Pearsall's Books

Fortunately, my mother is an architectural historian, so she has been in Italy for the last month doing research, and fortunately, my dad joined her this week, so neither of them are in London today. One of the bombs went off at Edgware Road station, which is just a ten minute walk from their home. Thank God.

Just been checking through my emails, and it seems like most of my friends are ok.

Still, fuck.

OK, it's bad to jump to conclusions, but from the style and coordination of these attacks, I feel reasonably confident that this was the work of Islamists. The IRA hasn't done a mainland bombing in a long time, and even when they did, they virtually always phoned in a warning so that the damage would be mostly economic. I just can't see them having done this.

For a long time I've sort of thought that London would be spared as a target, because of its international importance in Islamist circles...it has been a clearing house for radical pamphleteering, organization, recruitment, and money laundering. Guess I'm eating my words now.

My thoughts and prayers are with the people of London today.