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From this morning’s Wall Street Journal:

Some journalists turned to blogs to share their thoughts. Nik Rawlinson, editor of MacUser magazine, began a lengthy post: “I consider myself very lucky this morning. I was passing through Liverpool Street as the alarms were going off, and they were sealing the tube station after the first explosion. The sirens were going off, and the emergency lights were flashing as the staff fought with the doors, but the ? passengers were still crushing to try and get down there.” After recounting his experience trying to get on the train — and, shortly thereafter, rushing to get off — Mr. Rawlinson ends his entry: “[I] am now sitting here trying to think of feature ideas. I feel very distracted.”

Thanks to Alex Singleton for pointing that out.

I’ve spent today working from home. I had plenty to do, and the thought of fighting through an inevitably disrupted Liverpool Street. It’s been quite nice for a change.

It took an age to get home last night. I stayed in the office until half six, in spite of the fact that the floor had been slowly emptying from half three. The test drivers on the car mags had been doing a good job of offering lifts to all manner of places on the outskirts of London. By the time I was out, then, it was just Ja and I on our floor, and the sky was an ominous shade of gunmetal grey. Of course, without any tubes and barely any buses, it was a long walk back to Liverpool Street, and I had to shelter under the canopy of a hotel in Holborn, alongside a dozen lost tourists, clearly in London for the first time and not enjoying themselves too much.

By then I’d already been diverted twice. Russell Square was cordoned off, and I had to retrace my steps back to Tottenham Court Road and then south almost as far as New Oxford Street before I could find a clear path to the east. The police were of course out in force, but they were helpful and very friendly, and did a lot to cheer everyone up, in spite of the inconvenience and the weather.

In fact, everyone seemed to be incredibly good-natured the whole way home. Lots of smiles along the way, and more eye contact than usual. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that every open pub or bar was full to the brim, and every bin I passed was stacked to the top with cigarette cartons and empty alco-pop bottles. One guy was staggering down the street shouting into his mobile phone about how he had been forced to spend the evening drinking in the pub with his friends.

Clearly a major hardship.

The train, when I finally got there, was almost empty. Probably because everyone had gone home already. It also ran to time, which was a nice change. We sped through the suburbs out to Chelmsford and arrived exactly when we should have done. It is a shame we have to have some kind of a disaster to make the trains run to time.

The police were on the platform to meet us. Out in force and wearing fluorescent yellow jackets, they were handing out fliers asking anyone who had seen anything suspicious to phone a number and report it, while out front, BBC Essex was doing last minute commuter interviews for the news that night.

It was good to be home.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 8th, 2005 at 7:14 pm and is filed under London. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.