Well, most of the trains had sorted themselves out by this morning so got down without too much hassle.
As an outsider, a few things struck me:
a) Just how busy the Tube was. Just it's normal self, yet a friend who was down a couple a days ago said it was deserted.
b) The huge and highly visible police presence. A couple of vans at every station, lots of patrols down the tube (first time I've seen that). They weren't even letting taxis stop at the office I was visiting (which was just off Parliament Square, across from the side of Whitehall, so fair enough...).
c) But the one that brought it home was the homemade "missing" posters along Euston Rd. Not good.
Deek.
central london explosions!!!
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Tahrey1043
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interesting post i saw on someone elses website, outlining some of the funny quirks in the reporting about the attacks, and a suggestion that either the british or US govt was behind it in order to take minds off the poverty / africa aspects of the G8 (bloody worked, didn't it! the whole thing seems derailed) and get the talk back to Bombing The Hell Out Of The Middle East™..... interesting.
certainly Tony has wasted no time at all in trying to push his (previously highly controvertial and not very well liked) anti-terror legistlation through parliament, probably without any kind of true democratic process to it, similar to Civil Contingencies (i think they only held off declaring a CCA-satisfying "state of emergency" because it would be a little too obvious) and what Control Orders would have been if Mike H hadn't stepped in and raised a fuss. He looks all sincere and shocked on the podium, but even if he didn't have anything to do with it and is actually upset, i'll bet there's a political part of him going YES... I can get that bit of law in place with NO problems now! Sweeet.
Suspicious really that something supposedly planned for the last 4-5 years could end up taking place right next to events that Joe Public didn't even know about three months ago. Quite how any of the proposed new laws would help prevent such an attack in future (as once again it was not a failing of police powers, but intelligence services) but they are highly open to a lot of abuse. The civil liberties argument appears to have been thrown in the bin.
Of course, it took place in London, which is susceptible to distruption by such things because it is, compared to the rest of the UK, an atypical traffic nightmare on all of the road, public transport, and pedestrian fronts. And it is also where the politicians live, ensuring that - despite 57 innocent, desperately unlucky people being killed in the incident, amongst about 5.7 million living in the city making very favourable odds on survival (how many die in traffic accidents every day, again? 10 on average isnt it?) - MPs of all parties get sufficiently sh*tted up and carried along in the hysterical furore to fully back any kind of whiplash nonsense the prime minister and his cohorts suggest.
And anyone who thinks our, or the US governments are not capable of such stuff to get their way is sorely deluded. If they don't care about several thousands of our troops dying when they should already have pulled out, or similar numbers of iraqi civilians being killed by errant cruise missiles, then what's 57 londoners to them? That's comparable to how many US troops have died recently in car bomb attacks but still they don't have adequate protection - their response-to-attack training (as demoed on CNN or some other cable news i flicked over) still apparently consists of presuming that every attack involves short bursts of gunfire and nothing else.
Though, of course, that may be wrong. The media lies. Remember that. What is the proof, tangible evidence you have seen that the men pictured in the papers actually carried out this attack? I don't doubt they could have - there's enough real islamic extremism even in the UK - but they may just have been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, have planned a nice day trip to london to see family members, been spotted on that CCTV footage arriving together in the station only to split up - and be so unlucky as to be caught in the blast of pre-planted devices. Security on the buses and tube was non-existant until the end of last week. It could have been ANYONE. Even our ruling classes, and after some minimal analysis of the surveillance camera footage, it became the obvious choice to pin it on a group of youths from leeds.
Unless of course there's footage been on the news that i havent seen, actually showing the moment where one - or more of them - exploded live on camera.
Sorry for being so poison pen on this, but im still waiting for the black helicopter to land outside and cart me off. My dad had similar strong views on the subject (though he is a bit of a crazy conspiracy theorist at times, some of the stuff he says turns out to have a concrete background) ... interestingly enough he hasn't been heard of since Thursday and I haven't been able to get hold of him, despite my brother's graduation being two days ago. Even if he's ok and has just cancelled his mobile and landline through lack of cash (likely), its too much of a coincidence to ignore right now.
