Some words on today's events, words being too important to be left to politicians...

"They" may inflict death and injury on London, but London is bigger than "they". We are unimpressed. They bombed us a little bit today, but it wasn't enough to cancel reruns of "The Simpsons" on Channel 4. There was a degree of shock (after all, it is nine whole years since terrorists last blew up a bus in London), but no real surprise.

For two thousand years history has thrown it all at London; Black Death, Tyburn, the Great Fire, the Siege of Newgate, the Blitz, The IRA, we've seen it all before. We mourn and we are angry, but we do not burn Mosques, we do not blame. We are calm, informed, experienced, and we do not need to despise. London is a behemoth, in the words of Peter Ackroyd, a massive and unimprovable monster, the greatest city in the history of the world; we love it, we love its filth, its fury, its chaos. Today's terrible events will take their place as another mere footnote in the vast, complex and ancient history of London.

I know that my own thoughts and feelings today will reflect that of many Londoners; a feeling of great love for this city, there is nowhere on earth like it. And to the perpetrators, read your history books, do you not know that bombs bounce off us like rubber balls? The sun hasn't even set on this day, and already we have bounced back. We, the people of London, do not fear fascists; we laugh in their funny screwed-up little faces. We will drink tea, and make jokes about their hairiness and their lack of success with the opposite sex.

But some people have died, others have been badly injured. Today's events may be a piss in the ocean in London terms, but tonight hearts are broken and for that we must embrace our best humanity, and give our thoughts over to their suffering. For me, there is only one man whose words can say what really needs to be said.


THE DIVINE IMAGE

To Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
All pray in their distress;
And to these virtues of delight
Return their thankfulness.

For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is man, his child and care.

For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress.

Then every man, of every clime,
That prays in his distress,
Prays to the human form divine,
Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

And all must love the human form,
In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
Where Mercy, Love, and Pity dwell
There God is dwelling too.


- William Blake, London, 1789