I was struck today with a thought from the bible where we are urged to be “giving thanks always” (Eph 5:20) This evening, I asked myself what can we give thanks for today in the midst of the shock that terrorism brings to the city so close to my heart? Many of these things that I will list seem small, and for those who are suffering the pain of loosing loved ones will not take such pain away, but I will list them nonetheless

On a personal note I am thankful that my family survived intact. I am so glad to have been able to get safely to work on public transport, and in a borrowed car home again around the M25 in a little over three hours- many have been walking all day and are not yet home.

I also give thanks for the fact that this tragedy did not happen on a much larger scale. The death toll, currently 37 with 700 injured will sadly probably rise, but it is absolutely amazing that more did not die given the crowded state of rush hour trains. I give thanks for two remarkable coincidences which seem likely to have contributed to the survival of victims because these circumstances facilitated medical care getting to the victims quicker: Firstly, the bomb on a bus went off outside the headquarters of the British Medical Association where doctors were attending meetings and were able to attend victims immediately. Secondly, a meeting of trauma doctors just happened to be occuring at the Royal London Hospital which meant that 18 top trauma doctors could quickly be airlifted to the scenes of these disasters to treat patients who remained trapped.

I am grateful for the internet which enabled messages to reach loved ones when the phones werent working, and also facilitated a remarkable outporing of love and concern from my blogging buddies. I am especially grateful for the way the internet brings me together with people like PyroManiac with whom I shared some sweet fellowship just minutes before this terror struck. Our conversation was wide ranging and included our gratitude for the way blogging allows us to appreciate the strengths of people like the Internet Monk with whom we might not agree on everything. Indeed, whilst we did not dwell on it, I know that there are issues that Phil and I would disagree on, and the divisions of the church are such that there is no doubt in my mind we would not have met were it not for the web.

I am grateful for the fortitude of the emergency services. One little spoken of aspect of all this is the suspect packages which were being found all afternoon. Whilst every instinct must say get as far away as possible these people were putting their lives on the line. I was amazed and grateful for the quiet bravery of the BBC who continued to broadcast during a partial evacuation of their own building due to a bomb scare. The anouncer I was listening to quietly said that he was about to hand over the programme to another presenter who had moved to another studio further away from the windows. Indeed London as a whole quietly tried as best it could to get home, walking instead of the tube and patiently driving in terrible traffic for once just glad to be alive. I was also grateful for the leadership of the world community shown by Tony Blair. I felt proud as he read the statement on behalf of the G8 leaders, flanked by the most powerful men in the world. Somehow he seemed to have been born for such a moment. You might disagree with his policies, or even feel they have put us at more risk, but I have no doubt in my mind that right now he is doing the very best that he knows how for our nation, and in his roll of chair of G8 and the EU, the rest of the world.

Today should have been a day of great jubilation for London following the news of the olympics. It was not. But Londoners have been through this kind of thing before- I remember previous bombings only too well. We will persevere, nay flourish in the face of this latest opposition. As Tony Blair put it

It is important… that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire impose extremism on the world.

Whatever they do it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilised nations throughout the world.

I will give the last words to blogger Clagnut

So thanks then, terrorists. You’ve just succeeded in bringing the families of millions of Londoners that bit closer together, giving them an increased love of their city and an enhanced appreciation of their way of life. You might have destroyed the lives of several hundred people, but and this is stating the xxx obvious you xxxx you’ve achieved nothing.

Technorati TAGS london, Terrorism, 070705, bomb, bombs, explosions, london explosions, terrorism, UK

In another example of the confusion that is still only being ironed out it has now been reported on the BBC that the Tube bombs were ‘almost simultaneous’ and actually went off within 50 seconds of each other.

They still dont know how many bodies they will find underground. I hope my gratitude that it wasnt worse wasnt premature.

If you are missing family I have a page with links that may help. Life remains far from normal in London but many more of us will be back at work on Monday, mark my word.

TAGS: London Bombing

Turn on your radio or TV for more news about this. There have been at least six bombs today in london. I and my family are all well, although my brother narrowly missed one of the explosions.

If you have any more news or personal accounts you are most welcome to use my comment box or trackbacks on this post. Also, there is a UK blogs aggregator available as well as Newsnow. Posibly the best source of breaking news is the BBC reporters blog where reporters are filing text reports from around london.

