Fuck knows what’s happening today — emerging reports of more attacks.

The world’s TV networks are still skulking around. No sign of them to the casual glance, but walk anywhere around the backstreets of Aldgate, and the satellite uplink vans are parked three deep… and yes, those Coke ‘love’ posters are on every billboard in the area. Nice.

The weeks after the subway attacks in 1995, Tokyo was a city living on rumour and nerves. Armed police on every street corner, wild stories of hidden Russian tanks and helicopters ready to spray death across the city. The Friday after the atrocity, rumours of more attacks spread like wildfire — people left the city in droves, my friends bulk-buying tickets out and offering them to anyone who wanted to leave. We stayed. It was a beautiful Spring evening, pink blossom in Aaoyama. Nothing happened.

London, two days after the bombs, seems psychically back to its old self. True there are fewer people braving public transport, but then services are still very disrupted, and will remain so for weeks. And many businesses simply shut their offices yesterday, rather than trying to limp on with reduced staff and in uncertain safety. But there’s little if any panic in the air. There’s some strong vein of strength in the London psyche that people have simply, again, tapped into, as they do in the face of the depressing weather, the creaking infrastructure and (historically) other attacks on the city.

Personally, I feel OK. Not normal, but OK. I’ve been walking everywhere rather than getting public transport, but then that’s what I usually do anyway. Thursday afternoon, after walking home, I sat here at the table a long time, mind empty, watching the clouds over the Thames valley between here and the Crystal Palace TV tower on the opposite rise. Here, high up, the white sky blends with the white walls of the terrace: home feels safe, above the fall. Endless sirens in the middle distance at Aldgate, the air ambulance on low descent into the Royal London, a few seconds’ flight time from here.

Two things that I haven’t seen mentioned in the media:

• On the day of the attack, one of the first people interviewed was a barrister who had very narrowly escaped one of the attacks. He was clearly in shock, but talked at some length about what he had seen and been through. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked him if he thought the bombs were set by Islamist terrorists. His response was something like ‘I’m a barrister. We shouldn’t judge before all the evidence is in’. And when asked what he thought about the poeple who had done this, his reply was ‘Pity them’. The reporter was surprised. ‘Why pity them?’. ‘Because anyone who is capable of such a thing deserves pity.’

  Other parts of his interview have been repeated on rolling news. Those bits seem to have been edited out. I don’t have words for such humanity in such a moment.

• In the photos of the number 30 bus, the remaining part of the film poster visible on the left hand side of the bus says simply:
  

  OUTRIGHT TERROR. BOLD AND BRILLIANT *****

More later.

Walked home yesterday afternoon, against a tide of people walking out of the City. Very zombie movie — emergency vehicles screaming past, jams of traffic followed by empty streets, mobile phones dead. All the buses corralled in sidestreet, strangely drivers still respecting the bus lanes. People at bus stops pissed off that there were no buses — hadn’t they heard the news?

By 8 in the evening, everything apparently back to normal, even near Aldgate, although the station was locked and crime scene posted. Feeling restless we went out for a drink in Hoxton — British resilience on display: all the Shoreditch posers not too shellshocked to spend time gelling their hair just so for a night out. Guess that’s the blitz spirit at work.

Certainly, at least where we were, people were just getting on with their sad little self-obsessed lives. Which must be some kind of victory for London.

Tried to rent 28 Days Later from Today is Boring. Someone had stolen it. Went home to sleep.

11:00 We’re OK.

I’m at Anne-Fay’s place in Dalston, Helen is on her way to Paris on Eurostar. All tube lines shut down, all buses, possibly all trains into London (rumour).

Latest report is at least 20 dead. Aldgate and Aldgate East, which are my local stations, just around the corner from my house, look on TV to be completely shut down with emergency vehicles everywhere.

Mobile networks and lines out of the UK overloaded or shut down (to avoid remote-triggering of more bombs? It’s a rumour).

Not attempting to get home any time soon. Bad memories of Tokyo. Trying to get in touch with friends and clients. Email me if you need to.

BBC asking for mobile video if anyone has clips. Government asking people to not make ‘unnecessary journeys’. It’s not that long a walk home, thankfully.

More later.

11:19: Confimed 6 explosions, at least one between Liverpool and Aldgate/Aldgate East, previous casualty counts discounted, at least 90 casualties at Aldgate. But you can get all this from the real news services. More later.