Fuddland
It’s the city in which I was born, I grew up, and where I still regularly visit a large number of my friends and family, but I never knew how proud I was of being a Londoner until I saw the way people dealt with Thursday’s events.
I can’t possibly add to the thousands of reactions that have already been written, and I refuse to waste time speculating on the motives of whoever was responsible, and whether we brought this on ourselves or not.
By coincidence I watched an early 1990s Eddie Izzard video that evening, in which he talked about how Londoners were dealing with bomb threats—what seemed at the time like an almost everyday occurrance.
“What, this station’s closed? Right, let’s see, so I can go up the Piccadilly Line and cut across on the Metropolitan, no problem.”
“Oh, this whole street is closed off is it? Okay … now there’s another Boots the Chemist on Tottenham Court Rd…”
I think it’s fantastic that everything goes to buggery as soon as we get a reasonably heavy snowful, but set off four bombs in an attempt to cripple our transport system and induce panic, and we just get on with it. We might be rubbish, but we’re also stubborn. As noted by Tom Coates, the response of The London News Review says it best.
We’re better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we’re going to go about our lives. We’re going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we’re going to work. And we’re going down the pub.
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