Tony Blair is due to make a statement at noon british time

UPDATE
My thoughts on the events of the day can be found in a post entitled giving thanks in the middle of a disaster

TAG: London bombing

Eight men arrested, half a ton of ammmonium nitrate seized (this chemical has been used in many terrorist bombings) and the BBC report on “intelligence suggestions a plot to bomb civilians may have been foiled.” Wait my slides are splitting with laughter! And no we didnt use a helicopter gunship to hunt these people down, and right now they are being questioned by police rather than being in several pieces.

Of course it could only be a typical British response to state that there is now a “mood of ‘restrained jubilation’ among security services who believed they had stopped a plot at an early stage.”

Well stuff the restraint- this calls for jubilation! The stuff they seized could have killed a lot of londoners- one of the suspects even worked at Gatwick Airport so I am told. What I like most about this is that we haven’t given these people the dignity of being considered soldiers and being shot at- they are holed up as common criminals having been arrested by the good old English Bobby. They will also have the chance to explain what they were doing with so much of this chemical, and given a fair trial if that is appropriate.

Maybe finally people will stop saying that the threat is not real, that it is hyped up by Bush and Blair. This was perhaps a close shave, and we must ALL be vigilant.

London is recovering. The Underground website even lists a “normal service” on some lines this morning. Londoners are curiously underwhelmed. Most of the folks in my office didnt down tools and watch the coverage but quietly carried on their work and left a little early to try and get home. We have lived with the very real threat of this kind of thing for decades. Most of us have felt explosions more than once. As I explained in a post last night, one of my most overwhelming feelings is of gratitude that it wasnt worse.

Baratron speaks for many:

I imagine it’s worse for you because of 9/11 flashbacks, but we’re ok. Seriously. London has been dealing with bombs since the Blitz in WWII. We had the IRA blowing up parts of London and SE England for 25 years, forgodsake. Even despite their ceasefire, we still have reinforced post boxes and litter bins on the streets, and no litter bins on public transport. (This was the thing that amazed me most about recent travels in the US – the authorities claiming they were afraid of attack, yet there were bins everywhere – even in the airports!)

Questions are emerging on some blogs about why initial coverage was so confused. It may even be that the very first comments about “power surges” were deliberate misinformation to prevent panic. If that is part of the plan of managing an event like yesterday then fair enough. A disadvantage of such an approach would have been that the absense of clear and dependable information does not inspire confidence that the response is co-ordinated as well as we hope. To be honest though, I suspect that the confusion that reigned through much of yesterday merely reflected the services being more concerned about saving lives than being sure exactly what had happened and exactly how many explosions there were.

It did seem somewhat strange that early reports were of more explosions than were since confirmed, but the most likely explanation of that is that the bombs occured underground in between stations and victims emerged at both. Maybe some of the reports were about controlled explosions- I think we need to know how more about if any unexploded devices were found. Rumours still fly around without general confirmation- was there a suicide bomber shot at Canary Wharf as some bloggers report? We dont know if the report is true any more than reports I saw on only one main stream media site which spoke of unexploded bombs being discovered.

One blogger even cites apparent eye-witness testimony that suggests there were further explosions. One of the problems of course is that we simply do not know who to trust. But then nor does the mainstream media. How can we be sure that eyewitness testimony given on blogs or live on TV is actually genuine? In time no doubt blogging will play a major role in news reporting as blogs are all about reputation built up over time. If a well-known blogger was to report that they had been caught up in the bombs then no doubt those who trusted them would have no problem believing what they said. I doubt though that yesterday there were many people who made up stories.

One survivor who has a harrowing report of what it was like to be stuck underground wants to know why all the Tube stations werent closed immediately. My gut reaction to that is to say that they could not make such a decision in minutes when no one new that more than one bomb was involved, and it is genuinely possible no one realised it was a bomb at first.

There have been official denials by mobile phone companies that the mobile phone network was shut down. Personally I wonder why it wasnt- we know that bombs can be triggered by mobile phones so I would have thought that would be the first thing the authorities would have done. But I am quite sure that the authorities new exactly what they were doing in this as other matters.

Hopefully today, we will begin to understand more about what actually happened. We need to stand together as indeed we are. The Americans are identifying with us- adding union jacks to their blogs and even flying one at the state department–

Police officers raise a British flag in front of the State Department in Washington, D.C., Thursday, July 7, 2005, in remembrance of those killed in the London bombings. It was the first time a foreign flag has been raised at the State Department.

As usual instapundit has some of the best coverage, passing on links to others articles. Tim Blair also has some good links.

Technorati TAGS london, Terrorism, 070705, bomb, bombs, explosions, london explosions, terrorism, UK