon

We (+ family & friends, so far as we know) are all OK - thank you.

All the locations where the bombs went off are tube and bus routes we use fairly often - you can't help thinking various kinds of 'if'. The London public transport system must be one of the most open and international spaces in the world. You hear hundreds of languages spoken and sit and stand next to multitudinous kinds of people.

not London-based, but such a frequent visitor I should buy a oyster card. Plus, first Thursday is one of my most common days for visiting. So checking in anyway.

Best wishes to all friends in London. Stay strong.

Yeah I'm fine- but as Tom says-I use those routes and you do think 'if' but then we've all thought 'if' quite a lot in the last few years.

whew.

'Though no time to draw political blood when too much of the real stuff has been tragically split in our capital, Marc, at USS Neverdock, makes a legitimate point on behalf of all those people who might have lowered their guard as a result of the undermining of the notion of a War on Terror by some BBC journalism. 'The Power of Nightmares' assured us there was no real organised Islamic movement bent on our destruction, yet the massive organisation behind the London bombings- the syncronisation, the planning- suggest quite the opposite. It suggests the BBC's flagship programme of the last year, it's main publicised recent claim to excellence, was in fact highly flawed. And as forewarned is forearmed, the BBC has in this regard, and others less well-known, certainly been unconducive to the public good. '

http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

I'm Ok, as are all the people I know who live or work in London. I've used all of those tube lines/stations at one time or another and have on occasion caught the No.30 bus. None of them are on my regular route although disruptions and train failures sometimes send me down the Piccadilly Line.
I tend to be an early bird anyway. On Thursday I had already got through the tube network and out the other end, spent 20 minutes in a cafe and settled myself down at work before things started going off.
It was a strange day. News and misinformation filtering through in fits and starts. People phoning and texting and receiving phone calls and texts. I went outside at lunchtime and bought a sandwich and had a fag. Streets pretty empty, occasional ambulances, sirens wailing somewhere in the distance, helicopters low overhead. I bought an extra sandwich, which I put in my bag for later "just in case". Also stocked up on fags.
I left work about 4pm. Met up with a mate who works nearby. We walked along keeping an eye out for a cab or a bus but all the cabs were occupied and buses were already packed by the time they got to where we were.
Trudged under a hot sun across the park, over the Mall, through St James's along Picadilly and over into Soho. What with heat and heavy bags we thought "fuck this for a laugh" and went in the Coach and Horses, where the alcoholics were going about their business as usual. Had a pint and watched TV then set off again. Up Shaftesbury Avenue and eventually on to the station where we had presumed we could get a train. It was shut. In the face of this adversity we bought more beer and sat outside a pub on Caledonian Road watching the stream of walkers passing by.
Thus fortified we marched on up through Camden where torrential rain began to fall and on to Kentish Town where we caught a train home at about 7pm.
I had Friday booked as a day off anyway. But cos I was travelling off somewhere and because trains were pretty much back to normal I went to London again and caught a train at about midday from Kings Cross. Many police and underground workers about, also many film crews.
Tomorrow is Monday and I have to work and I have to get to work so I'll just have to get on with it.

I rented a van to take some rubbish that had accumulated in my mother's garage to the tip on Saturday. With a mate who has 'Whitby' tatooed around his belly button. We made 4 trips in all and the guys at the tip became familiar with us. We got on first name terms in fact - I called them 'mate', they called me 'mate'. Among other things I got shot of the motorised wheelchair/chariot thing formerly the property of my dad. It was set to one side so that 'the guy who comes from the hospital to look at these sort of things' could look it over.

Early in the afternoon we sat at in the sun outside a cafe on North Bay in Scarborough eating a bacon roll and drinking a mug of tea. It was warm with just the right level of breeze. The weather, that is, not the tea. There weren't too many people on the beach, though enough for a summer-holiday atmosphere. The sewage works sparkled in the distance. All around in the cafe were holidaying families, some AA men on a lunch break, a group of bikers. It was very nice and very English.

I think it is safe to say that sometime in the future a lot of individuals, organisations, politicians, media, etc are going to be judged according to what they say and how they jump in the coming days. Like it or not, these are Interesting Times and History is watching.

With a mate who has 'Whitby' tatooed around his belly button.

