Philip

It has been a long day, but London has had many long days and will have more. If you're fortunate enough to have merely been inconvenienced then a pint is the only way to wind down.

My dear grandmother, who our family buried a couple of years ago, evacuated her son (my father) out of London at the beginning of the blitz. Not only did she not leave London for a day during WW2 but didn't miss a shift at the London docks in Silvertown.

It's just as well for the Wehrmacht that the Lufwaffe lost the Battle of Britain: she'd have strangled every German soldier she came across with her bare hands.

Sometimes you have to remember that your enemy has done its very best and has proven itelf to be nothing more than a flea on the back of a thoroughbred.

Pete_London - That was a truly moving post. And you are right.

As G Cooper said elsewhere on this blog, commenting on the consolations that came flooding across the Atlantic from America, together "we have defeated monsters before and we will do it again".

Both of your comments symbolise the true, enduring Britain.

Just when one thinks it isn't going to get worse they close off the street near where one lives, having discovered an unattended package on a 24 bus ...

What a horrible end to a very horrible day ..

I apologize for the timing of this but what came of being Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes? The eyes could not prevent but will they help resolve?

My sympathies for all you Londoners. I was nowhere near the tragedy of 9/11 but my NYC psyche crashed with the Towers. Better days to you.

Know that you don't stand alone, that you will be joined in trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.

The Net was great at advising people not to come into London, not so good at suggesting how to get home again. I left my office in Terrorists' Row (the Euston Road) about ten to four and started walking south through the back streets, down across Oxford Street. In Shaftesbury Avenue I picked up a 38. At Hyde Park Corner I got a 22 and sat peacefully all the way to Sarf of the River. Other than the cordon round Russell Square and the constant sirens, slightly more than usual coppers, and slightly fewer than usual (but only slightly) people in the streets (this may be because they were in the pubs instead, which were busy) and some eateries being shut, there was no indication that anything had happened, no checkpoints, no hysterical and traumatized public, Regent Street and Piccadilly busy as ever. The bus crews were fantastic. Free travel was declared to assist people who needed multiple buses to get home (usually they sting you for 1.20 a trip). London can take it!

Amen.