After the Bombs
The confusion has now subsided. We know what went on. More or less, anyway. There are certain specifics, like precisely who was responsible for the attacks, although examination of CCTV recordings will doubtless yield clues in due course. I now know that the Piccadilly Line train that exploded was in fact going in the other direction - from Russell Square to Kings Cross. Having seen mobile phone video footage and photography on the BBC - both the web site and the telly - I am incredibly thankful that I was not on that train. Or one of the others afflicted. Or the bus - the photos of it are quite horrifying.

At the time, the most frustrating thing was the lack of information. A lot of eyewitnesses have expressed their disappointment at being stuck in Tube trains which had been hit or such and just not knowing what on earth was going on. I can understand that there is a need to avoid panic, and that as such, there was generated the fiction that it was caused by electrical power surges. I find it hard to believe that this could have been anything more than something designed to prevent undue panic, as it quickly became clear (with the destruction of the bus) that this was not a problem we could blame on the National Grid.

But standing at Euston Square station at 9:05, I knew nothing. I presumed that there had perhaps simply been a power failure or, at worst, a suspicious package at Kings Cross. Trains would thus just carry on straight through. I, like other commuters, was frustrated when the expected arrival of the next train changed from 2 minutes to "delayed", and the announcement over the tannoy illustrated that most Underground staff were as much in the dark as we were. Of course, mere minutes after that, just a little way down the line at Edgware Road, another bomb went off. Even when I got to Oxford Circus at 9:20, or thereabouts, all any of us knew was that no Tube lines were running. I think most of us just thought that London transport really sucks.

I in fact knew nothing until I got to work, which was when I first heard the story about the power surges. Old Street was suggested to have been affected. No-one really knew anything. I pulled up BBC News, but it took a while before the truth emerged.

The thing is, such an attack could happen tomorrow and we would still be powerless to stop it. The people who perpetrate these attacks have no compassion - as Ken Livingstone said, they have no respect for race, gender or religion. They probably wouldn't think twice about attempting an attack on the Tube network tomorrow. It's not actually implausible.

But we should keep the attacks in perspective. Fatalities have, thankfully, been relatively low, and although there have been many casualties, most of them have not suffered too seriously. London can and will recover from this, and it would be nice to think that our response will be as restrained as possible. Bullies get tired of attacking those who don't react.

I came as close today as I ever want to come to a terrorist attack. New job starts tomorrow. I hope it's a little less stressful than the events of today.

(I wish to thank all of you who have asked after me today. I shall be seeking an explanation from those that haven't! :P)