Dreadful though this apparent bombing campaign might be, the security services’ gunning down of a person on a tube train throws everything into a whole new perspective. I, of course, know just as little as everyone else about who the guy was, what he was supposed to have been doing, or the reasons for his execution (for that is what it is when you pin a man to the floor and fire five bullets into him at close range). But it was the fact that it happened in full view of passengers that makes this event so extraordinary.

I don’t doubt that this kind of killing will have happened before, but I can’t think of a time when there has been eyewitnesses, and that is what makes the whole thing so shocking: the fact that he was seen to be so serious and immediate a threat that he was killed without any apparent warning with not a care for who else was there.

It isn’t the man or his intentions that should scare us, but the fact that being suspected of doing something, or being about to do something, can be enough to have you executed. Although this man was apparently wearing a large coat, he didn’t appear to be carrying a rucksack (although nobody can vouch for what was under the coat). Sure, it was strange that he should be wearing such heavy clothing on a comparatively warm day, but it isn’t out of the question.

Eyewitnesses say that he hurdled the ticket barrier and then ran down the platform to get onto the train. That isn’t entirely out of the ordinary, either. After all, if someone yells at you to stop after you have just evaded your fare, the chances are that you will just run.

So, the moral of the story, I guess, it that you should now be careful what you wear on the tube. Study the forecasts and pick clothes that match the weather.

No. Perhaps that is flippant, but this whole sorry turn of events is making people think carefully about their appearances. Everyone on the magazine - without a single exception - has an iPod, and as we leave at night we think carefully about where to put it, and how to thread the headphones so that they don’t look like they are wires protruding from a potentially explosive backpack. Now, perhaps, we won’t even be able to keep them in our inside pockets, but should keep them strung on a lanyard around our necks where they can be seen by both the police marksmen and the potential muggers who would steal them.

Still, the blas

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