Remembering 7/7...

Wow...here we are, five years on...I was very new to blogging (and regular writing in general) at the time, and found myself stumbling around in the middle of a massive terrorist atrocity (based, as I was at that time in Kings Cross - where the most devastating attack would take place - killing 26 people deep underground) and reacting to the whole affair by documenting it (oddly being picked up by several global media entities and linked to as I was learning what it meant to be a citizen journalist)...

This is just a re-post of what I wrote at the time - all the way back in 2005 - as details were starting to emerge (my first reaction - strangely, as most people were rooted to the spot - had been to grab my camera and run from my desk down to see what was happening)...my other posts from later that day (and subsequently) are around here and here...

"Latest reports say there have been at least 2 explosions across the capital, one in Kings Cross where I am...

Walking around there are police and fire brigade everywhere, as I was taking these shots a police officer said "You really don't want to be anywhere near that station, fella"...(he didn't have to tell me twice)...

I didn't take any pictures of them but lots of people had soot all over their faces...there are two helicopters overhead and sirens and flashing lights everywhere...

Everything was locked off behind the police line (I had missed it by coming up the side of the station, so kind of ended up in the middle of the closed bit...

The sheer number of people just standing around in the road was unbelievable...everyone is calm though, there is more an air of excitement than panic, which is quite strange..."

Photographers Protest at Scotland Yard

Wow, there was a protest outside Scotland Yard this morning (started at 11am) regarding photographer's rights (or increasing lack of them), specifically to noisily object to the horrifying new legislation (coming into force today) that states that taking a picture of "a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" of a member of Her Majesties Forces can result in the evil perpetrator spending the next ten years in prison (courtesy of the Counter Terrorism Act of 2008)...

From what I have heard the protest was going to take the form of lots of members of the NUJ (and friends) going along and taking as many pictures as possible of as many police officers (yes, police officers count as Her Majesties Forces) as possible (which is quite amusing), but the underlying message here is a serious one - as we already know some tiny minority elements of said "forces" are happy to curtail photographers (legitimate and "in the public interest") activities by loosely interpreting section 44 of the Terrorism Act of 2000 into a justification to stop individuals taking pictures in public locations, or worse demand they delete shots they have already exposed (an abuse of power and quite wrong)...this development is only going to make things worse, now there are hefty prison sentences involved it moves things to a completely different and rather more serious level...

It all seems far too Orwellian for my liking...I just wish I had heard about this before it happened, perhaps I could have helped to spread the word (I mean, I was never going to take a day off work to actually go along, but I would have liked to have helped out a little bit)...

Anyway, their Twitter feed is here (a good few hundred did make it over there to bathe the place in light)...

Update - some official coverage is starting to appear...

Update update (oh dear) - "The Home Office added that anyone accused under the act could defend themselves by proving they had "a reasonable excuse" for taking the picture...

Update update update (Well done Chairman of the Met) - "As things stand, there is a real risk of photographers being hampered in carrying out their legitimate work and of police officers facing opprobrium for carrying out what they genuinely, if mistakenly, believe are duties imposed on them by the law".

Police abuse anti-terror laws to detain innocent photographers

This is starting to get really rather annoying, more stories of photographers being criminalised by police who are blatantly abusing anti-terror legislation, even going so far as to lock some photographers up (although not for terribly long, admittedly)...! 

I've only had one brush with the authorities personally, which was when I was through customs and approaching my gate at Gatwick airport, I took a very quick snap of the doorway and ramp to the plane (on a small point and shoot) and then got surrounded by officials demanding that I actually delete the picture from my camera...not really having a leg to stand on (as they could detain me or stop me getting on my flight), I yielded and wiped the shot (but not all the others I had taken in the airport ;) and was allowed to proceed, but hearing the Association of Chief Police Officers saying "Police officers may not prevent someone from taking a photograph in public unless they suspect criminal or terrorist intent. Their powers are strictly regulated by law and once an image has been recorded, the police have no power to delete or confiscate it without a court order"...

This makes me a little angry, as they obviously used their position to bully me into doing something even a police officer has no right to do without lawyers locking horns before a wigged gentleman...

However, it looks like we are (while not actually having a list of defined rights at the moment) at least starting to be able to guess where the invisible line is drawn...and about time too...

Now if someone could just tell all the police officers what their own Chiefs think about the matter we can all get on with our enjoyable, harmless hobby (or full-time job as the case may be)...

