There have been a bomb blast in central london this morning

None, but having to coordinate the travel of over a thousand people to
and from Dover plus all of the London airports and Eurostar to/from
Ashford & Waterloo was quite a task, I only got home 2.5 hours late.
Great fun though. Shame about London though.

All of the London transport services were very, very professional and
sorted out all of my queries within minutes.

On a (probably) related note, it appears that the police have set up
checkpoint on the entrance to the channel tunnel on A20.

 

Especially after the debacle three weeks ago, but now with this,
I'd better allow four rather than three hours to get to my LHR flight[1]
this weekend. Or five?

Riding the DT across at this juncture is not a viable alternative. Yet!

[1] Book Swiss, fly BA -> Terminal 4 departure[2].
[2] With the relatively short notice this time, I saved the UK taxpayer
over £100 by flying back in to LCY rather than LHR. Hmm, better check which
tube lines are affected...

--
Ivan Reid, Electronic & Computer Engineering, ___ CMS Collaboration,
Brunel University. Ivan.Reid@[brunel.ac.uk|cern.ch] Room 40-1-B12, CERN
GSX600F, RG250WD, DT175MX "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".

 

What was the US reaction to yesterday where you are?

 

No we're not. It's no different to what we're used to, instead of the
Irish it's Arabs; we're an imperialist nation that's not particularly
popular.

Let's get used to it. It's not as if we haven't had enough practice.

 

Er, ah. I didn't know. I have been a bit on/off with the NG recently,
due to work pressures.

Oy TOG, where's this email you promised me?

 

I just got a call from *another* Turkish customer. Bloody 'ell.

Mind you, I suppose it's because the bombs in Istanbul are still very
fresh in their minds.

 

The Older Gentleman fumbled, fiddled and fingered:

What's more worrying is when (if) Mr Blair gets knighted the country
will get Sir Tony as international spokesman

--
Steve Parry
K100RS SE & F650
and a 520i SE Touring for comfort [temporarily scarred]

(not forgetting the SK90PY)

http://www.gwynfryn.co.uk

 

Gung-ho. "We've got to continue what we're doing", etc.

 

Ben Blaney wrote

I had a thought: can we refer to it as "7/7"?

 

Here in Spain, they're calling it "11-M en Londres".

--

Paul.
CBR1100XX SuperBlackbird
BOTAFOT #4
BOTAFOF #30
MRO #24

 

What email?

 

You were going to give me your report on Colombia.

 

Oh, right. well, I posted most of it here.

OK, give me a day or two.

 

Ah, I'll google for it.

Any tips, etc, would be handy.

 

Interesting article. At least I know what to watch for on the roads.

The people, the culture, everyday life. Y'know, the usual sort of
stuff. Only if you have the time though. Ta.

 

Here's as good a place as any.

The people seem lovely, not that I met every one of them.... The women,
it has to be said, are uttetly gorgeous. I'm told by a Chilean friend
that the Colombians also epak the purest most beautiful Spanish, though
I wouldn't know about that.

Food - excellent. Really good beef and pork, fruit and vegetables out of
this world, fried plantain, avocados and frijoles (beans in sauce) are
staple parts of many meals. Very little wine to speak of - it's almost
all imported. Beer - Bavara is the local brewery and has a monopoly, but
brews a decent brew.

Once you accept that policing, as such, is all in the hands of private
enterprise, you see how the system works. You never see any cops except
traffic plod, and occasionally cops backing up the military checkpoints
between the major towns. And sometimes even in them.

Otherwise, it's all private security, and it is *intense*. Metal
detectors in every major building, every car park checks under your car
with a mirror-onna-stick, and your bags are searched everywhere as
routine.

The wealthier people have moved into gated communities or secure blocks
of flats. Every, and I mean *every*, house has wrought iron or steel
grilles over every single downstairs window and usually most upstairs
ones as well. The middle-class houses are also securely fenced in and
equipped with FOAD steel gates.

Had a long chat with several Colombians here and over there, and said
that in London we had security in public places that was effectively as
tight, only much more unobtrusive - CCTV and the like. And our homes
were simply not guarded like theirs are: and 'guarded' is the right
word.

Pets - only the reasonably wealthy seem to keep dogs. Feral pie-dogs
roam around everywhere. Never saw a cat.

A lot of poverty. Unemployment is apparently 18%, but getting better.

There seems to be a desperate desire to put the cocaine thing behind the
country and move on. The Cali and Medellin cartels (Rodriguez brothers
and Pablo Escobar, respectively, I think) have been broken, but the
business has devolved into the hands of lots of smaller operators. And
it's apparently worth US$6 billion annually. Everything in Colombia
still has to be seen in the context of the "narco" business.

Unfortunately the money earned by cocaine has not benefited the country
- it's paid for the odd football team or two, but generally it's paid
for foreign homes, luxury travel, aircraft, and a lot of weapons.

It will never go away until either the world's consumers are persuaded,
by carrot or stick, that snorting cocaine is a bad idea, or until
governments legalise the stuff. There is just too much money at stake
otherwise, I'm afraid.

Beautiful country. Mountainous. Travel between towns takes a long time
because of the serpentine roads, all stuffed with trucks and buses.
Internal flights are cheap and plentiful.

Still dangerous in the south-east, apparently, where the FRC guerrillas
hang out. Like the IRA, they seem to have accepted they'll never get
their political desires met, so they've gone into pure criminality,
aided and abetted by their organisation and weapons. They've moved into
the cocaine biz and kidnapping is an industry. They're supposed to be
holding 1000 hostages in the jungles there.

You don't travel alone at night on the roads there. In daytime, cars
tend to travel in convoy. But it's only the SE that's like this.

It's a lovely country with lovely people. It deserves better.

 

Ta very much. It's perfect.

 

The Older Gentleman wrote:

x-posted for opinions.

--

Paul.
CBR1100XX SuperBlackbird
BOTAFOT #4
BOTAFOF #30
MRO #24

 

There *have* been *a* bomb blast...??

Espero que hablen español mejor que hablan inglés...

saludos
ranolki

 

Lo mismo digo, Rano.

GURRIATOVICH