Brit Grit

[scheherazade_79]

Last Thursday's bombings made me feel really proud to be British. The dignity of the public and political responses were truly awe-inspiring. People were stunned, but they kept their heads up and carried on with their way of life.

There was no melodrama, no cries of vengeance, and there were no screams to oust the PM and change our overseas policy.

I was at work when I heard the news, and several of us had friends and relatives in London at the time of the blasts. Some managed to get through to them, others didn't - but no one freaked out. Everyone just got on with their jobs without the faintest hint of self-pity or despair.

Although I could never condone it, I'd half-expected an anti-Muslim backlash as a result - or at least some kind of tirade against immigrants and asylum seekers. But there was none.

I disagree with Tony Blair on lots of issues, but his initial response to the bombings was superb:

It is through terrorism that the people that have committed this terrible act express their values, and it is right at this moment that we demonstrate ours.

Our transport system was pretty much up and running by the next day, and although people lost their lives the entire series of events amounted to nothing more than a small tremor through British consciousness.

In terms of what they were trying to achieve, Al Quaeda failed miserably. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that they were obnoxiously overconfident in thinking they could frighten a country who's stood up to much bigger and more intelligent enemies and come out on top.

It's no accident that the "V" sign was invented in Britain. It was conceived for the express purpose of communicating with arseholes, who thought they could get the better of us.

 

[Guest]

 

[jfinn]

You should be proud. The British have once again shown the world that while they may be bloodied, they'll never be beaten. When I was a little girl my grandmother used to tell me stories about WWII and some of them were about Londoner's during the Blitz. "The worse it got the stronger they became." Was her assessment. If she was still alive, I'm sure she'd tell me that the courage shown in the last few days is exactly what she meant.

I found this in an lj, Pax Draconis and I thought it was a perfect description of the city I fell in love with the first time I saw it. The author has given his permission to distribute.

The Emanation of the Giant Albion​

Old London, you must understand, is a cackling old whore. She is big, ugly and has blackened teeth and bad skin under the caked make-up; her warts are ill-hidden and her clothes not of the current mode. She is the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street, throttling the life out of the Indies and the tea trade; she is Mother Gin, dashing her childrens' brains out against the steps in the rookeries of St. Giles. She is a villainess of the blackest stripe, of the old school. Mind your purse when you walk with her, because her fingers are nimble and her morals as open as her old sewers.

But she's built on the bones of Boudicca and the Gloriana herself; she's seen kings and queens and lords and she's seen a fair few of them lose their heads. She won't lose hers over such a little trifle as this. Jacobites and Chartists and Fenians and Roaring Boys and Nazis and the IRA have all boasted that they'll bring the old strumpet to her knees, and where are they now? They cast themselves against her and she wore them all down in the end.

This is the city of Hawksmoor and Wren; the city of the Ratcliffe Highway and the confessions of de Quincey, of Spring-heeled Jack and Francis Dashwood, of small quarrels in Deptford and great reckonings at Tyburn, of old Leather Apron and his red days of autumn. What do these poor fool people imagine they can teach old London of wickedness?

London's bones were old before the Romans came. Fire has scoured her flat; plague raddled her and still she reels out of the shadows, too much make up, stinking of cheap gin, skirts ridden up and though you know you shouldn't, still you can't resist her leering grin and promise of adventure in the dark.

History sits to one side plotting new abuses to heap upon her, this fallen woman of a royal line, and she endures defiant and unbowed, with a twisted grin and a dare. Don't worry about old London. She's seen off her share of black eyes in the past. Save your pity for those who have done it, for when London finds them she'll show none, like the cool and ruthless businesswoman that she is; no. In lieu of pity, she'll show them her own justice.​

I offer my prayers for the victims, my sympathy for their survivors and my admiration for all in Britain who refuse to be intimidated.

Jayne