Guns are fun, discuss...
I've just been on a little trip into town, to revisit the Jesuits and talk about cameras, and to visit the Theatre Museum and talk about design.I'll blog the latter when I know a bit more about it. My trip was complicated by the obligatory security alert on the underground. Whilst I am not in any way suggesting that the current wave of terror alerts sweeping London (and other metropoli) shouldn't be taken seriously. I just can't help feeling that I wished that the gentlemen (and to a lesser extent ladies) of her majesties constabulary weren't having such tremendous fun.
Step back and look at it: they get to rush around without question, order people on and off the street, carry and brandish guns (the last time someone actually pointed a gun in my direction was in Derry, and it was a thirteen year-old squaddy peering from the back of his armoured landrover into the pub I was drinking in at the time), sometimes they even get to shoot people too.
I haven't yet spotted an armed policewoman, which tends to bear out my 'boys and toys' theory about the Met. I know they're out there, you can't watch a cop movie without a scene in a shooting range where female cops are lined up, blasting away at images of masculine oppression. Maybe our female cops are just more discreet than the men.
During the alert this afternoon, at embankment station, people were being progressively driven back up the street away from the station, to my jaundiced eye, this seemed to imply that the suspect package must at the very least have been a small thermonuclear device. Strangely, in the midst of the chaos of commuters, disenfranchised buskers and bewildered tourists, the two stall holders on either side of the station gates (flowers and Evening Standard) held fast to their posts. Presumably, in the event of an incident or outrage, Londoners in need of a post-diana grief fest would then be able to purchase their tear sodden bouquets on the spot, and The Standard (The Daily Mail in evening dress) would be able to confirm whether or not the terrorists were on benefit.
posted by Lampy @ 8/02/2005 07:17:00 pm
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