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Dreadful Nonsense

"I've read your blog. it's really funny. you should write a column." - Jon Ronson

I woke up this morning, crawled out of bed, switched off my phone alarm, crawled back into bed, forced He Who Only… into a hugging position and lay there grieving for ten minutes over the death of my lovely sleep and the beginning of a new day. I lay for a further ten minutes, until my phone alarm started insisting on my staying conscious and upright and so I stumbled into the shower and argued with it for ten minutes, trying to force reason and structure were there is none. I left the shower and stumbled back into the bedroom.

This is all perfectly routine.

It was only when I turned on the radio to the headlines that the police in London are on the alert, and the news of the largest deployment of police on the streets, and the talk of guns and the talk of repeat bombings and the discussions over the likelihood of another attack that I remembered that today was Scary Thursday, four weeks after 7/7, two weeks after 21/7, the day that anything and everything is likely to happen.

No more likely, it seems in retrospect, than any other day that week, or that month, but this morning it did seem like it could all happen again. He Who Only… explained to me from his position of comfort wrapped up in a duvet, that it would awfully boring of me to get blown up in a bomb today because, he sighed, there’d be crying, and there’d be phone calls, and then the funeral and it’d take up his time and eat into his schedule, and really, I should put off being blown up in a bomb until another time, a time when he’s got less on his plate. I saw his point, and resolved not to get blown up in a bomb.

The police were truly out in force. I mean, they’ve been very visible indeed for the last three weeks, but nothing like today. The Stop And Search policy really is stretching to all members of the community, in that it’s not just certain gentlemen of a certain age and certain appearance but any and everyone carrying rucksacks and backpacks and parcels over a certain size who are being asked to empty their bags and show some identification. This is all happening on the station concourse, in front and behind the ticket barriers, on the underground platforms as we wait for the train. I never thought I’d find comfort in a place where I am surrounded by people with berets and guns, or find it in any way appealing that the police are stopping every other person and demanding to go through their personal belongings. But I did this morning, PR stunt as it may well be. It’s the only thing that got me on the tube, and I did a little internal dance of celebration when I arrived at my destination, completely un-blown up.

This entry was posted on 04 August 2005 at 5:21 pm. 0 comments

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