Two Days, One City...

...it might be a corny title but it was literally the only one I could think of to describe my personal slant on the polemic events of these last two days. How London can go from elation to horror in the space of twenty-four hours. Solidarity in every situation, from Live 8, to yesterday in Trafalgar Square to today. It's so eerily weird. No-one really thinks about how we felt yesterday. It's just bizarre. I remember some of the later IRA attacks in London in the mid-nineties, my most prominent menmory being that of hearing the Docklands blast from my bedroom, a faint rumble, and the subsequent cancellation of school trips. I remember that gnawing sense of worry about my dad, who worked in The City at the time, as I saw sheets of glass hanging from wrecked office blocks, ghost-town streets shrouded in the squeal of car alarms. I remember feeling, whenever I went to London that sense of "What if?". And that disbelief that there were such evil people out there who didn't care if they killed innocent people. Today felt very much the same.
It was odd looking at the news rack in the mini-mart today, "London's Glory", "We Won" "Triumph For London", phrases along the lines of what was screaming from every front page. And flicking through pages of excitement for 2012. Imagine how different the headlines will be this evening and tomorrow.
My my, it's certainly been a week.

Harriet's blog, In The Aquarium (link on your right) has a comprehensive list of the opinion of all of the main London bloggers, so make your way there if you want to read more.