T-Ray Cameras at Canary Wharf

Interesting...looks like terahertz range cameras are in use at Canary Wharf, normally used by astronomers to render stellar dust clouds invisible, they can be applied terrestrially to peer right through clothing, showing up concealed explosives, drugs and weapons (and the subject's naked outline)...all very "Total Recall"...actually today there were about 15 police officers at the foot of the escalator on the tube, apparently randomly stopping and interviewing people, but it's just possible that someone was using T-Ray vision to steer them towards those who looked like they had something to hide...?

Big Brother can see you in the nude...

Metropolitan Police - The war on photography and UK Photographer's rights

(this picture originally found here)...

Oh no...please don't let it end up with everyone getting stupidly paranoid...*sigh*...first (the worst bit of counter terrorism advice...*ever*) we have to keep an eye out for anyone with two 'phones (like both Flyingpops *and* me, and probably countless other people who either have just got a new one or have to carry a second 'phone for work), but *now* we need to add to the list anyone that is wielding -*gasp*- a camera...a camera? In London?

Well, let's just (for the sake of arguement) take a quick look at me - two 'phones? (check) - Camera? (oops - double check!) - Lurks on public transport or around other high profile targets like Canary Wharf shooting off pictures? (check and check) - bonus points? I *even* carry it all around with me in a large *rucksack* (BAM)...! I guess this would put me firmly in the -*very*- suspicious catagory - if I wasn't arguably "white" (apart from in the summer if I manage to get out enough) - so, apologies to anyone of middle-eastern appearance that works around high profile sites in the city and has an interest in photography - you'll need to shoot subtly from now on, making you look even *more* dodgy on the CCTV footage that ends up getting you a visit from PC Copperfield... :(

It reached the point in the US (well, in New York at least, yes, the "Land of the Free"), after 9/11, paranoid subway workers/security guards would come up to me and tell me I wasn't allowed to shoot pictures...even though I *knew* US citizens had a law-given right to do so (as they have clearly defined "Photographers rights" based on their happy "Freedom" concept) but I didn't have a leg to stand on being a British visitor, rather than a US citizen (and didn't wish to risk being arrested over a point of principle, even if I was in the right)...

Anyway, for those of us here in the UK concerned, thanks to Linda Macpherson (a lecturer in law at Heriot Watt University, specialising in IT, Intellectual Property and Media legislation) we do have a (although somewhat untested) legally sound UK Photographers rights document...want a summary? We basically don't have much of anything...(not that any of this is enforced in any way)...but did you know it could get you in seriously hot water if any picture you took while on "a railway" could be demonstrably useful to terrorists? That's it, I'm going down, mine are all even Geotagged! How about the fact that it's 100% illegal to take any pictures of bank notes??? Why did no-one mention this when I bought my camera!!? Probably because no-one in the UK is aware of that fact...! Most suprising? We have *extremely* wooly privacy legislation in the UK meaning you can take a picture of anyone, as long as they are in a public place, without any fear of reprisal, they can't even claim harrassment (well, unless you take *two* shots)...

Somehow, I think this needs firming up, even if just a little...and asking the public to keep a close eye on people with cameras? I refer the police to their appeal for pictures that were taken just prior to/and of the events of 7/7 (to which I contributed)...make people nervous about shooting in the capital and that evidence stream is depleted, if not deleted...folly...

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...

Left Luggage at Kings Cross Thameslink

Funny, just as the trial starts in the case of the crown vs the 21/7 terror "suspects", so I get to Kings Cross Thameslink and see a rucksack, all on it's lonesome, left on one of the seats (situated between three men, but not really near enough to definitely belong to any of them)...I only waited a heartbeat after passing it to turn around and say "Do any of you know whose rucksack that is?", one of them visibly woke up when I addressed them (obviously having a day dream) but all three shook heads or said "Nope"...(I probably raised my eyebrows and tutted at this point) then walked all the way back down the platform again to where I knew the Customer assist window was, knocked on it, and a second or two later the door next to it opened and a head poked out. I told the guy about the left luggage and walked all the way back up the platform again, duty done, probably it was just someone being dozy, but then the prickles of doubt began to get me, a certain other incident with "left luggage" came to mind, and of course with the news of the trial being so fresh, I must admit, when I got past the rucksack, I put myself into a position whereby the force of any blast (and flying debris) on my body would be minimised. One of the guys, apparently quite unconcerned about any possible terror implications cheerily said "They'll be kicking themselves, won't they?" with a smile, and I smiled and nodded, thinking to myself, you'd be kicking yourself too if that was a bomb and it had blown your legs off while you just stood there ignoring it…has it really been that long that most people have forgotten what happened? Forgotten to be vigilant?

