These are not the images of September 11 — people walking in one direction out of the city. These are Londoners walking left, right, up the street, down the street, going about their normal lunchtime business.
We have faced terror before — Nazi terror, Irish Republican terror — and have not been beaten. This will not beat us either.
The overwhelming feeling round our office is “Is this best they can do?” – it looks and sounds much worse on 24hr news channels than in person.
… in the National Review
Just a word. My sister was at Tavistock Square at the time of the explosions, and my daughter and nephew were also in central London. We had some anxious moments, the more so because the cell-phone system was down (probably due to overloading), but we’ve all spoken now by land-line and email and they’re all safe and well.
For those of you who are anxious to know how the UK will react, we’ve been bombed for years by the IRA, and no-one spoke of quitting. Half of London and much of Coventry was flattened by the Luftwaffe a generation or two back, and no-one ran. Before that, in my grandparents’ time, we were bombed by Zeppelins and didn’t give in. We gave up appeasing after Czechoslovakia. There’s no panic today, and there won’t be, but we, all of us, are bloody angry. Al quaeda may think we’re going to run up the white flag, but I promise you nobody else does.
… in the Mudville Gazette.
Ich bin ein Londoner.