Holy cow, this really is the world's ugliest dog. Officially. He's won contests.

via doc

It sounds like someone has tried to follow up on the attacks of two weeks ago, with least 3 attempted bombings. Apparently they've bungled it, the bombs didn't go off properly (all three?? how could they f*ck it up so badly?). Most of the details are rumor at this point; one bomber's backpack had a minor explosion, enough to blow it open, leaving the would-be suicide bomber with an "extremely dismayed expression" on his face. Another one dropped his bag on the train and ran off - people tried to grab him but he got away. Something has happened on at least one bus, a small pop upstairs that blew out windows. One of the incidents was at Oval station, so this may be intended to coincide with the opening of the Ashes cricket tournament.

All in all, a weak effort compared to last time. Piss on you, terrorists. The mood here is much closer to annoyance than terror - one weblog commentor says "The tube better be up and running at home time - I haven't got my walking shoes on!"

These people don't deserve to be called terrorists, I hereby dub them annoyists.

(Assuming it turns out nobody was killed, of course)

So in the past few days some more bits have emerged. A notable fact is that the bombs are now reckoned to have actually gone off at very close to the same time, 9:50, which suggests timed bombs rather than suicide. It's interesting to note the distances the bombs travelled from King's Cross (I'm still convinced they were all put on there), the Circle line bombs both got a pretty good distance from the station, whereas the Picadilly line bomb went off before reaching the next station. Walking between the platforms for the Circle line in each direction would not take too long, but walking to the Picadilly line takes a while. So when I heard they went off at the same time, I wondered whether a single person could have done it, and then got on the bus. The Wikipedia article now has a similar speculation, with timings. I still wonder how someone could (if they did) put a bag onto a train and then immediately get off without anyone saying something. (Update: And I also wonder how someone carrying 4 bags could drop 3 of them onto different trains. A lone bomber seems pretty unlikely at second thought, but the timing is still interesting. Maybe they moved as a group?)

I also thought more about my own timing that morning. It's boring and self-absorbed to go on about this, considering how many people came much closer, and in many cases too close, but it's obviously interesting to me. Anyway, it's now clear that I was between the explosions, the Edgeware Road bomb passed by me in the opposite direction, it probably passed within 10 feet of me on the opposite track as I sat reading a biography of Ataturk.

So have these attacks changed anything? I don't think so. Most commentary seems to be people proclaiming that this proves whatever view they held before the attacks, i.e. that the war on terror is right/wrong, and Britain must stay the course/withdraw its troops, Islam is an evil religion, anti-globalization protestors are assholes.

But the fact is, this wasn't really a surprise. Londoners have been expecting this for a while, although it's still a shock when it finally happens. As for me, I still think the Iraq war was a stupid and irresponsible decision, but although there are many reasons to oppose it, saying troops should be withdrawn now so terrorists won't attack us again is one of the worst reasons I can think of. I support making things right in Iraq. We (Americans and British) have destroyed thousands of lives in that country, we have an obligation to at least try to fix things up. I don't know how we can do it, and I have no confidence that the Bush administration is remotely capable of doing it, but to throw in the towel now would be the depth of irresponsibility.

Maybe I lied, there is one change in Londoners since last week, judging from blogs, comments, etc., English self-deprecation has been suspended, at least for a while, and it's OK to say: London rocks.

A phrasebook for American tourists - many of them are worth running through a translator if you don't understand the other languages.

East Anglian Ambulance is promoting the idea that people should make sure they have emergency contact information in their mobile phone address book in a way that's easy for emergency workers to identify. They're calling this ICE, for In Case of Emergency, and suggest you put the number in an entry named "ICE". I've added this to my phone, although I actually called it "aa ICE Emergency Contact" so it shows up as the first number. As a side benefit, when my phone decides to dial someone from my pocket it will now be my wife rather than a business contact I'd rather not have to explain myself to.