Anyway, a member of station staff turned up, gingerly inspected the rucksack, turned to me and said "Cheers" and then picked it up and walked off...But there *are* still idiots out there, the terror threat level is still set at a rather serious sounding "SEVERE"…so let's watch each others backs eh?

UK Terror threat foiled

A several month long investigation by the security forces and the police seems to have culminated about 50 minutes ago with the arrest of 20 individuals (12 of which were *reportedly* extremely close to completing their plan) equipped with liquid explosive devices (TATP?) designed to be packed into hand luggage on flights between the UK and the US...the UK terror level is now up to the highest level (CRITICAL) level (News summary here)...so it appears that UK airport systems had an exploitable flaw...

All hand luggage on flights leaving the UK is for the time being banned...

Passengers at Heathrow are facing massive delays, and are being given very little news or advice, apart from to re-pack everything into main luggage...

This time last year I was off to NY...

Update - 21 now held, US Counterterrorism officer said they were "not confident" everyone involved in the plot has been taken into custody and uses the words "Liquid Chemical" devices, USA moves to highest terror threat alert level, all flights to Heathrow not already in the air suspended until further notice...oh and the PM is on holiday in the Carribean...

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)...

7/7 Bombing - The official report

Well, I've sat and read it...and the unabridged 3rd part of the report too which contains all the uncut witness statements...but to chop a very long story (part 1 is 157 pages long!) a bit shorter these were the snippets that most interested me -

'There was obviously no communication from anyone; I did rather pathetically pull the emergency handle at one stage. It was a desperate need to do something' - Kirsty

'...that was the main concern, if there was smoke, there must be a fire on its way, burning down the tunnel towards us. If people had known there was no fire through someone making contact with us the situation could have been a lot calmer. I think the most important thing that needs to be recognised is us not having contact with anyone. Not long after the bomb went off, we all tried to stay quiet to hear for help, all we could hear were the screams from the other carriages, to our horror we then heard a train,thinking it was coming towards us people were screaming there was a train coming towards us and that no-one knew we were down there.' - Emily

'I saw the flash, the orange-yellow light, and what appeared to be silver streaks, which I think was some of the glass coming across, and what I can describe as a rushing sound. There was no bang I heard; it was just a lot of noise. I had been twisted and thrown down to the ground. About halfway down to the ground the brain clicked in that it was a bomb. You then think you are going to die. When I hit the ground, it was all dark and silent and I thought I was dying' - Michael

'Just after the train left Edgware station, there was a massive bang followed by two smaller bangs and then an orange fireball. I put my hands and arms over my ears and head as the windows and the doors of the carriage shattered from the blast. Splintered and broken glass flew through the air towards me and other passengers. I was pushed sideways as the train came to a sudden halt. I thought I was going to die. Horrific loud cries and screams filled the air, together with smoke, bits and chemicals. Large and small pieces of stuff hit me and covered me. A book jammed itself between my shoulder and a panel at the side of me. I was hit on the head by a piece of metal that gave me a headache. I was covered in splinters and broken glass made from the window behind me. My eyes were sore and very dry from the fireball. Rubbing them made them only worse. Small splintered pieces of glass were sticking in my head and face. I could not breathe; my lungs were burning because of the smoke and the dust. I crashed my head between my knees to get some air. There followed a silence." - John

‘...there was a very strange noise. It wasn’t like a bang; it was like a muffled whooshing sound almost, but then the bus was very packed"..."Being sort of ensconced, I didn’t hear – I saw, but I didn’t really hear it very loudly. There was a mass exodus off of our bus, as things were still coming to the ground and bits were flying everywhere. The only thing I do remember is the carnage and everything as it hit the floor. I remember looking at the bus, and I remember initially thinking, 'What is a sightseeing bus doing there?' because that is actually what it looked like. From the front, that is what it looked like; it didn’t look like a London bus. Now I know why, but it didn’t look that way to me. It looked like one of those that has the roof off. It wasn’t until I actually saw the blood, and the smells, that I thought something is really wrong here and not right. It sounds almost ridiculous to say it, but it was just such a surreal thing; I still have trouble explaining it." - M

