London Calling

The Clash were playing on the radio this morning and the lyrics come back to haunt me as I walk the streets of London on a bright, blustery summer's evening. Ambulances and police sirens wail throughout the city centre and shroud an entirely pleasant evening with a grim reality.

The roads are packed with hundreds of thousands of people making their way home from the city — their expressions confused, alert, scared and determined. There are no taxis, no tubes, no buses. There is no other option but to walk. This is the day that the 'what if' became the 'when'. This is the day we’ve all been dreading.

"The ice age is coming,
The sun is zooming in,
Meltdown expected and the wheat is growing thin"

That first moment when you hear something terrible has happened is marked with a mixture of disbelief and a morbid curiosity. That jolt you get in the pit of your stomach that moves up through your chest to the top of your head is potent and debilitating. Usually I catch the tube into work, via Liverpool Street, but this morning I had to get on a boat to do some work in the wheelhouse. The cockney skipper said, 'we're gonna be busy today – summink awful's happened on the tubes.'

I walk down onto the passenger deck and a huge queue of people are waiting to get on the boat. I hear whispers of explosions and see people frantically trying to use their mobile phones. The networks are jammed. I ask the stewardess what has happened. She tells me there has been a terrorist attack. She does not know where or what exactly has happened. I need to get off the boat and find out.

Several ambulances and police cars speed by as I walk up to my offices in Covent Garden. I walk past Trafalgar Square which just yesterday was the scene of elation and triumph for winning the Olympic Bid. All the confetti and signs of celebration have been removed or blown away by the wind. I stop in at the coffee shop around the corner from work and am told by the bewildered waitress that there have been several explosions around central London — on the tubes and buses.

"London calling upon the zombies of death
Quit holding out — and draw another breath"

In the office we’re huddled around the TV screen and watch as the horror unfolds — a horror — which we’re reminded by the sounds of helicopters and sirens outside — is on our doorstep. Phrases like 'amputated limbs' and 'death toll rising' nauseatingly mix with scenes of charred bodies and desperate resuscitation.

Because the phone networks are jammed emails flood in and out with worried people wondering if you or your friends are OK. Anger rises in the office and anti-Muslim attitudes are unfortunately voiced. The Prime Minister speaks.

His speech, one which I’m sure has been waiting in the shadows, is delivered earnestly. We’re told to stay were we are. We’re told not to come into London. The Queen is ‘Deeply Shocked’. The disturbing eye-witness accounts flood in. That could have been me. That could have been a friend or a loved one. The randomness, the pointlessness and the macabre luck of the draw is deeply unsettling. "We must be vigilant and undeterred" is the message, "We must not hate or retaliate unjustly" is another.

As I continue my march across London I try to take it all in. What will happen tomorrow? How much has changed or will change? Those poor, unlucky people! How bizarre to go from yesterday’s high and smugness at beating the French in the Olympic Bid to such a grotesque low. What a shame to have the G8 Summit sidelined by this act of terrorism. What was the point?

I can’t absorb it all and I march on and look at faces and listen sadly to the sounds of a felled London calling for help.