Report from London

As I live in London at the moment (in case you don't know me.. ask for my biography ;) ), all those attacks and everything that has been going on here has been very close to where I live so I thought, as I've now created this truly fantastic website (appreciate my modesty!) I might as well share some of my impressions, although everything seems to be rather long ago now and I admit that the point has been reached when you just don't want to read anything about it anymore. But there you go, you don't have to read this, it's just me jabbering away, a small fish in a big pond who has been observing the scenes like many others.
I was quite disgusted by the way the media loved the topic, blowing it up to "7/7", reminiscent of "9/11" (that's even The Times which disappointed me there.. but I find English newspapers pretty bad anyway, to be honest).
Anyway, I was woken up that particular morning by the very persistent noise of sirens and helicopters, I could even smell the kerosene. Kings Cross is literally around the corner and so is Tavistock Place where the bus exploded.

This is as close as we could get to the scene, if you look very closely you can make out the top of the red bus between the trees.

I stayed inside with two of my flatmates watching the news on tv until late afternoon which turned out to be a very good decision as we couldn't enter the streets in most directions anyway because they were blocked. When we finally went out to have a look around the air felt so tense it was almost palpable. It was unusally quiet although there were masses of people walking down the streets but everyone seemed to walk on cotton wool and whisper, it was really quite scary actually, I've never perceived silence like that. The look in people's eyes was strange as well, it was like everyone passing by had this haunted and nervous but nonetheless understanding facial expression which freaked me out a bit. Basically everyone knew someone who knew someone who was involved.

This picture speaks for itself..

..and of course, there was no way of escaping these kind of stories, like "On a usual day, I would have been on that train but due to some lucky coincidence..." and "Oh, my alarm clock didn't go off this morning, what if..?" or "It was such a beautiful morning I decided to walk instead of taking the bus, what if..?"... Sorry, you can easily tell I don't like when people what-if me. They should be happy that fate, God or coincidence was with them and not go about telling every newspaper their story, what does that make the victims feel like, are these people too ignorant to think about that? Although, I do admit I caught myself what-if-thinking because all these places they showed on Tv after the bombs were places I recognised as places I regularly walked by.. usually...
What amazed me most was the speed with which London returned to normal again although the white canvas covering Tavistock Place still reminded passers-by of what had happened some days ago. And you couldn't pretend not to see these posters everywhere:

Now that the canvas cover has gone as well, people didn't even seem to flinch after the recent failed attacks. The pubs were full of people on the 7th and we went in one as well to have a drink and we even played a few games of pool, strange as it may sound but what are you to do on this case, sit in the corner and keep silent? The message London was keen to deliver became clear right after the attacks: "We are not afraid!" said all the banners and flags, in harmony with the sea of flowers at Kings Cross station. So we get on with life.. and keep going.

I saw this reporter guy on tv just before I met him at Tavistock Place. That's what I call live, I could see their way of presenting the news was not as fake as I had always liked to believe!

The day after, London stays cheerful about the Olympics. Apparently, people were quite amazed that London had been chosen, those I asked before the decision was made all said, no way London was gonna get it.. but I believe we have been thinking "no way this is gonna happen" a few times too often by now.