It's Retro Week at YesButNoButYes. What may seem initially like a bunch of us taking a week off from posting too much (as if), we're really going to be hand selecting stories we've run in the distant past that new readers may not have read before, and we think are worth airing again.
I'm actually going to kick off with a post from a past YBNBY blogger who no longer visits here, as it's probably my single favorite YBNBY story of all time. It's also a very apt one to rerun over Memorial Day weekend. This piece was the point where I realized there was more to YBNBY that just funny porn (although that continues to be our mainstay) This piece made me very proud to be the editor here.
"Big Fat Creative" is an old buddy, who was in the building across the street from the WTC on 9/11. So when the news started to come in of the bombing in London, it hit home pretty hard. That night, he pulled simple highlights from across the blogosphere, and the resulting zeitgeist was very poignant.
Photo from the flickr London Bomb Blasts pool
to the terrorist cunts who tried to kill me today: Fuck you. You missed me. Better luck next time.
Relieved to see that the cricket is still going on - some sense of normalcy and a pleasing lack of over-reaction.
Public transport is a mundane, ordinary and everyday part of everyone's lives in London. Just over a million people enter central London in the morning peak period everyday and over 85% of those trips are by public transport. It's part of London. So to hear about indiscriminate attacks on public transport that we all so intimately familiar with makes 'it could've been me' all too easy to say.
17:43 - a message to our sensible American friends (and others from around the world), many of whom are posting in the comments: Cheers for the messages of support. London's grateful. And we're going to keep our heads. Stiff upper lip and all that - wouldn't do to get all emotional. Hardly British - and if we stop being British about it, the bastards have won. So we'll have a few beers, make as many sick jokes about it in pubs up and down the land as we can, and get on with our lives as normal. Other than causing the grief of too many innocent people, these cunts will have achieved precisely fuck all. We shall not be moved.
The victims were being triaged at the station entrance by Tube staff and as I could see little more I could do so I got out of the way and left. As I stepped out people with camera phones vied to try and take pictures of the worst victims. In crisis some people are cruel. I prayed for the victims and injured, I truly hoped they'd get medical attention quickly, but terrorism isn't about compassion it's about pain and London's poor medical and fire services are being stretched to their limit today. London Transport should have closed all stations immediately, but didn't. My dice with death could have been avoided with better planning. The design of trains needs to be changed and zero-visibility factored into emergency plans. I pity the waste and loss, while thanking the gods while wondering why me - why do I get to live another day?
Tomorrow's Daily Mail Asylum Seeker Terror Attacks Hit House Prices
Because if this is a message to Tony Blair, we've got news for you. We don't much like our government ourselves, or what they do in our name. But, listen very clearly. We'll deal with that ourselves. We're London, and we've got our own way of doing things, and it doesn't involve tossing bombs around where innocent people are going about their lives. And that's because we're better than you. Everyone is better than you. Our city works. We rather like it. And we're going to go about our lives. We're going to take care of the lives you ruined. And then we're going to work. And we're going down the pub. So you can pack up your bombs, put them in your arseholes, and get the fuck out of our city.
4.44pm I just checked in with the office, and thankfully everyone seems to have made it through. 1 person was caught in the Edgware Road blast and has had surgery on his leg this afternoon, which is tragic, but it could have been a lot worse. It sounds like they’ve had quite a crazy day up there, being so close to events. Most people are now trying to make their way home.
London carries on. No one has told the Big Brother housemates, have they? Or have they? This is the first time I've felt sorry for them.
Little residential side streets which are usually quiet are full of people trying to walk somewhere. Anywhere. The quiet little café that never has more than 2 people in it was rammed. Strangers sharing tables and lending each other their maps. All frantically trying to use their phones and not succeeding (I can't believe that my panicked mother managed to get through to me).
But it's still more likely that I'll be run over by a bus when I'm on a zebra crossing than it is that I'll be sitting on one when a bomb goes off. I'm quite angry that the office is closed tomorrow, surely that is not showing the proper British spirit of blundering defiance. And as for Bush's statement...
Blair’s speeches are insulting. How is it “particularly barbaric” to have a blast during the G8? “It would have been bad to have lost her usually, I admit, but to have it happen while Blair and Chirac were saving the world… it just makes it seem so much worse.” Yeah Tone, I’m sure that’s what the families of the dead will be thinking. How dare you exploit this event for your own political gain within hours; and yet, how unsurprising.
"Will Inspector Fenner please report to the office" they said over the intercom at Euston. "Oh," said my flatmate who knows all things. "That's a call sign, you know." The sirens went off, and they swept us out of the station. And then there was a very gentle boom.
The Germans tried to terrorise Londoners for 40 nights. Londoners just camped out in the Tube singing songs. The IRA tried to terrorise the British for decades. The British just used the destruction of buildings as unplanned town planning and revamped their bombed cities. Now these amateurs think they can scare us by messing up the transport system? Bah. We're just pissed off that we can't meet our friend for coffee in the West End.
Stumble This
Reddit!
