Terror Threat Critical

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 -

- 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?) -

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) -

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?

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... ;)

Terror Attack foiled - Haymarket

Wonderful, not a word on the news (watched BBC breakfast before I set off, concentrating firmly on Tim Henman and new cabinet), nothing in the papers, and what do I find when I get into town? A (and I quote) "massive" device was made safe near Picadilly tube during the early hours of the morning...Nightclub bouncers outside "Tiger Tiger" witnessed a silver Merc being driven erratically before stopping after striking a rubbish bin, the driver bailed out and legged it...it's been confirmed that there is no "Irish connection" meaning that the suspects are likely "Islamic Extremists"...Central London is closed while scene of crime and forentics teams get to work...traffic is in chaos as a result...

...the former head of the Flying Squad, one John O'Connor has been quoted as saying the perpitrator had most likely "bottled it"...another witness has been quoted as saying that they saw a number of gas cylinders and a huge quantity of nails being removed from the vehicle...

Welcome to office, Mr Brown...

7/7 - One year on - Kings Cross - 2 minutes silence

Couldn't resist...

...but how else does one learn? Copy the pro... ;) This also answers one question from the last 2 minutes silence...no - they don't need to buy Big Macs (and neither did I... ;)

Lots and lots of people came, but only I recon about half as many as last time...for the actual 2 minutes I left McDonalds (which was full of people talking and eating) and crossed the road to join the patient throng...

Got pretty near the front but couldn't hear anything the guy said apart from "Thank you all very much" at the end of the 2 minutes...he was doing a quiet speech, but it was just too quiet for me...

Still, job done...

7/7 - One year on

Got to Kings Cross early so I could take a few snaps before work, and as expected it was a real media circus, rows of anchormen either having make-up applied/touched up or waiting patiently to deliver their scripted commentary...

...again from the traffic island (which means I was probably on 3 or 4 TV channels at this point), check out the satellite dish on the van on the right...

No anchormen here, so this footage was going to be cut into reports for later on...

Lots of police too...(as I was expecting)...

This guy was reading his report to someone over the phone "It began as a day like any other"...(not very original ;)

Using the photographers trick that I spotted during the 2 minutes silence last year, I climbed to the 2nd floor of the McDonalds on the corner and shot out the window (I think I counted 20 coppers in this shot!) -

- and a close up on the floral tribute...

I posted a lot on 7/7, made a lot of newspapers - mostly German, Brazillian and Dutch (strangely), traffic went through the roof (still get a lot of hits out of it) as I was practically all the news and pictures coming steadily out of Kings Cross at the time, doing my citizen journalist bit...anyway, if you want to read my thoughts as I typed them then you are best off starting at the bottom of the 7th - click here to set the wayback machine to July - and then reading up...lots of pictures/thoughts about what happened on the day (from my perspective)...