I decided to walk through central London yesterday to get a bus from somewhere south of the chaos, rather than trying to get a bus here at Camden Town. This turned out to be a good idea - a workmate left the office 15 minutes ahead of me and got a bus here, I walked 30-45 minutes to Trafalgar Square and boarded the same bus she was on. This morning I could have used the underground to get in without any problem, but decided to take the Silverlink train from Richmond, which skirts around the center of town and doesn't go underground or through any major stations.

What the hell happened yesterday? I'm curious what we will learn about the terrorists who actually carried out the attacks. Looking at the timeline, all 3 of the trains that had bombs were coming from King's Cross. It seems likely to me, although I haven't yet seen any real discussion of this, that the terrorists must have all boarded trains at King's Cross.

I apparently passed right between the bomb attacks yesterday morning. I took the Circle line through Edgeware road, certainly before the bomb there went off. I don't usually go that way, but ended up on a wrong District Line branch and so switched to the Circle Line to King's Cross. When I got off the train at King's Cross and headed for the Northern Line, they evacuated the station, so the first bomb, on a Circle Line train ahead of the one I had gotten off, had already gone off.

I wonder whether the third bomb, 5 minutes after the first, had already gone off on the Picadilly Line between King's Cross and Russell Square? Certainly there was no indication, other than the evacuation, that it had. There was no smoke, injured people, or anybody at all panicky. But it probably took me at least 5 minutes to get away from the station, including the time I wandered around the street in front trying to figure out the best way to get to work. I'm guessing the bomb went off far enough from the station that the reaction didn't reach street level for a while.

I walked by King's Cross again on the way home, the area I had wandered around in front of the station was cordoned off, and a firetruck and other emergency vehicles were in front. The police were allowing people in at the rear of the station, they had at least a few platforms of overground trains running. There was quite a stream of foot traffic throughout the areas I walked. I also walked by Tavistock Place, it was heavily cordoned off as well. Police were on the streets everywhere, especially at train stations. Went I got on the bus at Trafalgar Square it was packed, people were crammed shoulder to shoulder even at the front door, where you're normally not supposed to stand, and the bus driver was letting people on at the side door which is normally just for exiting. He didn't seem bothered about whether people paid.

Were these guys suicide bombers, or did they use timed bombs? They couldn't have used bombs detonated remotely by mobile phones, like they did in Madrid, because there is no signal on the underground, at least not where the Picadilly Line bomb went off. I read one report in the Guardian which mentioned a timer bomb, but eyewitnesses claim to have seen a suspiciously behaving character on the Tavistock Place bus rumaging through his backpack before that explosion.

I'm not so sure how they could have gotten a timed bomb onto the Picadilly train. The others I can see - they could board the train at King's Cross with a suitcase, putting it by the door and then sitting down. A few stops later they could get off, and have a reasonable chance that nobody who noticed them carry the suitcase on before will notice them get off without it and raise the alarm. An unattended suitcase by the door may cause some nervousness, but it's not unusual since someone going to the airport or to another mainline train station may not want to have to stand up for the whole trip. I'm sure people will be more alert to these in the future, of course.

So this could have worked for the first and third bombs, although the terrorists would be running a couple of risks; one, that someone who happened to notice and remember them bringing the suitcase on also notices them get off without it, which would certainly cause alarm. The second risk is that the train would stop and wait between stations (a common occurance) long enough that the timer would trigger the bomb with them still on the train.

But it's very unlikely they could have done this with the Picadilly line bomb, since it went off before the train even got to the first stop from King's Cross. So assuming this was the planned location for the explosion, and that they did indeed put it on at King's Cross, they would have had to put a bag on the train and immediately get off, and even in the relative complacence of the pre-attack time, it would have been very difficult to get away with this without someone raising the alarm.

If it was a timed bomb, then chances are the bomber was still on the train - maybe the scenario I described above where the train stopped and the bomb went off before the terrorist could get off is what happened there.

