I had a photo shoot in the morning with Stewart for the Sunday Times feature. It's been a while since we were in a photographic studio together and it was slightly strange to be slipping back into the old relationship. We had fun, except that the photographer kept referring to someone called "Ian". It took me a while to realise that he meant me. There was a part of me that was amused with this, given our long standing insistence on finding this name amusing, but once I had twigged I decided just to respond to the name anyway rather than cause a fuss. "Stewart look down, Ian, look into the camera" and I would look, which no doubt gave him confidence that he'd got it right. Weirdly he claimed to be a fan of our stuff and have been looking at our websites, but I suppose that doesn't mean you'd know our first names - even though he had been introduced to me. It was just one of those things. It didn't bother me too much, but in a break I did ask Damon from Avalon evil PR to try and drop my name into the conversation while I was in the loo. It was weird that this was so embarrassing. You'd think you could just say "Sorry you've got my name wrong", but because it had taken a while to twig and because he had been doing it for so long it would seem kind of rude to point it out personally. I had considered just carrying on answering to the name, but then he was bound to realise later that he'd made a mistake. My main worry is that he thought I was Iain Lee.
When I came back the photographer said "Ian, I think we can do your solo shots now." I looked over at Damon. Had he told him? Was this an attempt to make a joke out of the situation?
"You know my name is Richard don't you?" I replied, pretty much knowing that he didn't.
The photographer was embarrassed but we had a laugh about it.
The Sunday Times had only offered me a taxi one way to the shoot and I had selected the option of getting the cab there and getting the tube home. This was partly because it would make sure I got up in time and partly because it would mean I would find the studio OK, but at the back of my mind I also thought that it'd be safer getting the tube back at around midday than going in with all the commuters at 8.30. You know if suicide bombers chose to strike again (and I'd heard from a couple of sources in the know that this was almost certain to happen imminently) then they weren't going to go for the uncrowded lunch hour when they could kill dozens at rush hour.
Stewart had driven to the shoot (the pussy, he was obviously scared about getting on the tube) and gave me a lift to the nearest station. I made a joke about hoping that the suicide bombers wouldn't strike. Because the thing is if you discuss something in advance then that means it can't happen. Which is why when I get on a plane I always say that I am sure it will crash, because once that has been said it would obviously be too much of an amazing coincidence for it to happen and so you will be safe. You may laugh but I've been on about 50 planes and none of them have ever crashed. QED.
Down on the tube I looked around at the sparsely populated carriages and laughed to myself. I was definitely safe, there would be no point in suicide bombing the tube now, you'd only be hurting yourself. But still I was weirdly uneasy, in a way I haven't been on all post 7/7 (bah!) tube journeys. Lots of people had hefty bags and I was wondering whether it was feasible for tube trains to have some kind of baggage compartment in which all bags had to be placed on every journey and which you would collect as you leave. I concluded that it would probably be as feasible as
keeping all your belongings with you at all times and might slow things down a bit too much and also you could just fill the baggage compartment with bombs and then run away. It was just an idea. My other idea is that everyone has to travel on the tube completely naked at all times and have their stuff delivered to where they are going in a taxi. Again this might prove impractical. But what price human life.
I arrived at Shepherd's Bush Central Line station at about 12.40 and felt disproportionately relieved to still be alive. I knew I was safe now. I'd just been saying to my mum the other day that they won't bomb Shepherd's Bush as it has such a high Muslim population. "That will just encourage them," said my mum. The idiot. What does she know.
I must have walked past the Hammersmith and City branch of the tube at about 12.35. I didn't hear or see anything. I carried on my merry way unaware of what was about to transpire.
I was supposed to be going into the BBC to record links for the Breakfast show on BBC7, but at about 1.15 I got a phone call from someone at Avalon who knew I'd just been on the tube and wanted to know if I was all right because there had been an incident at Shepherd's Bush.
My cab had arrived so I told her that I was fine and got into the car. The radio was starting to report the incident and we drove up to the main road, realised that we weren't going to get anywhere and just drove straight back home.
I watched the news for the next hour or so, amazed that the terrorists had subverted my expectations in so many ways, not least by having bombs that didn't blow up. I was suspecting that the four failed devices were proably actually the work of some new Channel 4 hidden camera stunt show (of the kind that makes Domn Joly look like a sensitive genius), but realised instead that it was just rubbish terrorists. If they want to scare us they will have to make sure their bombs work. They are in danger of looking foolish. Especially if they think it is worth bombing the Hammersmith and Shitty line at any time of the day (they are unlikely to find any trains on it as it is) but especially around 1pm. I know, because that's around the time that I usually would be travelling on it and it's always practically deserted.
Excitingly my road was cordoned off by the police and it didn't look like I was going to be able to get out in order to go to Colchester. But rubbish terrorists can not be allowed to win in their goal to stop pedantic comedians talking a load of shit and around 6 I managed to find a route out of town.
It was rather sickening to think how close someone had come to blowing up the place that I live and at a time when I would have been within metres of the incident. I wondered if I'd passed the terrorist in the street or whether the Oval bomber had been on the same Northern Line train as me half an hour earlier. I mainly thought it was very unfair of them to start putting bombs on trains on off-peak transport when comedians were (admittedly still not very) likely to be up and about. The fact that they were crap terrorists who couldn't get their bombs to work is scant consolation.
I did have some fun imagining the terrorist's faces when they realised their bombs hadn't worked. I really hoped they had shouted something like, "Ha ha. I am a suicide bomber, cheg on, you are all going to die... all three of you!" and then when his bomb had only gone off like a champagne cork how would he have reacted? Maybe trying to cover up his hubris like that was what was meant to have happened, possibly saying, "Yeah, well... that was just a warning," before running away like a girl might.
