[the_old_crowd] A Big Thanks

Richard hp at gulplum.yahoo.invalid
Fri Jul 8 01:00:10 UTC 2005


At 23:17 07/07/05 , Ali wrote:
>It's not my place to speak for others here - although I'm sure I do.
>It's been fantastic to see all the good wishes and out pourings of
>solidarity today.

<snip>

Can I just say, Ali, that you're certainly speaking for me (an ex-honorary 
Londoner -!). Although I'm not directly affected by what happened (though 
see below), remarks all over the internet have been very heartening.

I'd just like to add that, having been glued to the constant coverage on TV 
all day (in three languages from four countries - this has been an incident 
of truly international importance!), I feel proud to be a citizen of this 
island. Even more so than after the Olympics announcement yesterday.

The professionalism of the emergency services, the responsible attitude of 
all Londoners and the sober, non-judgmental, unsentimental utterances of 
the parade of talking heads, are all a perfect embodiment of why those 
murderous b*st*rds will never prevail.

The "Blitz Spirit" is a cliche which when mentioned, usually makes me smile 
ruefully about an imagined past which is no longer our present. Today made 
me realise that it's not a cliche, and it's not only true, but absolutely 
part of our present. The commemorations of the 60th anniversary of the end 
of WWII in Europe on Saturday will show the world just how true it remains.

The Dumbledore quote Ali so appositely cited should be emblazoned on all 
school buildings tomorrow.

To end, a summary of my own experience of the event. I was busy working 
this morning (at home), and I didn't have the TV or radio on. It's only 
when my sister phoned around noon to say that her husband (who works in a 
building pretty much on top of Edgware Road station) was safe that I found 
out that anything had happened. My other sister comes into work in London 
every day by train into King's Cross station at around 9am, and we couldn't 
find out anything about her circumstances - it later transpired that she'd 
been in a meeting all day having got into work early and didn't even know 
anything had happened until about 3pm. We had some pretty tense hours until 
then...

--
Richard, previously AKA GulPlum




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