# 7/7 London bombings
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [July 7, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569 "2008-07-07T16:38:11Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/1 "2008-07-07T16:38:11Z")
3 years ago today London was bombed by terrorists.
Scumbags, you failed utterly.
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### Author:  [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/2 "2008-07-07T17:36:22Z")
We remember those who died, and applaud the stiff upper lip that England invented.
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### Author:  [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/3 "2008-07-07T17:37:38Z")
Cripes, I thought this was a breaking news thread…all I could think was “Oh fuck, not again…”.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/4 "2008-07-07T18:05:22Z")
I arrived in London that day, and I’ll always remember how people reacted. They just… endured, I think is the right word. Oh, the city is in complete chaos? We’ll handle it. Bombs going off? We’ll deal. No traffic in the centre? We’ll walk in a city of seven million people. We’ve had worse.
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### Author:  [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2008, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/5 "2008-07-07T18:35:02Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
I arrived in London that day, and I’ll always remember how people reacted. They just… endured, I think is the right word. Oh, the city is in complete chaos? We’ll handle it. Bombs going off? We’ll deal. No traffic in the centre? We’ll walk in a city of seven million people. We’ve had worse.
[/QUOTE]
I had essentially the same experience. I think I got in the day before, but late, so the 7th was to be my first full day there. My wife was there on business, so I had the day to myself. I started walking to the British Museum from Aldwych. A few blocks from the hotel I saw a police car screaming down the street, which got my attention, because I hadn’t remembered a lot of that in prior trips. Then a couple more. Then I heard helicopters. It was clear that something was going down, so I watched the first news reports with a bunch of other people in an electronics shop. Once it became clear that things were _not_ going to be normal, I went back to my hotel and spent the day watching the news. I was impressed by demeanor of the news presenters on TV (who were not overly sensationalist), and I was extra impressed with the government officials, particularly the London police. They were calm, cool, and collected, and never speculated or guessed at what was going on. If they didn’t know the answer to a question, they said so. It was a refreshingly adult way of communicating with the public.
The next day I _did_ make it to the British Museum. On my way out, they closed the doors and asked us to stay inside for a little while. Again, I was incredibly impressed with how calm and matter-of-fact everyone was. After a while we got the all-clear, and went about our business. It turns out that a couple of young ladies visiting from China didn’t want to drag their rolling suitcase through the museum so they had chained it to the fence outside the museum. :eek: Even accounting for possible language challenges, that’s just plain stupid.
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### Author:  [@slaphead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slaphead)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2008, 8:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/6 "2008-07-08T08:15:54Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
They just… endured, I think is the right word. Oh, the city is in complete chaos? We’ll handle it.
[/QUOTE]
I was in a canoe in the middle of a lake in Sweden. I got a text message from a colleague along the lines of:
> [@](#):
>
> Bombs going off all over the place. Office evacuated. Transport shut down. In the cardinal with Coran watching the news
When the going gets tough, go to the pub. For a year or more we referred to The Cardinal as The Winchester.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/7 "2008-07-08T14:48:59Z")
[QUOTE=slaphead]
I was in a canoe in the middle of a lake in Sweden. I got a text message from a colleague along the lines of:
When the going gets tough, go to the pub. For a year or more we referred to The Cardinal as The Winchester.
[/QUOTE]
I got virtually the same thing from my brother’s PDA-email thingy, only he didn’t know there were bombs _everywhere_. He had just left King’s Cross on the next train along on the _same line_.
This is the same man who called in sick on the day of the Docklands/Canary Wharf bombing in 1996. His office windows were shattered and he would at the very least have been sliced open by glass :eek:
Anyway. Carry on, London.
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### Author:  [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/8 "2008-07-09T02:13:00Z")
I was moved by how the newspapers reacted as well. They were like the people, only more so. One columnist wrote something along the lines of “You tried your worst and you managed to hold up public transit for a day and get a death toll in the double figures. That happens all the time _anyway_”. Another listed all the bad things British people have lived through (vikings, invasions, the Black Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz…) and finished with “you guys are amateurs”.
