This Town/Is Coming Like A Ghost Town...

[liadnan]

Just back from an evening drinking in Bradley's with Steph. Almost deserted - there can't have been more than eight people at most in the basement bar - which is rather sad. Normally one shouldn't be able to move in Bradleys on a Saturday night. And the basement bar in Bradleys is one of the four or five places that spring most readily to mind when I think about "London life".

I'm not that worried though. Next Saturday things will be back to normal. Earlier this afternoon I walked along the Euston Road to King's Cross to see the flowers laid in memory, as a vague kind of observance. And very touching it was too, most particularly the reams of "missing" posters along the hoardings. But the label on one bunch of flowers struck me: "London will never be the same again." I couldn't read the rest of the label, and I may well have missed some kind of coda, or qualifier, and thus be doing the author an immense injustice. But my immediate feeling was: yes it will.

Or, at least.. London is never the same, day to day and year to year. London remembers the Baltic Exchange bomb of 1992, the Bishopsgate bomb of 1993, the Docklands bomb of 1996, the BBC bomb of 2001 to name just the major ones I personally can remember offhand (not to mention, outside London, many others particularly Lockerbie). And when I say "London remembers" I mean "more than one person I know reads this was there at one or other of them, too close for comfort". (On a slightly different tack, I was on an underground train which passed through Kings Cross, without stopping, on 18th November 1987, a different kind of traumatic event.) We remember, and we more on, and that adds another small part to the history of London. A friend of mine who was a Lloyd's broker at the time and until recently tells me that from time to time they still find themselves looking at policies with a bloody great hole in the middle, where a shard of glass tore through the file in 1993.

Karlheinz Stockhausen described the events of 11th September 2001 as "the greatest work of art ever". He was shouted down and had to retract, but I'm not the only one who thinks they grasped what he meant. Evil art to be sure, but those attacks -the choice of weapon, the choice of targets, the visual impact- made most sense when viewed as art as well as politico-religious statements. As art, Thursday 7th July 2005 in London was frankly rubbish. London audiences are notoriously tough. I suspect that, assuming it is correct this is an "Al Qaeda" attack, that Al Qaeda here means nothing more than a school of thought, a loose community of ideas. Bin Ladin himself has a better sense of theatre and, again assuming this is "Al Qaeda" at all, I still wouldn't be at all surprised if the first he knew of it was when the news reports began to show up on Al Jazeera in whatever cave he's currently hanging out in, (Incidentally, only a few people seem to have twigged the potential significance of Juan Cole's observation that the trial of Abu Hamza began last Tuesday.)

One final thought: something I've seen touched on, at least tangentially, by several already, including in particular Gideon, Spyinthehaus, and Itchyfidget, quoting, as is right and proper whenever in doubt, the West Wing. Almost seven months ago I applauded the sentiments of Lord "Legover Lennie" Hoffman (himself no stranger to London life if rumour tells true) in A v. Secretary of State for the Home Department:

(96) This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community.

(97) For these reasons I think that the Special Immigration Appeals Commission made an error of law and that the appeal ought to be allowed. Others of your Lordships who are also in favour of allowing the appeal would do so, not because there is no emergency threatening the life of the nation, but on the ground that a power of detention confined to foreigners is irrational and discriminatory. I would prefer not to express a view on this point. I said that the power of detention is at present confined to foreigners and I would not like to give the impression that all that was necessary was to extend the power to United Kingdom citizens as well. In my opinion, such a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

It's fair to ask whether I'd applaud in the same way today but, so far as I'm concerned, the answer is straightforward:

Yes.

Comments

[fanf]

Odd that Bradley's was empty. My friend Steve's pub was unusually busy on Thursday: http://www.livejournal.com/users/timeplease/51253.html

Other memories of bombs in London: http://www.livejournal.com/users/_hypatia_/4716.html

[liadnan]

I didn't see central London on Thursday, pubs up my way (Primrose Hill/Chalk farm) were very crowded. "Eat drink and be merry etc" I figured.

Friday I was very drunk in the City: City pubs moderately full.

I can't quite work out the Bradley's thing... It was possible to walk along Oxford St in the afternoon without bumping into anyone too, but that can be put down to people not coming in to London at all, which is unsurprising, whereas the pubs not being full on a Saturday evening means people who live in London weren't coming into the centre.