Well written piece. I enjoyed reading that
I'd like to echo the above.
I moved to London two weeks before the bombing, Into a flat just around the corner from Seven Sisters Station. Just before moving to London I had made a contact with sky news, and my first call for work was with them. I started working as a freelance video editor for Sky three days before the bombing, I had worked the night before, came home about the hour before the bombs went off, got woken up by frantic friends a few hours later, and spent about 100 quid, and 5 hours getting from Tottenham to Isleworth for my shift that night. Where because I hadn't been issued with a freelancer pass yet, I was refused entry for half an hour. I spent the night reviewing and editing the footage for the morning news. Before stumbling onto the underground as one of the first passengers on the network and heading home.
I only say this because I was a freelancer, with hours of experience and yet I was one of six people able to freely access all the material on Sky News' server.
I really liked your piece IA, it was human personal and educational and brought the event back in very vivid terms. I'd recommend (if you've not read it)
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/ Rachel was on the Picadilly Line, injured in the bombing, and has become a leading member of the victims demanding an independent inquiry. On the back of her work with the victims, combined with her scathing contempt for the conspiraloonies she's been stalked, faced false accusations of being a Zionist agent, she's had people track her home address, her family.
Going back to your blog I see to Daniels talk at the Indian YMCA. That was back in Autumn 2007 yes? In fact the talk occured during one of the mass tube strikes that year. Daniel had the audacity to proclaim that the entire transport strike was designed to thwart his YMCA meeting. His megalomania and paranoia is breathtaking. Hundreds of millions damaged, tens of millions of people massively inconvenienced all to stop a few hundred people tops turning up at a talk at a YMCA.
I only heard about the talk that night I was working on Charlotte street parallel to the YMCA, I'd have love to have gone.
It's an excellent essay IA. Citizen Journalism at it's best.