DeeKnow’s Grotto

You'd have to be a little disconnected to have not picked up on the terrible news of the train bombing in Spain last week that killed a couple of hundred and wounded over a thousand. Dont worry, I'm not gonna bore you with my tear-jerking moment of un-silence.

What this whole episode has done however is remind me of my own experience of living in an environment where there was a constant awareness of threat of bomb attack and the effect it has on you.  When I was living in London in the early nineties there were regular bomb attacks in mainland Britain, and especially London, carried out by the Irish Republican Army.

Although I was never even close enough to a blast to actually hear one in the time I was in the UK I did experience countless interruptions to public transport journeys, mostly train trips, because of real or suspected bomb threats.

I also worked for British Rail and was based at Paddington station for awhile which we had to evacuate on a number of occasions because of suspicious parcels of one form or another that were left in or around the station concourse.

At that time in the UK everyone was conditioned to be well aware of unattended containers, boxes and brief-cases left on the road-side, and especially in train stations and airports. This wasn't just a simple scare-mongering tactic on behalf of the British goverment to drum up support for the campaign against the IRA. It wasnt like the "war on terrorism" rhetoric we get these days from the Americans (or Tony Blair).

This was a real threat.... 
People were dying because of it....
On a regular basis.

I dont recall ever being afraid of the IRA threat, it was just that it was always on the back of your mind. And if you did happen to forget about it you were quickly reminded of it on the next train platform when an automated Orwellian announcement would blast at you from a loud-speaker demanding you stay vigillant with regards to unnatended bags.

It's at times like these you feel glad to be stuck on the arse-end of the planet in a country that many people have never heard of. I certainly dont envy those in the European countries (or the States for that matter) who've been hinted at as being targets of the current terrorist threat.

But it seems clear to me, things are only gonna get worse before they get any better. And there's really fuck all anyone can do about it.

11:39:03 PM