‘The floor went completely up to my seat, and I’m mid-air with a strand of floor remaining,keeping me from falling from the upstairs seats. I looked behind me and everybody and all the seats had vanished. I just went into flight mode. I just stuck my foot out and launched myself off. I hit the side of the bus on the way down onto the pavement…I jumped down and I was just screaming. It is funny, because I couldn’t hear anything. It was like somebody had got you and stuck you at the bottom of a swimming pool. You are so disorientated, all my clothes were hanging off me where they had all shredded. It blew the top of my shoe off – a heavy-stitch leather shoe’ - Gary

‘I couldn’t see. I had never experienced anything like that before. I can’t talk for other carriages but, in the first carriage, you could see nothing. Then somebody said, “Has anybody got a torch?” I thought, “That is fair enough”. He said, “Get your mobile”. What is the point of getting a mobile phone out? Then, apparently, the modern phone, if you open them up, they have quite a bright light. All you see is a beam about half an inch in diameter. You couldn’t see the hand that was holding that light; you couldn’t see the arm; you certainly couldn’t see the person that was holding it. They soon put them away, because it wasn’t having any effect at all’ - George

‘A man appeared at our carriage door from the bombed train, into the door that door of his carriage had been blown off, and he was trying to force open the had been facing the tunnel. He had been standing in the bombed carriage; the door of his carriage had been blown off, and he was trying to force open the doors to get into our train. He was shouting for help. He was yelling and, I think that is because of the blast, he could not hear. His clothes were ripped and he was bleeding heavily. He looked like the victim of a bomb blast. It was then that we all realised that something terrible had happened. The man managed to get his hands through the rubber seal running down the centre of the door, and three of us went forward to try to open it. I do not know if it is due to the design of the train, or whether our train became buckled, but we could not force the door open more than three, maybe four, inches. It was enough for him to get his hand round; again, we could see that he was bleeding heavily’...‘The driver of the train from Paddington passed through our carriage at this point checking to see if anyone was injured. I asked him if he could open the first-aid box, as we needed to get bandages etc into the second train. He told me that he did not have the key; he also said that the box would be empty anyway’...‘I then carried on up the stairs at Edgware Road and found myself outside the station. There was quite a lot of confusion above ground. There were several police cars, ambulances, blocking off the road. I walked up to the cordon and asked a policeman what I should do. He advised me to go home. I then asked him if I needed to leave my name and address and my details. I also asked him if we needed to be tested to see if the smoke we had been breathing in may have some sort of chemical poison etc. He told me to go home and watch the news to find out’ - Ben

"London’s telephone networks experienced unprecedented volumes of traffic. Vodafone experienced a 250 per cent increase in the volume of calls and a doubling of the volume of text messages. There were twice as many calls on the BT network as would normally be the case on a Thursday morning. Cable & Wireless handled ten times as many calls as usual to the Vodafone and O2 networks – 300,000 calls were placed every 15 minutes, compared to 30,000 on a normal working day. O2 would normally expect to handle 7 million calls per day. On 7 July, 11 million calls were connected – 60 per cent more than usual - and this does not include unsuccessful calls."

"...the City of London Police made a request at 12 noon to O2 to shut down the O2 network to the public in a 1km area around Aldgate station. O2 carried out the appropriate validation procedures, but these procedures, set by the Cabinet Office, do not include verifying the request with the Gold Coordinating Group. The O2 network was therefore closed to the public – outside the command and control structure - at about noon, and remained closed down until 4.45 pm. During that period of time, O2 estimates that ‘Several hundred thousand, possibly maybe even more than a million’ attempted calls by members of the public were lost."

EH??? So the Police use O2...If you are on the O2 network, DITCH IT, what's the point of having a mobile phone that gets turned off in an emergency??

‘Normally in an incident like this, we would pass the information to Gold Control. They would have an overview of the whole of London and would say, for example, ‘yes, the Homerton has not been hit. We have asked it to activate its plan. Patients can be decanted from the scene to that area’. However, the reality of the situation was that your last telephone call said that there were eight bombs. That was the last message that you had received. You therefore had a picture of Armageddon – you do not know what is going on." - Dr Gareth Davies

"We are not one of the 11 acute hospitals. We are not informed of any incident. For us, the communication problem was particularly important. We did not have any, apart from people hammering on the back door and asking for help. We are next to Russell Square, so that was coming from the ambulances who were at the scene. We were asked for equipment … We were not told of anything that was going on until we found our nurses’ homes had been sealed in the police activity and I could not get staff in or out. We were not told because it was not an NHS incident so they felt that we did not need to know, seeing the London picture is vital to the whole NHS’. Judith Ellis, Chief Nurse at Great Ormond Street

