Anniversary

Ten years since those transport bombs in London and we did try to remember. I was at a conference on Intellectual Property so was able to keep that one minute silence with other people. London Transport was going to keep it as were other organizations but I do not know whether the place did come to a complete standstill as it used to at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

I thought I'd go back to some of the blogs we wrote at the time and here is Richard (not yet the Boss) announcing what happened. As it happens I first heard what happened from someone in Germany who was calling to find out whether I was all right. I had not switched on the computer. After that I spent a great many hours trying to find out what was going on.

My first posting on the subject in which I made the same mistake everyone else made in assuming that there was a carefully planned co-ordinated attack. As it turned out the bombs were planted around King's Cross because that is where the perpetrators came into London. I am not too pleased with my later update but on the whole it can pass. My next update came on the following day about the situation in West London and I do happen to live in a very mixed area with many Muslims as neighbours and business owners.

Normal service had to be resumed until we had those luckily ineffective bombers on July 21 (one of them was in Shepherds Bush and police activity immediately after it brought the area to a standstill for several days) and there were a few postings on the subject related to the bombings. Here is Richard reminiscing about his childhood and comparing the Orthodox Jews among whom he, a goyim, was brought up with the Muslim communities in north London and the less than helpful part played by the overweening bureaucracy in the problem.

Well, naturally, I had to sound off on "those British values in full" here and here and the postings are not bad even though I say so myself. While we both carried on with writing on other matters (for example Richard here) by the end of July I became very tired with the mawkishness around me and the incompetence with which the aftermath of the bombings was being dealt with. In particular, I recall being attacked by all sorts of people for expressing doubts about police behaviour in the Stockwell shooting. Well, far it be from me to boast (moi?) but I and those of us who were unimpressed with the first, second and third stories were absolutely right. The whole affair was one of appalling incompetence and self-satisfaction and not one single head rolled.

Still we have muddled on with very few terrorist attacks for which we must praise our intelligence services whose success is, by definition, not known. As the saying goes, our chaps and chapesses have to get it right every time, theirs only once.

That is probably as much anniversary remembrance that I want to do and probably more than readers want to know about. I shall stop here. Normal service will resume.