Well, now. I've got a real "Dodged a Bullet" feeling, as I was at the US Embassy in London just yesterday renewing my passport. I've been routing phone calls, emails, SMS messages and Instant Messenger text via "friend-of-a-friend" IP all day. Frankly, I'm knackered.
We're at over 30 confirmed dead, now - 33 is the official count, but also officially expected to rise.
The current tally is 3 Tube stations bombed and one bus blown up. Those are the current confirmed detonations. My eternal thanks to Sky News for "confirming" six tube stations and four buses blown up early during the events. The slack-jawed, drooling, ratings-scrabbling MORONS that they are.
My apologies, it's been a long day. England's a small country, with a high population density, and most of my friends and cow-orkers are in London. I rolled less than 4 on my d20, or I'd have been involved with it today. Lucky, lucky me.
Long story short - in a free country, there's bugger-all you can do to stop this sort of attack. This sort of cowardly, pathetic, back-stabbing, drunk-rolling sodding attack. I'm really lucky - all that's affected me personally is a friend of a friend's given birth 36 weeks early and that friend-of-a-friend's husband doesn't have legs any more.
There are a lot of people worse off. Some mothers and fathers won't be coming home tonight. Some children won't be coming home. And they're of every race, colour, creed and belief.
It is profoundly upsetting to think that anyone honestly believes that this sort of attack will further any kind of cause. At all. It won't. They way it was executed was as random as cancer, and about as meaningful.
I shall be strapping my laptop to my back tomorrow, and going to work as normal. As will all my friends, and my co-workers. Some of us a bit singed. Some of us are a lot worse off. Some of the people I know have been flooding to hospitals as part of emergency mobilisation programmes, some just because they know nursing, be is maxillio-facial or wetnursing, to volunteer their support.
The one thing a free country can say in a situation like this is "To hell with you. Business as usual."
To their credit, it looks like London will be doing just that.
Sometimes, I'm proud of these weaponless, misguided buggers. Because sometimes they get it 100% bang-on right.