Streets of London

Echoes of this morning's blasts in London rock my memories of the horrific attacks in New York in September 2001. This time I'm at a safe distance, in more ways than one. It takes longer to drive or get to London by train from Scarborough than it does to fly there from Malta.

The terrorists seem to have more sophisticated media manipulation techniques than some people are willing to give them credit for. The finger of suspicion is pointing at the misguided holy warriors we've been hearing about on a daily basis since September 2001.

The fact that the G8 Summit started this morning cannot be a coincidence. Nor is it a coincidence, I think, that London was selected as the host for the 2012 Olympic Games just yesterday.

Russell Square is at the centre of this morning's attacks. Immanuel Mifsud and I stayed at a hotel in Russell Square when we first visited the city together back in 1988. The picture you see here with this post was taken a couple of months ago on my return from my most recent trip to New York. I was planning to send this to Manuel because I know he still has fond memories of our sojourn in Russell Square all those years ago. As it happens now, I'm putting it up on my blog in remembrance of a time when a different bunch of holy warriors came to London. In those days they came from a place closer to that part of the world Manuel visited just the other week.