Thursday, July 07, 2005
Well... posted by Richard Seymour
The buses are running again, and quite packed too - a lot of people obviously decided not to be put off. All the tubes are down, but Oxford Street is open. Indeed, the only roads that I saw blocked off were those leading to the US Embassy, which were guarded by armed police. That said, some places are just grid-locked. The DLR is starting to run a few services. There are huge queues awaiting riverboats, running from the City to Victoria Embankment.Most of the shops round the centre appear to have been closed - Maccy D's and Pret shut down first thing it seems, but lots of other places packed it in for the day as well.
A friend's workplace forebade anyone to look at news bulletins other than those provided by the company's website itself: presumably to keep people thinking about work and not about other human beings. No problem there at any rate, since the place is an investment bank, and everyone was obsessed with the falling markets and rising bonds.
Meanwhile, accounts in the Greek press apparently explain that there are many, many more dead and injured than we are being lead to believe here. The Guardian reports 37 dead, 700 injured , which is already high enough.
Finally, the BBC seems to have turned itself into a mouthpiece for the government .