Quotes

[coalescent]

Just because. The London News Review:

What the fuck do you think you're doing?

This is London. We've dealt with your sort before. You don't try and pull this on us.

Someone, via andrewducker:

Cultural differences

The responses by people today really highlight for me the differences between Americans and English people.

Americans: OMG! there's been a terroroist attack! My prayers are with you!!

English: London's been bombed. Shit. that means the tube is closed. I wonder if I can still make it into town tonite to see that play I have tickets for. Not to say this isn't upsetting or that people aren't worried. There's just a certain lack of melodrama.

Ken Livingstone:

In the days that follow look at our airports, look at our sea ports and look at our railway stations and, even after your cowardly attack, you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners and to fulfil their dreams and achieve their potential.

Various:

Coping with emergencies the British way: The nearest branch of Pret has sold out of chocolate cake.

-

When the news reporter said "Shopkeepers are opening their doors bringing out blankets and cups of tea" I just smiled. It's like yes. That's Britain for you. Tea solves everything.
You're a bit cold?
Tea.
Your boyfriend has just left you?
Tea.
You've just been told you've got cancer?
Tea.
Coordinated terrorist attack on the transport network bringing the city to a grinding halt?
TEA DAMMIT!
And if it's really serious, they may bring out the coffee. The Americans have their alert raised to red, we break out the coffee. That's for situations more serious than this of course. Like another England penalty shoot-out.

-

It's hard to panic the British. They've dealt with the Blitz, the IRA, the Silurians, the Zarbi, the Daleks, the Cybermen...

Anonymous:

And for the London PoV on these attacks, well we get on with it. Trying to terrorise a city that lived with the constant threat of bombs for the best part of 30 years was a pretty stupid idea. And the swift, efficient response of the emergency services and lack of widespread chaos and panic shows that it was something that London was prepared for, in fact I'm suprised it hadn't happened sooner. I suspect by next week it will be pretty much business as usual, and for most of us all the excitement today will feel like a distant memory.

I'm not trying to belittle the memory of the 39 people who were murdered today, or the many hundreds injured. Families and friends will be in mourning for a long time to come, and my thoughts are with them. But I think London as a whole will refuse to be crippled by this, and will get up, dust itself off, and move forward as it always has done, indeed its started already. Outside the affected zones life pretty much continued as normal, I know it did here in West London at least. I think if the terrorists were expecting some kind of victory here in London today, they were sorely disappointed.

And as a final footnote, the tun still happened.

Comments

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

Well said, particularly a propos cultural differences.

For a squirm inducing American take on the attack, check out MediaMatters.org's report on a Fox News item, and how, gosh, actually, terrorist attacks might be good for us because they knock Aids and global warming off the G8 agenda...

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

(should've added, linky courtesy of chinawolf)

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

That's just ... unbelievable.

I boggled at Melanie Phillips' reaction almost as much.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Bloody hell.

Yes, perish the thought that we should become like the Spanish.

[fba.livejournal.com]

I boggled until I read which paper she writes for...

TBH I doubt that had this happened before the election the results would have been much different. The only major party that was resolutely anti-war was the LibDems and even this wouldn't have got them into power on the strength of it. The most that would have happened would have been a hung-parliament with Labour as the single biggest party...

What the Fox network seems to be missing is that the best way to counter terrorism is to deal with the underlying problems that lead people down that path. Dealing with global poverty will do more to end terrorism than destabalising another middle eastern country. Part of the problem, of course, is that Al'Qaeda it a nebulous organisation and its aims are similarly intangible. How can you negotiate with terrorists (in any way - be that through diplomacy or extreme diplomacy) when they don't want anything tangible??

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I boggled until I read which paper she writes for...

In this case, that's a bit unfair. She can be a very sharp, very logical thinker, and (until this post) she was the person I'd go and read if I wanted a coherent non-left-wing position on ... whatever. I don't often agree with her, but most of the time in the past I have been able to follow her reasoning.

[fba.livejournal.com]

The Daily Mail has no redeeming features. It isn't like the paper is soft...

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. But her thinking isn't dictated by the Mail, it's just published by it. The two are not always the same. I mean, she used to write for the Guardian.

[knirirr.livejournal.com]

Actually, I must disagree. The Daily Mail is one of my favourite comics, and often provides an entertaining read when I can't find a newspaper. There's also the "Daily Mail drinking game"...

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

You must be bonkers, or never read the Daily Mail. Either Paul Dacre rips every last ounce of consideration and sense from her articles, or Melanie Phillips is quite often a raving loon. For coherent and convincing right-wing positions, you can't really beat the Telegraph's columnists.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

I almost never read the Daily Mail. My opinion of her is based on her diary, and (more) on her appearances on The Moral Maze.