(i may also appear hard hearted, but i work in a hospital diagnosis dept and see dying people every day - im sure our morgue gets through quite a few on a 24 hour basis, and it's just one unit ... lives that could be saved by all that military / anti-terror cash, and money for crazy schemes like vehicle tagging and ID cards, being pumped back into the slowly imploding NHS. 57 can get snuffed in an instant by four psychos, but an uncaring or out-of-control govt can kill many more in the interval between outrages, less obviously, by doing it over a longer time period - being continuous, rather than short, shocking flashes in the pan. i even wonder if a little more funding might have reduced the overall count to, if nothing else, 56 - not to besmirch the awesome work of the central london hospital staff, including those in non-a&e depts who cancelled less urgent operations in order to take in emergency casualty cases. thats what the job's all about..)
certainly Tony has wasted no time at all in trying to push his (previously highly controvertial and not very well liked) anti-terror legistlation through parliament, probably without any kind of true democratic process to it, similar to Civil Contingencies (i think they only held off declaring a CCA-satisfying "state of emergency" because it would be a little too obvious) and what Control Orders would have been if Mike H hadn't stepped in and raised a fuss. He looks all sincere and shocked on the podium, but even if he didn't have anything to do with it and is actually upset, i'll bet there's a political part of him going YES... I can get that bit of law in place with NO problems now! Sweeet.
Suspicious really that something supposedly planned for the last 4-5 years could end up taking place right next to events that Joe Public didn't even know about three months ago. Quite how any of the proposed new laws would help prevent such an attack in future (as once again it was not a failing of police powers, but intelligence services) but they are highly open to a lot of abuse. The civil liberties argument appears to have been thrown in the bin.
Of course, it took place in London, which is susceptible to distruption by such things because it is, compared to the rest of the UK, an atypical traffic nightmare on all of the road, public transport, and pedestrian fronts. And it is also where the politicians live, ensuring that - despite 57 innocent, desperately unlucky people being killed in the incident, amongst about 5.7 million living in the city making very favourable odds on survival (how many die in traffic accidents every day, again? 10 on average isnt it?) - MPs of all parties get sufficiently sh*tted up and carried along in the hysterical furore to fully back any kind of whiplash nonsense the prime minister and his cohorts suggest.
And anyone who thinks our, or the US governments are not capable of such stuff to get their way is sorely deluded. If they don't care about several thousands of our troops dying when they should already have pulled out, or similar numbers of iraqi civilians being killed by errant cruise missiles, then what's 57 londoners to them? That's comparable to how many US troops have died recently in car bomb attacks but still they don't have adequate protection - their response-to-attack training (as demoed on CNN or some other cable news i flicked over) still apparently consists of presuming that every attack involves short bursts of gunfire and nothing else.
Though, of course, that may be wrong. The media lies. Remember that. What is the proof, tangible evidence you have seen that the men pictured in the papers actually carried out this attack? I don't doubt they could have - there's enough real islamic extremism even in the UK - but they may just have been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, have planned a nice day trip to london to see family members, been spotted on that CCTV footage arriving together in the station only to split up - and be so unlucky as to be caught in the blast of pre-planted devices. Security on the buses and tube was non-existant until the end of last week. It could have been ANYONE. Even our ruling classes, and after some minimal analysis of the surveillance camera footage, it became the obvious choice to pin it on a group of youths from leeds.
Unless of course there's footage been on the news that i havent seen, actually showing the moment where one - or more of them - exploded live on camera.
Sorry for being so poison pen on this, but im still waiting for the black helicopter to land outside and cart me off. My dad had similar strong views on the subject (though he is a bit of a crazy conspiracy theorist at times, some of the stuff he says turns out to have a concrete background) ... interestingly enough he hasn't been heard of since Thursday and I haven't been able to get hold of him, despite my brother's graduation being two days ago. Even if he's ok and has just cancelled his mobile and landline through lack of cash (likely), its too much of a coincidence to ignore right now.
(i may also appear hard hearted, but i work in a hospital diagnosis dept and see dying people every day - im sure our morgue gets through quite a few on a 24 hour basis, and it's just one unit ... lives that could be saved by all that military / anti-terror cash, and money for crazy schemes like vehicle tagging and ID cards, being pumped back into the slowly imploding NHS. 57 can get snuffed in an instant by four psychos, but an uncaring or out-of-control govt can kill many more in the interval between outrages, less obviously, by doing it over a longer time period - being continuous, rather than short, shocking flashes in the pan. i even wonder if a little more funding might have reduced the overall count to, if nothing else, 56 - not to besmirch the awesome work of the central london hospital staff, including those in non-a&e depts who cancelled less urgent operations in order to take in emergency casualty cases. thats what the job's all about..)