All very cool, and just the right way to deal.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/9 "2008-07-09T02:29:41Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
Another listed all the bad things British people have lived through (vikings, invasions, the Black Plague, the Great Fire, the Blitz…)
[/QUOTE]
…British food, the weather, Puritans, Jeremy Beadle…
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### Author:  [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/10 "2008-07-09T02:37:45Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
…British food, the weather, Puritans, Jeremy Beadle…
[/QUOTE]
…the Spice Girls, Madonna, Manchester, the almost-apocalypse…
(_holds hand over heart for Britain_)
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### Author:  [@Man\_With\_a\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Man_With_a_Cat)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/11 "2008-07-09T03:02:30Z")
Hang tough London, we’re there with you.
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### Author:  [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 10:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/12 "2008-07-09T10:08:22Z")
Obligatory link: [http://www.werenotafraid.com/](http://www.werenotafraid.com/)
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### Author:  [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/13 "2008-07-09T10:13:54Z")
Except that we’ve allowed our government to introduce 42 days detention without trial, we’re allowing councils to use anti-terror legislation to crack down on begging, we have journalists being banned from filming street scenes… all to “fight terror”.
The same stocisim that prevented us from getting too worked up about 7/7 is now letting us sleep-walk into giving up more and more of our freedoms.
The stiff upper lip cuts both ways, alas.
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### Author:  [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/14 "2008-07-09T10:22:24Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
I arrived in London that day, and I’ll always remember how people reacted. They just… endured, I think is the right word
[/QUOTE]
That’s all you can do really unless you’re on the spot when it happens and you’re hurt or helping. You’ve time to be a bit more shocked later when the papers or television shows you the scene.
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/15 "2008-07-09T13:11:46Z")
[QUOTE=Wallenstein]
Except that we’ve allowed our government to introduce 42 days detention without trial…
[/QUOTE]
What?!? :mad:
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### Author:  [@Wallenstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallenstein)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/16 "2008-07-09T13:31:19Z")
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
What?!? :mad:
[/QUOTE]
It was originally supposed to be 90 days, but the Govt backtracked it to 42 days.
> **[Former MI5 head speaks out against 42-day detention](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/jul/08/terrorism.lords)**
>
> Gordon Brown's plans for 42-day pre-charge detention faced a mauling in the House of Lords today as the former head of MI5 condemned them as unworkable
It’s not been enacted formally into law yet, but the initial legislation was passed by the House of Commons and is now going through the ratification process.
What’s worse is that 69% of Britons support the legislation. ☹
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### Author:  [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/17 "2008-07-09T13:39:21Z")
Are they going to send the detainees to Gibraltar or something?
Seems to have worked over here…
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/18 "2008-07-09T20:29:27Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy]
I arrived in London that day, and I’ll always remember how people reacted. They just… endured, I think is the right word. Oh, the city is in complete chaos? We’ll handle it. Bombs going off? We’ll deal. No traffic in the centre? We’ll walk in a city of seven million people. We’ve had worse.
[/QUOTE]
I saw one Londoner interviewed who said, “I lived through the Blitz. We’ve been bombed by a better class of bastard than you before.”
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2008, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/19 "2008-07-09T21:31:21Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia]
…the Spice Girls, Madonna, Manchester, the almost-apocalypse…
(_holds hand over heart for Britain_)
[/QUOTE]
Can I ask what Manchester has done to offend you? I know a few dodgy geezers in this city, and they might be able to sort out your problem for you…
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### Author:  [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2008, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/7-7-london-bombings/455569/20 "2008-07-10T03:13:57Z")
[QUOTE=ivan astikov]
Can I ask what Manchester has done to offend you? I know a few dodgy geezers in this city, and they might be able to sort out your problem for you…
[/QUOTE]
"But demons like Ligur and Hastur wouldn’t understand. They’d have never thought up Welsh-language television, for example. Or value-added tax. Or Manchester.
He’d been particularly pleased with Manchester."
–Messr. Anthony J. Crowley, _Good Omens_
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