[immortalradical.livejournal.com]

Don't let her fool you, Niall!

[snowking.livejournal.com]

I've read her diary and she IS fucking bonkers.

[dyddgu.livejournal.com]

TMM also employed David Starkey. Both come across more often than anything as frothing bloody bigots. I despise them both. And that bloody Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, but then she'd accuse me of being colonial, and/or English.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I boggled until I read which paper she writes for...

I hate to stick up for the Daily Mail even a little bit, but that's slightly unfair. Melanie Phillips is England's Ann Coulter, and would be a vicious unhinged scribbler of incoherent right-wing hate material whoever she wrote for.

(I particularly "liked" the one where she blamed the death of a young drug addict from illegal impure drugs on campaigners for legalising and controlling drugs. No logic at all, just pure shriek at the 'left'. But that was just a highlight, she basically never makes any sense or lets up on the hating)

Only slightly unfair though; it's because they are who they are that they employ creatures like Phillips.

Correction

[applez.livejournal.com]

What the Fox network seems to be missing (in its eyes) are the other 30 million viewers the bog-standard television channels still have over them.

Unbelievable?

[applez.livejournal.com]

Clearly you've not lived in the US then. ;-) :-/

[grahamsleight.livejournal.com]

I guess that if there's any blog on which to point out that the Zarbi never invaded London (let alone set mandible on Earth) it's this one?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Shouldn't you be on a panel or something? :p

[sharp-blue.livejournal.com]

Beaten to it!

Well said, but ...

[applez.livejournal.com]

with regards to the 'seaports, airports...'

I sincerely hope there isn't a depression in tourist numbers this summer. As it is, how many Underground lines are going to be continuously affected (and for how long) before the criminal evidence is gathered and repairs can begin?

(btw, we're at Threat Level Orange here...I'm not worried till it goes Fuschia! ;-p )

Re: Well said, but ...

[brixtonbrood.livejournal.com]

Ken wasn't referring to tourists, but to immigrants - that's two of the things that're so great about his speech, that he resists the natural mayoral urge to plug the city in the short term, and goes for the real long term high ground, and also that he manages to be so gung ho and jingoistic whilst still remaining impeccably left-wing and right-on.

Re: Well said, but ...

[applez.livejournal.com]

True, but in a generic sense it doesn't take from the concern of sufficient tourism for the great city.

[veggiesu.livejournal.com]

I hadn't seen the London Review quote before, so thanks. I'd seen most of the rest by scrolling through metaquotes yesterday (you'll be unsurprised to learn that the "tea" quote is already avialable in icon form). I was quite touched by the view that others, particularly Americans, have of the way that this country is dealing with this shit. Sometimes it takes an objective view to make you realise that we're really *not* all running around like headless chickens, whatever else may be going on.

[deadcities-icon.livejournal.com]

Now if someone could just teach you bastards how to drink coffee once in a while, so visitors can have something instead of fucking tea all the time...

You need more Turks and Italians. They'll show you coffee.

[(Anonymous)]

You must be thinking of a different London. You can't move for Italian - and better yet, Portugese - coffeeshops!

And Turks - what are you thinking? Fair play to them, and the Greeks, but that's not what i call coffee. And if you want it, there's a swathe of town from Tottenham to Holloway, and up to Crouch End, peppered with Greek and Turkish places.

-- tom

[mattia.livejournal.com]

Word, dude. Espresso or bust, baby! (and most of the 'Italian' coffee shops, well, everywhere, don't really do the coffee justice.)

Btw

[applez.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the Worldcon voting reminder, but I feel that I've read, seen, so few of the nominees, it would probably be wrong for me to vote for any of them. Oh well.

[kittynic]

Some brilliant quotes are coming out of the situation. Good to see it hasn't affected our sense of humour.

Oh and what's a 'tun?

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

Fannish London meet: everyone goes to the pub on the first thursday of each month (so it's sometimes just called First Thursday. Also sometimes spelt as 'ton'). I think the point is that it's been an unbroken chain for x years, so it's good that it still happened this month.

[kittynic]

Ah right. :-)

Still don't get the 'ton' bit though.

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

It's a corruption of 'ton', which is an extreme abbreviation of the first venue for said pubmeet, the Wellington Arms.

[new-art-riot.livejournal.com]

Hello! I've intruded upon your journal because you list Truck festival as an interest and I've set up a community truckfestival to try and stimulate some pre-festival discussion/conjecture/rumour/bitching. Thank you!