Boring Like A Drill.

Everyone is getting fed up. Yesterday we had to stay in the building because someone left a bag lying around the railway station. The day before we were evacuated from the building because someone left a bag lying around the railway station. A friend of mine asked a policeman what everyone was doing standing around outside and he all but yelled at her, “Because someone left a bloody bag lying around the railway station!”

The police are getting really good at getting lots of people in and out of buildings. The bomb squad’s methods are state-of-the-art too: they told me yesterday they suspected the discarded bag was a bomb because “it felt heavy when we picked it up.”

So they’ve taken away what few bins they’d put back (for “bins”, read “transparent plastic bags”) in around the station a few years ago, “for security reasons.” I thought we were dealing with suicide bombers so I’m guessing MI5 has information that Al’Qaida Al-Qaeda the terrorists have recruited Oscar the Grouch, or else that this move is for show.

Despite all this, everyone’s still happy to leave black bin liners full of crap lying around on the pavements for days on end.

Around Euston I spotted another gaggle of police armed with clipboards accosting pedestrians. My heart sank as I assumed things had gotten so desperate that the Metropolitan Police had resorted to the tactics of the Socialist Alliance and were asking concerned citizens to Stop The Bombs – Sign The Petition, but it turned out they were asking if we had been out on the street “about this time last week.” I hadn’t, but luckily I didn’t panic and sprint into a Tube station like some people are prone to do.

Spare a thought for the bombings’ silent victims: the terrorists’ landlords. How do you let the houses whose previous tenants blew themselves up on public transport? Once the police have finished with them, that is.

“For an organisations [sic] that struggles to get any local press coverage, we have suddenly been approached by just about every national newspaper,” he added.

One positive side effect: if it weren’t for the bombs I would never have known that the Australian prime minister was in town, dominating the world stage in his usual inimtable manner.

1413: Prime Minister Tony Blair postpones a vist to a school in east London and a photo call with visiting Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, a spokesman says.

Can anyone tell me if he pretended to have a real reason to be here this time around, other than watch cricket?

Finally, I was going to make fun of the failed bomber who was photographed making his getaway waiting for a train at a Tube station, a few minutes after he’s brought the entire transport system to a standstill. But then they arrested him in Rome, when his mates didn’t make it further than Notting Hill, so I guess some suicide bombers put more thought into their escape plans than I’d credited.