Quite bizarre

This is looking like a very interesting day for my neighbourhood, even by its own 'lively' standards. Apparently, our local ‘bomber’ was chased out of the Oval station onto the street and may have been caught. That’s what the bloke who runs my local convenience store, well the one that hasn’t been evacuated, is telling me.

Even if they haven’t caught the bloke yet they’ll have him bang to rights on the station’s extensive CCTV set up, ditto for the No.26 bus and the two other tube stations that were attacked.

So, presuming those CCTVs haven't gone up the spout like the one on the No.30 bus apparently did, these blokes are going to be caught. There’s no doubt of that. And they must have realised that.

I am very curious to hear what they will have to say for themselves…

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Best eyewitness account from the Oval attack so far...

I just saw all these people coming towards my carriage and there was a strong smell.

I just thought it was a person, just with the smell, and that people wanted to run away from him.

Yes, choose South London for your next vacation destination. Not only do we have bombs on our trains but the stench is sometimes so bad it is considered perfectly normal for mobs of people to flee in panic from one carriage to another. But, remember, on Thursdays hire a bicycle.

and this quote from a bloke in Warren Street

Some people said 'do not panic'. In my mind I thought 'why not panic?'

then this intriguing account from a witness at the Oval who saw an Asian looking man fleeing from a mob of angry passengers ...

"I was in the ticket hall," he told reporters. "I heard screaming, then seconds later a man ran past me. He crossed over the streets by the park. He was screaming 'what is wrong with these people!' and ran off."

this took place less than two minutes walk from where I'm typing. To say I would have liked to have been there is an understatement

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Poor old Tracy. This'll be the second time in a month she'll have trouble getting home because our street is surrounded by yellow tape.

There's so much helicopter activity going on outside my back door right now it's as if they're doing the remake of Apocalypse Now, yet again.

'The Oval! The Oval!'

I'm intrigued by the fact that, unlike the bombings two weeks ago, Blair hasn't started milking the situation straight away, deciding instead to ask Londonders to 'Keep Calm' ...

"It is important that we respond by keeping to our normal lives and doing what we want to do because to do otherwise is in a sense to give them the very thing they are looking for.

"It doesn't change us. It is not going to change what we do. To react in any other way is to engage in the game they want us to engage in."

That's about a fortnight too late and haven't Tony and his slime-mould mates been working very hard precisely to 'change what we do'?

There's a curious dynamic to terrorism that I referred to a few days ago. Just a little and people turn to their government for salvation and allow it extraordinary powers. A little too much and people may start questioning the competence of that government and looking to change their leaders rather than the laws they make and powers we permit them.

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Anyway, my area is harder than your area. That's unless you're reading this blog in Baghdad or somewhere like that