A slanted view

Sophisticated intellectual analyses of the London bombings are available elsewhere- POV, Medialens, xymphora, Lenin's Tomb and ManyAngryGerbils etc.

But that's not what you get at yer Auntie's. Here's an excerpt from my stunned Murrcan Dad's email at the news, referring to our planned 3G meet-up in London next month- me, my kids, my dad, stepmum BL and their 16 yr old grand-daughter on BL's side, L.

Hi Dear,

I've no idea what the fallout is going to be, but the bombings in
London are not good news. Just about the first thing BL & I
thought of is whether [L's parents] will withdraw permission for L to go to London.

It might be of no use to point out that if history is any guide, this
will be the safest time to travel, not the most dangerous.

Those bombers sure took the spotlight off the G8, didn't they?

If the trip is still on, one thing's for sure: there's no way BL will
go on the tube. She's never liked the tube to begin with. On our last
trip, I think we got around on buses exclusively....

.

I shall now get on with the major cleaning task- 6 months of crud and detritus to sweep up and out in 6 days. So far, I've found a war's worth of leaflets, a summer's worth of tri-colour cat hair moult and a 100 DM note. This would've been worth 35 quid, had it still been legal tender (frowning smiley)- dammit.

G8 news-
Stirling eco-campers are arrested for possession of weapons like axes and petrol. Kind of necessary when camping. Lonhg telephone report from friend N, who was trapped with his wife in Canning St on Monday and again at the Mound on Weds, when Gleneagles buses from Edinburgh were cancelled. It was Manchester Police forces, many with obscured ID no.s, who weighed in on Wednesday. They had a deliberate policy, like the Monday riot police, of preventing a popular amassing by blocking incomers and sectioning off areas.

When a crowd has managed to amass, the policy is to break down critical masses by driving riot cop wedges into the crowd to bisect it. They isolate ever smaller masses by sequential bifurcation and containment of halves of the popular mass. This is deliberate, tactical policy, before any retaliation has even started- the other prong of their tactics. N's wife was batonned on the shoulder by riot cops on Weds when she had nowhere to retreat to. Both have been S60'd multiple times over this week, making them scared for their jobs despite merely expressing their rights to peaceful protest.