'We won't be having that' :: 08:16 AM :: easyjetsetter

I took down yesterday's post as it was just a linklog in many ways. I also wasn't saying anything anybody else wasn't. Well, after further reading, and a bit of thought in the bath this morning. I've got something to say.

All but two or three of you know me as a Brit abroad first. I'm generally very denigratory about the UK, because I've always felt out of place in modern British culture. The national obsession with drinking until you fall over and/or pull and/or punch someone, the priding of sports over job/relationship/actual issues, the pride of place in the national consciousness that that pile of shit programming Big Brother inhabits and so on. I turned away in disgust from the mass hysteria following Diana's death.

Just when I am dreading returning to a country that takes it's political cues from a woman with big knockers in a newspaper designed for effective bum wiping, something real happens. And something happens to Britain and British 'culture.' They put it best themselves really.

From Andrew, who was on the train behind the one that was hit at Liverpool Street.

"To the terrorist cunts who tried to kill me today:

Fuck you. You missed me. Better luck next time."

From Jarndyce, who normally takes the number 30 bus, and intends to keep his policy of never sitting on the top at the back:

"A little message for you Mr Terrorist. I've been out pushing my daughter on the swings. Go fuck yourselves"

From Tim, in reaction to the boast of the fuckers that claimed responsibility that they had spread "fear and panic" across the UK.

"You know, I’m not sure that these people have quite understood us."

He writes this too contrasing the time the weather distrupted transport, and another when it was the IRA:

"The next day there were more people at work than on a normal day. There was no co-ordination, no orders went out, but the truly sick seemed insistent on dragging themselves into work, mewling and puling infants were farmed out to anyone at all so that parents could turn up. If the trains weren't working, then people used buses. If they were full, then they walked. The attitude seemed to be that sure, we'll take an extra day off if we can, but if you're trying to scare us, if you're going to kill some of us to make us change our ways, well, in the words of my favorite fictional character, 'We'll not be having with that.'"

A mystery journalist writes this:

"And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub."

From Nosemonkey, whose blog has served as one of the online hubs where everyone gathered, Britons on the scene saying what was happening, and overseas wellwishers and expats, liveblogged the whole thing:

"Cheers for the messages of support. London's grateful. And we're going to keep our heads. Stiff upper lip and all that - wouldn't do to get all emotional. Hardly British - and if we stop being British about it, the bastards have won. So we'll have a few beers, make as many sick jokes about it in pubs up and down the land as we can, and get on with our lives as normal. Other than causing the grief of too many innocent people, these cunts will have achieved precisely fuck all. We shall not be moved."

He then directs us not to forget the Make Poverty History campaign. Otherwise, the terrorists won.

Yes, there's been the odd twat (in the american sense) trying to make a political point out of this, but I'm not going to link to Nick Griffith, George Galloway, Bob Crowe, and Kim du Toit (if you really care, go look it up), but today, my country exceeded my expectations. I'm very proud that I'll be calling myself a Londoner soon.

I'll leave you with this phone conversation with my father around 11:30 Paris time yesterday morning. I had just been emailed the news and was more than a little shaken imagining worst case scenarios such as CBRN attacks, such as the ones my sister's last employer had told her was inevitable, she could do nothing against and was best just to carry a mars bar, a bottle of water and 50 quid for a taxi with her at all times or ride her scooter against the prevailing wind.

The news had not yet broken in the States and I had sent an extremely silly email with an even sillier subject line that worried a lot of friends ("bombs go off in my new home town") as I thought they weren't getting any info and wanted them to logon to the BBC. They all thought I had already moved to London and was bang slap in the middle of the carnage. Anyway, this conversation calmed me down.

Me: Dad, call Fiona.
Dad: Why?
Me: Because there's been a series of bomb attacks in the underground.
Dad: Oh right. Hmm. Well, but she doesn't take the underground does she? I'm sure she's ok. I'll give her a bell a bit later.

Stoicism. Phlegmatism. Calm. Order. Stiff upper lip. Brilliant.

UPDATE: Another great linklog.