Walked home yesterday afternoon, against a tide of people walking out of the City. Very zombie movie — emergency vehicles screaming past, jams of traffic followed by empty streets, mobile phones dead. All the buses corralled in sidestreet, strangely drivers still respecting the bus lanes. People at bus stops pissed off that there were no buses — hadn’t they heard the news?
By 8 in the evening, everything apparently back to normal, even near Aldgate, although the station was locked and crime scene posted. Feeling restless we went out for a drink in Hoxton — British resilience on display: all the Shoreditch posers not too shellshocked to spend time gelling their hair just so for a night out. Guess that’s the blitz spirit at work.
Certainly, at least where we were, people were just getting on with their sad little self-obsessed lives. Which must be some kind of victory for London.
Tried to rent 28 Days Later from Today is Boring. Someone had stolen it. Went home to sleep.
From the other side of the world, it seems strangely sad and awful that some people believe that it could help their cause, however justified or unjustified, to cause a lot of other people pain, panic, and confusion as they’re trying to go on with their lives.