02 July, 2007

Terror Threat Critical

Glasgow Car Bomb #2
Blimey, what a weekend, so it *was* two bombs in London on Friday (just blind luck neither of them hit their targets), and then this idiotic display of ineptitude in Glasgow on Saturday afternoon, brings us to the highest level of terror alert -
Glasgow Car Bomb #3
- which is "Critical", meaning "an attack is expected imminently", as a result, rather a lot of coppers visible on my commute this morning (I still wonder where they all are normally, they can't all be doing paperwork, surely?) -
Redhill station
Anyway, I decided to get the Thameslink (keep things simple, and stay away from buses and tube), at Redhill there were five officers visible, three on platform three (who were constantly walking up and down, checking in corners, asking people about their luggage and generally being very vigilant) and two on platform one/two who were standing and laughing and chatting, one of them even making a "woo scary" face at one stage, to much mirth from the other (so you know which platform the senior officer was on) -
Redhill station - Police presence
I've also heard tell that armed officers were spotted at Blackfriars (but I was playing on my PSP for the rest of the journey and not really looking out the window, so cannot confirm)...Funnily enough I didn't see any officers at all in the Kings Cross area, which is most unusual, normally it's crawling with police in the wake of a terror alert, but perhaps they are all concentrated in the city this time, dunno...Oh, I also read this morning that *two* of the suspects that are in for questioning are practicing doctors, whatever happened to the Hippocratic oath, eh?
English Smoking Ban
In other news, England joins the rest of the sensible world by introducing a smoking ban in all indoor public spaces, I guess this would otherwise have been the main story of the day...I'm still not quite clear about what happens on railway stations, they seem to be saying that smoking is illegal on all their property, but the end of most railway platforms can hardly be described as an "indoor public space", can it? Wonder how that one will play out...

Also, ebay tip, probably worth buying up (cheap) a bunch of nice pub ashtrays, as they are destined to now be consigned to the history books...I'm quite excited, it's wonderful to sit in a bar in New York, completely smoke free (not that it bothers me massively), it's just nice to think that this is the last time I'm ever going to wake up and wrinkle my nose at the reek of tobacco when I pick up my jacket after a night on the piss... ;)

5 comments:

boohoo said...

I can't believe how much of a fuss the English smokers are making of the ban - I honestly didn't hear one person complain when it came in in Wales. Nice to have full working lungs on a Sunday morning again now :)

Anonymous said...

i am little concerned by the smoking ban - a lot of pubs in Scotland have either gone bankrupt or have increased the cost of a drink (but up to 30p for a pint)- also there are rumours that the smoke masked smells in pubs - am not looking forward to either smelling rancid alcohol or cheap air fresheners (see bbc news)

Unknown said...

Ooo...very interesting point! <:0

Anonymous said...

Perhaps you were in a non-smoking pub in Wales

Unknown said...

Oh Wales went smoke free back in April I think...