Strange times in that London
All kinds of terrible things have happened here since my last post. Thankfully neither I nor any of my family or friends have been caught up in them (bar one friend who was on the tube train behind the bombed train in Edgware-- not injured though). Although the incident at Warren Street on Thursday was a little too close for comfort... I can see Warren Street tube station from my desk. I wasn't in the office (again, luckily), although my colleagues were marooned inside the building until they got the all clear from the police.
There has been a lot of comment about the use of mobile phone cameras to capture images of the bombings and their dissemination through print and television. There were hundreds of images on flickr within a short time of the first (sadly not the last) bombings on the 7th of July. Interestingly some were still images from the television (Sky News was a popular one) while at the same time the television networks were showing images taken from mobile phones. Somewhat circular.
This site is symbolic of some Londoners' defiance straight after the first bombings-- it was put up straight after the incidents (as the London Underground refers to them) on the 7th: http://www.werenotafraid.com/ It's got thousands of images with the strapline 'We are not afraid'. It's getting a lot of attention. Another small act of defiance happening sometime towards the end of August is the tubechallenge-- apparently groups of people race around the tube network on a regular basis trying to cover the entire system in the shortest possible time. This one is open to all though and will be in aid of the Relief Fund for bombing victims. Sounds great but I for one am avoiding the tube as much as possible... I don't think I'm alone given the huge upsurge of cycling around central London. A new game has sprung up among some of my friends: 'Spot the Novice Cyclist'. I approve of cycling (although I don't cycle myself) so I think they are all to be applauded for giving it a go.
The spirit of the blitz is being invoked often in the media, though less so these days among the populace at large. My grocery delivery is late because the police found one of the suspected bomber's cars in East Finchley today, causing huge traffic jams. Seems churlish to complain though. So I didn't.
There has been a lot of comment about the use of mobile phone cameras to capture images of the bombings and their dissemination through print and television. There were hundreds of images on flickr within a short time of the first (sadly not the last) bombings on the 7th of July. Interestingly some were still images from the television (Sky News was a popular one) while at the same time the television networks were showing images taken from mobile phones. Somewhat circular.
This site is symbolic of some Londoners' defiance straight after the first bombings-- it was put up straight after the incidents (as the London Underground refers to them) on the 7th: http://www.werenotafraid.com/ It's got thousands of images with the strapline 'We are not afraid'. It's getting a lot of attention. Another small act of defiance happening sometime towards the end of August is the tubechallenge-- apparently groups of people race around the tube network on a regular basis trying to cover the entire system in the shortest possible time. This one is open to all though and will be in aid of the Relief Fund for bombing victims. Sounds great but I for one am avoiding the tube as much as possible... I don't think I'm alone given the huge upsurge of cycling around central London. A new game has sprung up among some of my friends: 'Spot the Novice Cyclist'. I approve of cycling (although I don't cycle myself) so I think they are all to be applauded for giving it a go.
The spirit of the blitz is being invoked often in the media, though less so these days among the populace at large. My grocery delivery is late because the police found one of the suspected bomber's cars in East Finchley today, causing huge traffic jams. Seems churlish to complain though. So I didn't.
posted by Léan at 8:46 p.m.
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1 Comments:
Blog postings TVs showing sky news confirm one of Marshall McLuhan's many dictums -- the one where he states that the content of new media is old media. Like much 'macluhanisms' this is somewhere between useless and meaningless. But in this case it also happens to be true.
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