Although the sympathy that London has received over the last three of four days is appreciated it has been noted that some Londoners are reacting to some of the more saccharine notes with typical British resolve. Warren Ellis (who we recently interviewed) noted:
So DeathBoy finds this LiveJournal community called london_hurts, wherein some well-meaning American gommos post virtual hugs and special e-tears and things. And then some Londoners found the site. And started remixing the community banner...
This is a good time to remind some of our overseas readers that we are not reeling from what we consider to be our own September 11th despite all the 7/7 branding. The IRA quite frankly were much better at doing this sort of thing and we pushed on through that campaign just like we pushed on past Thursday. It was a tragedy, but so was the Omagh bombing which is remembered without a 15/8 (or 8/15 if you like) tag. A large part of Manchester was flattened by an IRA bomb back in 1996 (3300lb of explosives used there), there was the Brighton bombing in 1984 and of course our own nail bomber in '99.
We are far from complacent but we also don't like to be terrorised so don't be too surprised if over the next few weeks rather than the mythical stiff upper lip you just get a shrug of the shoulders and asked to buy a round.