The bus bomb is more puzzling, I've seen two different reports of what bus route it was, and I'm not sure whether it would have come from King's Cross. Was it planned, or was it a cockup?

In any case, it's a sure bet people will be highly sensitive to unattended bags for a while, so any future bombers will probably be suicide attacks.

Update: I've read in some places that unexploded devices with timers were found by police. I'm not sure about this though, there were a number of reports of controlled explosions of suspicious objects, but the most reliable reports I've read of that say they've all turned out to be harmless. I've also read that although the Madrid bombers used mobile phones to trigger the bombs, they used the alarm clock function rather than using them as remote triggers, although apparently some IED's in Iraq are triggered remotely using phones. Flit, my favorite military blogger, has some informative points in this area.

The currently under-informed consensus seems to favor timers rather than suicide bombers.

My guess is still that the Picadilly Line bomb went off before it was planned, probably taking the bomber with it (burn in hell, asshole). My theory of King's Cross as the starting point holds up with the bus bomb as well - I've looked up the bus maps, and the number 30 bus stops at King's Cross.

There is wide suspicion that the bus bombing wasn't planned, but that he was on his way to another station to hit. If so, it had to have been an improvised plan, because it was so much later than the other attacks that they had to know the tubes would all be closed. Plus, the 30 bus doesn't go by any tube stations that would make good targets, it goes by Warren Street, Great Portland Street, Regent's Park, and Baker Street, then on to Oxford Street (well down from Oxford Circus, which would have made a good target). Most of those stations are on the Circle Line, and his buddy's bomb had already passed through them on the way to Edgeware Road. The best he could have done was taken out some shoppers or tourists on the street.

So if hitting the bus itself wasn't the original plan, then the fact that the guy was on the bus at all meant something went wrong. Maybe he just jumped on the first bus he could get when things went wrong for him. I would bet he was meant to have planted his bomb on the Victoria or Northern line, both of which pass through King's Cross, and both of which are busy and key, i.e. good targets for disrupting the transportation in central London.

Blowing up the bus, whether intended or not, was more effective than anything else he could have done if he missed his chance to get on a train at King's Cross, since it raised paranoia about the bus system. Until yesterday most Londoners thought taking the bus was the safe way to go if they were worried about a terrorist attack, and it was certainly the best alternative for most people when the tubes were closed, so getting those shut down increased the difficulty of getting around yesterday.

Here are a handful of links for info on today's attacks: The Guardian's news blog is posting updates in a sensible blog format, as is the Londonist. These are much easier to follow than the BBC and CNN, which add new information into the content of an existing new story, so you have to re-read things you've read before to pick out new bits of information. The blog format is definitely superiorer for rapidly updated information.

The Guardian also has personal accounts. The Transport for London site is useful for info on what's closed. I like that the bus services are suspended "Following an incident on a route 30 bus at Tavistock Place". That's some "incident".

There's already a wikipedia page, and a flickr group.

It sounds like one of the trains that was bombed was a southbound circle line train at King's Cross. I had just gotten off a southbound circle line train and was trying to get to the northern line when they closed the station. I wonder how close I came?

First off, Ozlem and I are OK. I don't know about most of our other friends in town, mobile phone service is very poor, as you would expect. My Mom and Lucas are both flying into Gatwick this morning, but will get to our home by a taxi we've booked, so as long as flights are landing OK at Gatwick, and nothing happens there, they should be fine.

I was changing trains in King's Cross station, one of the busiest underground & national rail stations, when everyone was told to leave the station due to "a reported emergency". This isn't very unusual, the tube often has problems that cause them to close stations, often multiple stations, and their reported reasons are usually unreliable. Of course the idea of a terrorist attack occurred to me, it's been an inevitability for years. I considered getting a bus the rest of the way to work, but there were way too many other people looking for ways to get where they were going, so I decided to walk the 15-20 minutes or so, despite the rain.

A little while after I got to work Ozlem called and said there were reports of explosions on the tube. This sparked those of us in the office to start phoning around and reloading web pages, mainly the bbc, but also sky and cnn and some others.