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polopowah
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today, 2 weeks after the atrocity of the london explosions
police have confirmed 3 more (mini) explosions on 3 underground trains.
signs that there may be a fourth aswell.
They have been saying that it seems to be a small minority 'copy-catting' the suicide bombers a fortnight ago.
What on earth next
-Ben-
police have confirmed 3 more (mini) explosions on 3 underground trains.
signs that there may be a fourth aswell.
They have been saying that it seems to be a small minority 'copy-catting' the suicide bombers a fortnight ago.
What on earth next
-Ben-
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Tahrey1043
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guy at work heard (allegedly) that they were nothing more than those explosive caps regularly put on the line by workmen to warn themselves of approaching trains (and the driver of the men's presence) if they're having to do something on the tracks without shutting the line
probably a disgruntled tube worker going postal in a very minor way - when a place is as charged as the underground must be at the moment it doesnt need much to spark people's paranoia
(COME ON PEOPLE ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS ALREADY... get your mind off it... you act defiant, but you think generating 14 solid days of coverage ISNT giving the bombers a buzz??)
just think what havoc you could wreak with a box of british standard fireworks for heaven's sake (given that by all reports, today's "explosions" were teeny). or a can of petrol.
probably a disgruntled tube worker going postal in a very minor way - when a place is as charged as the underground must be at the moment it doesnt need much to spark people's paranoia
(COME ON PEOPLE ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS ALREADY... get your mind off it... you act defiant, but you think generating 14 solid days of coverage ISNT giving the bombers a buzz??)
just think what havoc you could wreak with a box of british standard fireworks for heaven's sake (given that by all reports, today's "explosions" were teeny). or a can of petrol.
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waveydavey
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Tahrey1043 wrote:guy at work heard (allegedly) that they were nothing more than those explosive caps regularly put on the line by workmen to warn themselves of approaching trains (and the driver of the men's presence) if they're having to do something on the tracks without shutting the line
probably a disgruntled tube worker going postal in a very minor way - when a place is as charged as the underground must be at the moment it doesnt need much to spark people's paranoia
(COME ON PEOPLE ITS BEEN TWO WEEKS ALREADY... get your mind off it... you act defiant, but you think generating 14 solid days of coverage ISNT giving the bombers a buzz??)
just think what havoc you could wreak with a box of british standard fireworks for heaven's sake (given that by all reports, today's "explosions" were teeny). or a can of petrol.
You'd be surprised how much damage those 'caps' can do.
I think where he has got mistaken is that they are officially called detonators and the police did mention detonators quite a bit today. They are just gunpowder wrapped in a metal case that you clip to the top of the rail, and if your stood near one when it goes off you'de be lucky not to have quite a few shrapnel wounds. We used to have to keep them in metal containers in the back of our vans when i was a tech...... (I work on the railway)..... And our vans even had explosive signs on the rear!!!!!
I believe the detonators the police are talking about are the detonators of the bombs that didn't go off correctly.
Cheers
Dave.
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Tahrey1043
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nah those things gave us a hell of a fright at school when we first heard them going off and didnt know what it was (bham x-city commuter line divides the buildings from the playing fields and they had some repair work going on to our little access bridge-tunnel-whathaveyou)
and if they're doing something late evening in winter it resonates across the 'burbs like a gunshot (and i'm the best part of a mile from the nearest bit of the line!)
bet thats what it was..... some screaming drama queen on the tube hearing it go off as they neared a maintenance spot and immediately jumping onto 999 with their mobile
(that gives me an excuse to link to this image ... not mine so dont sue!)
and if they're doing something late evening in winter it resonates across the 'burbs like a gunshot (and i'm the best part of a mile from the nearest bit of the line!)
bet thats what it was..... some screaming drama queen on the tube hearing it go off as they neared a maintenance spot and immediately jumping onto 999 with their mobile
(that gives me an excuse to link to this image ... not mine so dont sue!)