For a while I have been thinking that the populace of my fine city are living in denial. You may know I am quite obsessed with the Roman city of Pompeii and I have been silently wondering if we were all similarly doomed, getting on with our day to day life whilst Vesuvius smokes and bubbles in the background. For some, I think, the silence and lack of incident has been ominous, but I have found it worrying, waiting for the inevitable, wondering how big and destructive it will be.
Well this morning we got a nasty reminder of the suicidal elephant in the room and just because this time we got away with it doesn't make me feel much better about it all. I am sure the conspiracy theorists will be already at their keyboards, questioning why the early reports suggested the car had crashed into bins and discovered by bouncers, whilst later ones said it was parked and discovered by ambulance men. And yes the timing might be quite convenient for a government wanting to introduce more stringent terrorist laws. If the guilty men turn out to be some of those who absconded recently, that would no doubt be a further coup for old Gordon Browns. But I think if these things were set up by the government, then surely they'd get their stories straight.
It'd be more comforting to think that there aren't people out there who actually want to destroy our society and everything it stands for, but the truth is that there are. And that without changing the way we live unrecognisably they are bound to get through occasionally and we shouldn't take any comfort from the fact that two out of three times they have fucked up making their bombs. If I was a conspiracy theorist I might say that I think that some government insider has been involved in both plots and managed to nullify the weapons, but again that is wishful thinking.
Like the people of Pompeii we feel secure, we can't envisage everything going tits up, but like them I think we could be in for a rude awakening. Or more an unpleasant going to sleep. Forever.
So I was quite relieved not to have a gig in town tonight (though again tonight central London was probably the safest place to be). I was up in Worksop doing a preview gig.
I don't think I have been to Worksop before, but on a Friday night it's one of those places that you feel could erupt into a different kind of violence at any moment. Even as I walked from my hotel to the gig at about 8.30 the threat of aggression was in the air. There were even some men practising fighting outside a Chinese restaurant. It was playful for the moment, but you could see that within three hours and a few more drinks the punches would be going in for real. And in three hours I would be walking back to the hotel. But I wasn't too worried as I couldn't see any blokes who looked like they might be University lecturers so I'd probably be OK.
I thought it was pretty unlikely that Al Quaida would bomb Worksop, but probably only because they weren't aware it existed. Walking down the High Street tonight it pretty much epitomised all that is wrong with our Western society. And if the bombers want to attack "the slags" (as one of those recent plotters called the women who go to night clubs - revealing rather more about himself, his motives and his frustrations than perhaps he meant to) then they could do a lot worse than come here. I am not calling all women in Worksop slags - there is no need to point out such a palpable truth.
I did this as material at the start of the gig and it went down well with the Worksopians. They are one of the towns that is able to laugh at themselves. The poor darlings were concerned with the floods they'd been having. A little bit of water! People are trying to blow up my town with massive bombs. Worse of all they are preoccupied with getting rid of the slags, who are probably my favourite people here. With none of my beautiful slags left I would have to go out with sweet and virginal church-going girls. Who would want that? Apart from suicide bombers who are obsessed with getting those virgins in the after-life. The idiots. They could he having guaranteed slags right now for definite. The sooner these people embrace our Western ways the better.
I was delighted to see a theatre owner on the news saying that we wouldn't bow to terrorism, life would go on and he would do all he could to keep his theatre open so people could watch David Suchet. We must never lose that freedom. They can blow us up, but they can't take David Suchet from us. Not if they want to see any more episode of Poirot. Which they must do.
Anyway, we will carry on with our lives and we won't contemplate the potential nightmare that I feel will inevitably come to pass.
We feel secure that our lifestyle will continue forever, but all societies have felt the same throughout history. And I can't stop thinking about Pompeii.