"The Falling Man" C4 9/11

Just been watching the documentary "The Falling Man" on Channel 4...it's filled me back up with many of the feelings from 9/11 (September 11th) or whatever you want to call it...You can't possibly judge an event (speaking, albeit, as a keen photographer) without seeing all the facts...this is the first time I've seen all those terrible close up shots (the people hanging out of the windows, the graphic footage of people free-falling from the 100th+ floor)...the TV didn't show these things, they just showed the tear filled faces and statements of witnesses traumatised by what was obviously happening right in front of their eyes...and the distant terrible long shots we all watched in real time...this compounded by the Fire Service documentary, which featured the sickening sound of bodies hitting glass and metal every time like a big fat sack of meat crashing from heaven...

I'm angry...I was only there, watching on TV with the rest of the world but I obviously still need a little closure...this kind of censorship, this airbrushing away the *facts* just messes with my head...

*sigh*...calm down Fink...

Perfect *swearword* thing to be watching just before we fly out on holiday... >:(

Whatever though, God Bless you and yours NYC...it's just a shock to see all this new footage I guess...

One thing, no doubt at all, you are as hard as nails as London vs. Terrorists...don't forget a single detail...it's important...

IF YOU SUSPECT IT, REPORT IT.

New terror alert warnings have started to appear on the announcement boards along the Thameslink route, snapped this at the station yesterday while waiting for my train home...it's to coincide with a new campaign for vigilance from the British public, basically keep your eyes open and don't be afraid to report anything that looks even remotely dodgy...

This brings to mind something that happened to me during the last round of London bombings in the early 80's (thanks IRA), each time I seemed to go up to the City (mostly doing IT support cover at the Stock Exchange) there seemed to be another bomb go off...(this was in the days when we still had rubbish bins in major stations where the terrorists could cunningly conceal their explosives (probably while wearing long, tan raincoats, brimmed hats, sunglasses and leather gloves) and then slip quietly away, cackling)...

Anyway, one morning when I wasn't off to London, I was sat, alone, very early in the morning (early shift on the Help Desk where I worked at the time) on a cold bench at Reigate railway station...(for some odd reason I remember that I was listening to a cassette tape album by "The Cult" on my posh Sony Walkman (this was a good few years ago)...it was some minutes until the train was due to come to whisk me to my destination, and glancing around in boredom I happened to notice that there was a parcel wrapped up in brown paper and tied with a bit of brown hairy string sitting under the bench just about a foot from where I was sitting...

I dunno what it was, probably all the attacks in the city still ringing in my ears, but I immediately just thought "OMG! Bomb!"..quite what kind of terrorist would bomb a tiny station like Reigate is another matter, but my mind started to play tricks on me...I was inventing a scenario where a number of terrorist cells worked together to hit hundreds of soft targets simultaneously, like planting small bombs at a high percentage of suburban stations around the UK as the big London stations were being so carefully watched...and once the almost reasonable concept had become lodged, I just couldn't shift it...

So, I stood up, checked the time, decided I had enough to get over to the ticket office (via the urine-washed, pitch black subway) and report it to someone...At this point a member of staff armed with a broom wandered ponderously up the stairs, half-heartedly poking some leaves under the fence into the B&Q car park next door...Ah ha...! I turned my walkman off, stood up, approached him, smiling and said "What would you do if I said the words 'suspicious package' to you?"..."Eh?" he said...I repeated the words "What would you do if I said the words 'suspicious package' to you?" (in a slightly more urgent tone of voice)...and pointed at the brown-paper parcel lurking in the shadow...

He shrugged and walked towards it (with me trailing a few feet behind, peering round him)...and when he got within range (and I couldn't quite believe my eyes when he did this) the guy lashed out with his foot and *booted* the bloody thing with his foot - *HARD*!!!

Now, I'm no counter-terrorism expert, but that certainly wasn't what I had expected as an initial approach to the situation!!

Anyway, as it happens, all turned out to be well...his careful examination of the package had left the brown paper in ribbons and, rather than a deafening detonation, the only result was a number of roofing tiles scattering noisily onto the platform...

"There you go Mate..." he said, "nothing to worry about"...

You may imagine here, if you will, the sound of blood rushing in my ears at a rather accellerated rate, and, although I'm not entirely sure, I think I actually said "Thanks" to him as he returned to his sweeping...

I was probably rather pale and quiet that day at work... ;)