Can I ask why?

I'm guessing he's still pissed off about the new tonsure.

Yorkshire civic pride I suppose.

>I think it is safe to say that sometime in the future a lot of individuals, organisations, politicians, media, etc are going to be judged according to what they say and how they jump in the coming days. Like it or not, these are Interesting Times and History is watching

Indeed. The Marxist BBC has already blotted its copy book with the usual, expected but nonetheless revolting bias, spin and Chomsky-ite semantics- but I suspect future historians will agree with the beeb's take on it- that's the real worry of today- Berkelely Brainwashed Middle Class Nitwits- or of course Chinese historians. What I want to know from the wanky left is this: they said that Iraq shouldn't be invaded because it had nothing to with Al Queada or Terrorism. Now they're saying that if the allies come out of Iraq, all will be well. Well, what's it to be? Sufficey to say, when reading people like Polly Toynbee and her ilk, the word c*nts is never far from my mind.

I think it is safe to say that sometime in the future a lot of individuals, organisations, politicians, media, etc are going to be judged according to what they say and how they jump in the coming days. Like it or not, these are Interesting Times and History is watching.

One might hope. If our experience after 9/11 was any indicator, however, outrageous comments will only discredit their speakers temporarily. The scoundrels have been flushed out, but it's amazing how easily they'll return to cover. TNR ran a running column called "Idiot Watch", which catalogued the most deranged statements from jerks on both left and right. I'd wanted to go back to it for a "where are they now", but find it's now locked in a subscriber-only vault.

Here's my prediction: inflammatory statements will only be remembered by opponents of the speaker. Two years from now, whatever George Galloway said will only be remembered by people who already thought him vile a month ago. Those will trot out his remarks to fire up their own base, much as the American Right uses Michael Moore's "They didn't vote for Bush", or the American Left uses Pat Robertson's "God quit protecting us because of gays and liberals". Reminding the public of these quotes will prove astonishingly ineffective, however, as partisans of either side will be selectively deaf.

Perhaps the only effect these statements will have is to make people a bit less comfortable with their political bedfellows. At least a few fiscal conservatives and libertarians became quite uncomfortable being under the same Republican big tent as Falwell&Robertson. I can't say that's caused any to leave, but it did highlight the uneasiness of that alliance. The same may have happened within the Democratic party, for all I know.

British politics are a different world, so YMMV. I'm not even sure I recognize any sort of coherent British Right.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure I recognize a coherent American Right, either.

Sufficey to say, when reading people like Polly Toynbee and her ilk, the word c*nts is never far from my mind.

I would suggest, then, that you stop reading. I always love this concept of the Left as a massive horde who all agree with each other - my experience is the Left enjoys a good in fight as much as the Right and can't really be perceived as a single voice.

The invasion of Iraq did have nothing to do with AQ, but it's hard not to notice that it has created a greater fanatical hatred towards America and Britain. It provides an additional cause for them, another series of actions to be used to incite hatred and encourage acts of terror. I was against the invasion fo Iraq and I very much wish our troops were not there. However, they are, and I do not think withdrawing them whilst Iraq is still being ripped into by 'insurgents' will reduce Britain's position in the list of targets.

Unlike the IRA mainland bombing campaign (which I grew up under) or the Nazi blitzkriegs (which my mother grew up under), there is no political group or nation state who can be negotiated with: a withdrawl will not prevent more attacks. There is no aim but destruction of a culture. Attacking the perceived leftwing bias of the British media is a nonsense in such circumstances.

>Attacking the perceived leftwing bias of the British media is a nonsense in such circumstances.

Are you saying that there can be no bias because there is no official enemy? If so, you are talking nonsense. That there is a Left Wing bias at the BBC is demonstrable.
I grew up under during the IRA campaigns (I'd be careful about saying that if I were you because Alan Allport thinks it's self-aggrandizing to mention it) and my parents during Hitler's war. The merits of negotiating with the former are debatable; non-existent with the latter.

