[Air-l] London...the internet accounts

[Dominic Pinto]

--- Paula <pmg at gmx.co.uk> wrote:

> I'm in London about half a mile from the Aldgate
> bomb and less than 5
> miles from all of the blasts. Think my nerves must
> have got rather
> blunted having gone through the pretty incessant
> bombing in the IRA
> campaign of the 70s and 80s - 
<snip>

There's certainly a bit of shock around - more from
those outside of central London, in the suburbs and
beyond - at the scale of the blasts, and the
disruption. Some hysteria and panic, of course, and a
lot of confusion this morning. And around here the
various emergency vehicles have been tearing around
with sirens going (whether or not it's necessary -
with open and lightly trafficked roads, it really
isn't necessary, is it?) all afternoon.

I was walking across the River Thames to work in
Southwark, not far from Waterloo, Tate Modern, and the
Globe Theatre, about the time the bombs were going
off, but knew nothing about it until mid to late
morning when a caller mentioned some problems on the
Underground and wondered if I'd been affected.

Maybe there is a sense of being a little used to this.
I remember being at home in Covent Garden in the
early/mid '70s with the IRA Christmas bombing campaign
going off in the night around us. And my mother, who
had lived just off Leicester Square through WWII,
working as a nurse, remarked with a great deal of calm
(equanimity? sang froid?) that it was a little like
living through the Blitz.

There was chaos and confusion - and variously between
four and seven bombs reported, although the main
reports were about the power surge simulatneously
affecting 5 or 6 Underground stations. Access to
mobile networks and news web sites was intermittent -
in fact for much of the late morning I could only get
cnn.com or abc in Australia. CNN was reporting bomb
explosions way before the BBC started mentioning this
as a possibility.

We have survived worse, much worse, and it pales in
comparision with the tsunami, or the World Trade
Center, the Madrid devastations, or the last big
earthquake in the Bay area. 

I don't think it's a matter of being insensitive, or
having blunted nerves - I was calling around and
e-mailing to ensure family and friends were not caught
up - but being a bit more measured and considered. For
those directly involved it is another matter, and
until you are it is difficult to really comprehend that.

Dominic Pinto
e-m dominic.pinto at ieee.org
M: +44 780 302-8268
Ph/Fax: +44 207 379-8341