I had a slew of posts planned this week. This being the week that the promised DSL was to be turned on (following a false alarm a few weeks back - premature connection is something that can happen to a guy, you know?)
I had a slighty cynical one about the Live8 concerts, a little poking of fun at the French over the Olympics and finally an observation about First-Born's award's ceremony at school.
Like the champagne for the 2012 bid, I've put them to one side. Just for a little while.
This post still has some First-Born content. She curled herself into a ball on the way home tonight and hid her head between her arms.
"I don't want to hear it" she said
I'd thoughtlessly left the radio on and the newsreader was detailing the ever increasing death toll and morbidly speculating how many more might be inside the remains of the carriages deep beneath ground. The voice of Charlotte Green (who could tie me to a chair and read me Keats any day) should not have to report on the difficulty the police are having with vermin disturbing the forensic 'materials'.
I shuddered and turned it off.
I've lived in London and, until a few years ago, used to regularly work there. Many of the locations shown on television screens in the last few days were regular haunts. Ordinarily, I tend to squeak with delight when I see a place I've been to appearing on the small screen. Not this time though.
But do you know the funny thing? I probed my psyche and didn't feel a thing - no terror, no fear. Just a faint sick feeling when I thought too hard about the final moments or minutes of the victims. I think it may have been because I lived in London while the IRA were regularly blowing stuff up. Fact of life. Move on or move to a Scottish hilltop. Does that sound cold?
It may be the politicians getting to me. I'm not sure who was the most despicable; the solitary Member of Parliament saying, within hours of the incident, "Well, we had it coming, we never should have gone to Iraq", or the scores of lemmings trotting out meaningless platitudes to the media.
I'll be funny again tomorrow. I promise. After all, there's a trip to Allentown next week, and I'll need a sense of humour to deal with ever more paranoid security.