Bomb or suspect car or something tonight in the car-park at Luton Station. Left work at 5pm. 4 hours to get home. Without a single solitary pub break. Thameslink absolutely vile. Jumped on a train at Blackfriars which made it about 400 yards to City Thameslink. Kicked off. Walked to Farringdon. Train pulled up. It was rammed. No chance. Crossed over got a train running back into Moorgate. Sat on it and just waited for it to go back up the line, getting progressively more rammed. 2 hours to get to St Albans. 15 minite pauses at stations in the hot sun with no air-con. St Albans. Long long queue for buses. Eventually boarded. Driven to Luton Aiport Parkway, transferred to local council minibus which took us the extra mile into town. Walked home skirting the perimeter of The Cordon. Bought chips and a can of Red Stripe on the way. News reports seem to be speculating that the bombers may have travelled into London one of my trains, either at the time I travel or within the next 45 minutes. Ho hum

Are you saying that there can be no bias because there is no official enemy?

No, I'm saying it's not a meaningful response to the situation: there are better uses of time and energy than seeking out some media conspiracy. It's focussing on the messanger rather than the message. It's possibly even fiddling whilst Rome burns.

I'm also pointing out that the lack of a nation state or political agenda beyound destruction differentiates the AQ campaign from those previous campaigns and that a proposed action (withdrawing from Iraq now) will not be balanced by a reduction in attacks because there is no possibility of negotiation. I'm surprised you can't see such a distinction.

some media conspiracy>

The BBC is institutionally biased to the Left. The ex-editor of Radio 4's Today said it and one of their ex-senior reporters is currently writing a book about it. That the BBC doctored it's website news reports on 8/7 to delete the word terrorist and also subtly altered Blair's speech is all the evidence anyone needs- though there's years of it if you want. The last time I looked at your blog (where you were slagging chavs off in a way that you would never tolerate being directed at, say, black people) you had a sign saying 'I Beleive in the BBC'; you should amend that to 'I Agree With the BBC' and then you will understand your purblind view of the bias.
I don't quite understand why you're labouring the other point: *I* know full well that there's nothing to negotiate with Islamic Fundamentalism- they want an all Muslim world. My point was that the argument proposed by the far Left (Galloway, BBC, SWP) is that Iraq is the bone of contention here; it clearly isn't.
I would suggest that you've blithered on because you don't like seeing the BBC and The Guardian--I would guess they are your two main news portals--twitted. Well, they've both behaved in a particularly outrageous and puerile fashion this time. On BBC Breakfast this morning they hauled a survivor on who said: 'This outrage is all our fault.'
Where were the survivors who said otherwise? Shame on the BBC.

And:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1527323,00.html

'· Dilpazier Aslam is a Guardian trainee journalist'

Now this from Harry's Place

Why is the Guardian employing an extremist Islamist?
Posted by david t

Yesterday, the Guardian published an article by "trainee journalist" Dilpazier Aslam who penned an article from the point of view of a muslim "Yorkshire lad" which struck me, at the time, to be pretty close in tone to so the sort of stuff that Hizb'ut Tahrir say when they're pretending not to be Hizb'ut Tahrir, but simply plain speaking young muslim lads telling it like it is.

Read it, and you'll see what extreme Islamists say in public to make themselves appear moderate and mainstream.

Hizb'ut Tahrir, in case you didn't know, is about as far right as extreme Islamism gets in this country, without actually being involved directly in terrorist acts. I am speaking of Hizb'ut Tahrir as an organisation, you understand: not its members or those they inspire.

I should have googled his name.

Scott Burgess did, and discovered that before writing for the Guardian, he wrote for Khilifah.com, a Hizb'ut Tahrir supporting website, which calls for a world Caliphate.

Dilpazier thinks that "we will have to run an Islamic state which must lead the world, economically, militarily and politically" and that "the establishment of Khilafah is our only solution, to fight fire with fire, the state of Israel versus the Khilafah State".

A Caliphate, of course, would be a theocratic totalitarian state.

Strangely, these were not views which he expressed in the Guardian piece. Perhaps Dilpazier didn't mention them in his job interview.

If anybody wonders, incidentally, how it is that young muslim lads from Yorkshire who are interested in cricket get seduced into joining extremist salafi jihadist organisations, now you know what sort of things their recruiters say.

If you want to know what extremist Islamists believe, and how they seek to hide their true beliefs when presenting a public face to non Islamist muslims, and liberals, now you know that too.