Sunday, July 24, 2005

London




It's all a bit weird here. More suicide bombers tried to strike Shepherds Bush, Hackney, Oval and Warren street. Next day, armed cops in t-shirts busted homes in Harrow road and Stockwell, twice. Suicide bombers apparently still roam the city – their CCTV pictures are all over the place. Police have been raiding places all day, plainclothes cops shot a man point blank at Stockwell station as a train idled on the Northern line. He turned out to be an innocent Brazilian. It's kind of like a Dirty Harry film, except it's all happening round the corner - Stockwell tube, the no.26 bus - and the balmy summer weather makes it even closer.

It doesn't feel like news or events, it feels like a home movie. It feels too... intimate. A strange word but I can't think of a better one. All the actors are people you see everyday, houses are busted on streets you know well and busses and trains you take regularly keep getting attacked. Passengers you see every rush hour - and who see you - are all targets and because the actors are all colours and all backgrounds that great British cult of separation ceases to exist. The overriding feeling – of intimacy – is everyone and everything folding into each other. Even the fucking terrorists look familiar in their streetwear and logoed sweatshirts. I can’t see where the separation is, it’s too easy to recognise and identify everybody. The newscasters, police chiefs and politicians have lost their sheen in the summer heat and seem like they’re speaking from across a table. They don’t have any more answers than anyone else.

So turn the sound down when watch the news and put on the Clash’s London Calling. That’s what it’s like.