I managed to remember the anniversary of the 7/7 attacks - the 15th, in fact - and donned my usual running shirt for the day, now sadly denuded - and headed out to run in Hyde Park... slowing and taking my headphones out when I got to the 7/7 Memorial. I try to stop by there every year....   (read more)

"As I write these words there are semi-naked women playing beach volleyball in the middle of the Horse Guards Parade immortalised by Canaletto. They are glistening like wet otters and the water is plashing off the brims of the spectators' sou'westers. The whole thing is magnificent and bonkers." - Boris, the Mayor...   (read more)

For some reason the 7/7 anniversary always sneaks up on me in a way 9/11 doesn't. Luckily for me, my regular running route takes me directly beside the 7/7 Memorial, tucked in the SE corner of Hyde Park. And there, every year, as they did today, the massed flowers and notes on the hillside overlooking it tell the tale....   (read more)

Today is the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks. As is now customary, here's a brief list of things I did to commemorate it:...   (read more)

I'd forgotten, until reminded late this morning, that today is 7/7 - the fourth anniversary of the London Tube and bus bombings. So today seems a good, if not entirely un-controversial, day to point up the recent report: Sharia Law or 'One law for all'? from the think-tank Civitas...   (read more)

"As I write these words, and as you read them, people of faith are in their different ways planning your and my destruction, and the destruction of all the hardwon human attainments that I have touched upon. Religion poisons everything." - Christopher Hitchens...   (read more)

Woke up, for some reason, at half-six; couldn't get back to sleep. Put on my black armband and wore it all day. (This is the one I keep for September 11th every year, and which it now appears will be getting use twice a year.)...   (read more)

I am not yet born; O hear me, / Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God / Come near me....   (read more)

"The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity . . . It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest."...   (read more)

Due to popular demand (well, the two people who made these demands are popular with me), I've implemented a few improvements to the dispatch commenting system:...   (read more)

In the days following the attacks two weeks ago, the natural resilience, sang-froid, and stoicism - not to mention sarcasm and dismissiveness - of Londoners seemed to coalesce into a more or less unified reaction to the bombers: "Sod off, you tossers."...   (read more)

And but so walking home through central London last night, I had figured I would be looking at at a total 28 Days Later scenario - walking through the eerily deserted streets of the city, my footsteps echoing off of the centuries-old stone....   (read more)

I'm totally fine. I'm sick of sending these sodding "I'm fine" messages from the scenes of atrocities, I can tell you that. But, otherwise, I'm fine....   (read more)