I'm sorry I couldn't help myself

It won’t have escaped the attention of anyone running into this blog over the last few weeks that I’m more than a little preoccupied with the recent terror attacks in London. Frankly, I’ve turned into a bore.

But how could I not be? I live slap bang in the middle of it, the media covers little else and there are police everywhere. On top of all of that, I have time on my hands and have developed this annoying habit of thinking about things.

And I’m not happy about what’s going down.

To me, it’s patently obvious that we’re being misled wholesale about the whys and the wherefores of what has happened, and is still happening. I also appreciate that it’s equally obvious to the majority of people out there that my concerns are misplaced. I’ll return to the whole subject of what constitutes obvious another time.

I’ve deliberately kept my concerns in check though and haven’t gone so far as to advocate any alternative theories to explain the bombings or their consequences.

The ‘alternative media’ can’t help itself though and the conspiracy theories are proliferating. Sadly, as soon as more than one alternative theory is formulated the result is that the majority of alternative explanations must logically be incorrect. Even if one of those alternative explanations is bang on the money, it will inevitably be lost in static and bullshit. It’s a bit like organised religion. At the very most, only one of them can be ‘right’.

And let’s think about this a little bit. If there are shadowy forces at work out there, it would make sense that they would spend their lunch breaks posting their own lunatic conspiracy theories onto the web just to confuse the situation even further. If Dixons or Dell have thought about paying underutilised staff in call centres to post up fake customer satisfaction ratings onto the Internet I’m sure the CIA, Mossad and MI6 have cottoned on to the idea too.

My attitude to conspiracy theorists is the same as I have to peace or anti-poverty campaigners. I share their sentiments and believe they have a point but their methodology is so deluded and ineffective I'm left shaking my head at the lameness of it all.

Ladies and Gentlemen in the left hand corner I give you a bunch of underfunded, poorly organised idealists who couldn't agree on what day of the week it is. And in the right hand corner I give you the combined forces of global capitalism, richer than God and ruthlessly united by their single-mindedness of purpose. Seconds out, Round-a One ...

Another habit conspiracy theorists have, aside from coming up with conflicting conspiracy theories, is their fondness for making shapes out of clouds. They will spend hundreds of hours poring over clips of vague shapes hitting the Pentagon or pictures of the Moon landings looking for that one killer clue which will bring the entire rotten edifice down.

As it happens, I too spend enormous amounts of time staring at digitised photos. Usually because I buggered the exposure up when taking them, not because I’m looking to reveal any global conspiracies. And one thing I have learned is that all digital pictures look pretty fucking dodgy when enlarged 500%.

Predictably, several conspiracy sites and blogs on the Internet have been scrutinising those few images that have been issued by the police after the London bombings. In particular, the single frame of the four supposed bombers walking into Luton station on 7th July. One site has managed to find over a dozen tell tale errors in that single image.

And I have to agree, the picture doesn’t feel right. But the problem is the level of ‘not rightness’ is well within the bounds of what could conceivably happen to a frame from a CCTV camera processed and resized for web use.

One quirky aspect of the picture does stand out from the others though. Here’s a crop from the central part of the Luton picture. If you open it up and have a look at the guy in the middle at the back, something odd seems to be going on with that metal bar that appears to be passing across the front of his stomach.

Of course, the effect could be ‘one of those things’. And besides, why would anyone doctoring the image be stupid enough to leave such a howler in it? Unless, cue the dramatic music, someone is secretly trying to tell us something?

Fuck knows what's going on.

One thing that would sort this out would be a second frame from the video or, even better, the entire clip. While we’re at it, how about the CCTV clips from Kings Cross on 7th July and also the attacks last week? After all, the police keep telling us they want our help in tracking those four dangerous bombers down. So, why are they not releasing the material that would enable us to recognize them? To me, that’s a much more interesting question that whether someone pissed about with the Luton image.

At the press conference yesterday the police spokespeople spent roughly five minutes describing a particular type of plastic food container they wanted more information on. That was roughly five minutes longer than they spent describing the bombing suspects they’re supposedly frantically looking for across London.

Or doesn’t anyone else think it strange that they haven’t issued descriptions or artist’s impressions to supplement those laughable pixellated images?

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Update - Case solved

The second unidentified bomber is, of course, Craig David - thanks Rahid

No, wait. Oh shag, maybe it's Robert De Niro ...