The Measures Taken

A friend of mine yesterday, as we all sat hunched in front of the TV, said 'well I'm almost relieved...I mean we've been waiting for this to happen for 4 years and now it has we don't have to worry about it'

Everyone I know was, mercifully, unscathed- a few lucky escapes, a friend who usually works in Kings Cross happened to be working in Trafalgar Square instead...by 4pm we were all relying on the impartial, professional BBC.

Particular favourites from the beeb- 'well, the good news is the congestion charge is suspended'. An endless loop that contained an inexplicable shot of a sniffer dog running round in circles. A lingering shot of bloodstains on the BMA building; an man with stitches and an eyepatch is asked 'are you angry?' 'how did you feel when the bomb exploded?'; Bush's eyes darting back and forward as Blair does his 'I. Am. So shocked. That I have to leave pregnant pauses. After everything.' routine (amazing, even by his standards, how quickly he started point-scoring.); as the police and fire brigade did their briefing, on a split-screen a helicopter camera lingered on Canary Wharf and the Gherkin, as if to get the first shots of any low-flying aircraft. Bush mumbles 'the war on terror continues', eliciting a groan from those assembled on my sofa.

It all feels very surreal, walked round Greenwich today and two passing strangers started conversations with me. I'm mainly just glad it wasn't worse, it's bizarre how something like this can seem so...expected. Couldn't sleep last night, so re-read Zizek's book on 9/11, and this seems pretty apposite-

the point is that the two sides are not really opposed; that they belong to the same field. In short, the position to adopt is the necessity of the fight against terrorism, but to redefine and expand its terms so that it will also include (some) American and other Western Powers' acts; the choice between Bush and Bin Laden is not our choice; they are both Them against Us. The fact that global capitalism is a totality means that it is the dialectical unity of itself and the other, of the forces which resist it on 'fundamentalist' ideological grounds'

Welcome to the Desert of the Real, p51