"Battle state russet"
I was on my way to the solicitors this morning to sign our mortgage papers, and I got to the corner by the video shop and was shocked, nay amazed, to see a police cordon and all the cafe and shop staff hanging around in good humoured but obvious impatience.
It appeared that humble Kelburn was under threat of terrorist attack and a suspicious package had been reported - rumour had it that the police were planning to blow it up. I left and went down the back way through the Botanical Gardens, worrying as I went that the surly grey cat from the wine shop was nowhere to be seen - was he about to be blown to pussy heaven by a highly trained bomb disposal robot?
When I came back in the afternoon, everything was back to normal and the cheery ladies in the deli were expecting to be on the news, and wanting to take advantage for advertising reasons - their new slogan: "Our pies are The Bomb!".
The package in question was claimed by its absent-minded owner when they heard about the scare on the news. Still cost Kelburn shops an hour-and-a-half's trading though, and the cat was inside the whole time (probably having a nip of the hard stuff while he could.) Damn you, shadowy forces of global terror!
The above aside, I'm as shocked and appalled as anyone at the recent spate of bombings in London, and feared for friends there when I heard the news. Sadly, the aspect that most appalls me is how it forces stories like this one to the middle pages of the paper, if they get printed at all. Apparently suffering is only newsworthy if it's close to home, and preferably it shouldn't go on too long or it'll get boring.