At first the official story was a power surge. This seemed a bit dodgy, while the tube's infrastructure is well known to be old and problematic, the pattern of affected stations made it sound odd. Liverpool Street station was the first one reported as having had an actual explosion, at least one story said King's Cross had a power surge but not an explosion. One of my co-workers' mother said there was a report of a bus explosion, which began filtering onto the news sites as a rumor. I have to say I thought it was probably bogus, on 9/11 there were reports of car bombs in DC, and plenty of other wild rumors.

But it now turns out at least one, and probably more bombs went off on buses, timed for after the stations were closed and people crammed themselves onto the buses as the only public transportation still working. Photos of bus wreckage have made it onto news sites now.

And Scotland Yard has now confirmed there were bombs at the tube stations, not a power surge. There is also a report of two tube trains colliding at King's Cross, and multiple trains stuck between stations, underground, without power or any way of finding out what's going on (maybe they're better off thinking it's just a typical tube fuckup). One report says at least 90 people dead at Aldgate station. (update: This looks like the report is actually 90 injured, 2 dead at Aldgate). The picture of the bus wreckage on the sky news site leaves little doubt there were deaths there.

I'm guessing the power surge was a cover story prepared by the underground to use in a multiple-station terrorist attack, to keep people from panicking.

Text messaging on mobile services has been disabled, to prevent them from being used to trigger bombs. Bus services have been suspended now. There are constant sirens of emergency vehicles going by. There have been quite a few more in the past few minutes, I hope nothing else has happened.

This seems to have been a very well planned attack. The G8 summit in Edinburgh has drawn thousands of Metropolitan Police away from London to help with security there, so this was a classic Sun Tzu move. Many stations, and the staggered bus attacks. How many people were involved in planning and carrying this out?

How many people have died? Have any of my friends been hurt or killed?

It seems stupid to worry about this now, but how will we get home tonight, and how will we get to work in the next few days?

update

The taxi company tells me my Mom and Lucas have been picked up from Gatwick and are on their way. Their flight landed about half an hour early, but they were delayed getting out of the terminal. The taxi company - very good folks in Putney called A1 - tried to call both Ozlem and my mobiles, but they couldn't get through.

Ozlem has also spoken with our friend Akif, both he and Irena are OK.

We just moved to a new flat over the weekend. What a nightmare. We hadn't wanted to move, but our landlord decided to sell the place, since the london real estate market has started what is likely to be a long dive. Of course, if we owned our own place we wouldn't be subject to the whims of a landlord, but buying a place now is a) very difficult for first time buyers, thanks to the property bubble, and b) probably not a good idea at this point in the bubble.

The new flat is not far from our old one, but it very close to transportation - we can see the tube platform from our kitchen window. We can hear the trains as well. Although they're not as loud as the place we lived last year, which was right next to the mainline tracks, combined with the busy street (with crosswalks that bleep every half minute or so) and air traffic landing at Heathrow, the background noise level is pretty high with the windows open. A compensation is the large rooftop terrace, from which we an see the London Eye, the Gherkin, BT Tower, and Wembley Stadium.

It's a recently building, one of these "luxury" flats which are the only new housing being built these days, i.e. a shoebox crammed with shiny chrome fittings. The kind of trendily designed place that shows very nice, but turns out to have various practical flaws once you actually try to live in it.

It's going to be a week or two before we get our ADSL line in - only 1 Mbps instead of the 2 Mbps we had at the old place (luxury my ass!), and the only wifi signal anywhere in this 7 story, yuppy-packed building is an encrypted one from a nearby estate agent that I can pick up, but not use, on the balcony. So my email access is limited, but the worst thing is not having Google at my fingertips.

Friends, family, I'll try to send our new contact details around once my data drip-feed is restored, in the meantime both of our mobile numbers are still the same.

Just stumbled across the weblog of an old friend, Chris Larson. Hi Chris!