vendredi 15 juillet 2005

Balance behind the London cordons A while after last week's London attacks, my brother Jon sent me his eye-witness account of the bus bomb, the aftermath and reflections. His pages written mainly as he waited for the barriers to come down and generators to appear with tubes going underground are "timeless", as journalists say of articles worth publishing whenever. Here are a couple of extracts: "The papers later reported that there was screaming and hysteria around the blasted bus, but I heard only shouts and instructions, not panic." In forced confinement at the heart of a crime scene, Jon became dry as well as practical: "...I have wondered over the last couple of days whether London swallows up its dramas so quickly because the majority of people, like us, are largely unaffected -- and perhaps even indifferent. Some weeks ago I commented to [my wife] Louise as we passed through Leicester Square only a few hours after a vicious killing there, that visibly no one would know that anything untoward had ever happened. But listening and talking to people since Thursday, I believe it is not generally indifference but pragmatism. What else to do but carry on? "I am quietly pleased that there was no evident panic in Woburn Place when the bus exploded -- as I am quietly pleased that there has been no subsequent waving of national flags. I’ve seen some press reports that have over-dramatised the visible impact on people here (who actually do not seem at all anxious), and other reporting that has overstated the re-emergence of the spirit of London in the Blitz." Such reports, journalists with appropriate sound bites can be told, go down particularly well with foreigners. After I lent a hand to two first-time tourists who ran into a pair of muggers and they waited to make statements, this American couple asked about London ... and gave me an overblown account of my allegedly "British ways". They quite naturally had received ideas. When it came to the "spirit of London", Eleanor struck the right notes instead for NPR, in 'Londoners ... Rebound'. 10:22:47 PM    your views? []

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