Brummie terror
Sitting last night in the beer garden of the Rainbow pub in Digbeth talking about the London Bombings. I was trying to talk to all those who had grown up in a city about the claim in the media that the British cope so well with terrorism because we are used to it. I remember the threat of nuclear war as a backdrop to my childhood and as a very real fear. I remember that bombs did go off in England. I remember the Brighton bombing on TV. And as a teenager I got a crush on a boy who lived in Northern Ireland. I remember watching the news. I remember there being an incident there every few days. What I don't remember is thinking it could ever happen to me. I grew in an insignificant little town in North East England whose only claim to fame is having Tony Blair as its MP. It was the last place on earth the IRA were going to target. So what about the Brummie kids? They remember stories of Grandparents in the Irish community being afraid of blacklash from the Birmingham Pub bombings in 1974. They remember bombscares, but they remember them as being fairly routine happenings that they didnt connect with the politics. I didn't get from them any sense that they were used to the idea. Maybe it was different in London.
And then Matthew gets a phone call, his sister's bus has been turned away from the city centre. And another, a friend's car stopped at a police cordon, he will go round and try to get there another way. Another call, he has been stopped at the roundabout by PC world, where I came past on the bus an hour earlier. Chris gets a text. Birmingham city centre evacuations top news stories on sky. I worked out how to access the BBC wap site on my phone. Birmingham city centre, Broad street "entertainment zone" has been evacuated. Inner ring road is closed. We discuss whether we want to retreat to Moseley but decide that Digbeth isn't a number one terrorist target and a pub with good music where we have a table is preferable to a Moseley full of people who wanted to be on broad street. An hour later the BBC have news of controlled explosions in the city centre. We talk of working home. Matthew's friend Guy goes to get his car from the city centre we wonder whether this is going to be possible but he turns up shortly and we cram in and drive through busless city streets scattered with the occasional group of clubbers tottering along the road in unsuitable shoes. Moseley was busy but we couldnt tell whether it was any busier than a normal Saturday night.
All in all tho it was a good night. I like the outside of the Rainbow, I hadnt been there before. Previous visits to the rainbow have involved shouting at each other over the music in a crammed corridor near the loos. The music was cheerful, the weather warm, the fairly lights sparkly. Do wish the music could have been a touch quieter. I am not getting old. I just think a night out to meet up with Matthew would be enhanced by hearing what he was saying, which I couldn't really by the end.
And then Matthew gets a phone call, his sister's bus has been turned away from the city centre. And another, a friend's car stopped at a police cordon, he will go round and try to get there another way. Another call, he has been stopped at the roundabout by PC world, where I came past on the bus an hour earlier. Chris gets a text. Birmingham city centre evacuations top news stories on sky. I worked out how to access the BBC wap site on my phone. Birmingham city centre, Broad street "entertainment zone" has been evacuated. Inner ring road is closed. We discuss whether we want to retreat to Moseley but decide that Digbeth isn't a number one terrorist target and a pub with good music where we have a table is preferable to a Moseley full of people who wanted to be on broad street. An hour later the BBC have news of controlled explosions in the city centre. We talk of working home. Matthew's friend Guy goes to get his car from the city centre we wonder whether this is going to be possible but he turns up shortly and we cram in and drive through busless city streets scattered with the occasional group of clubbers tottering along the road in unsuitable shoes. Moseley was busy but we couldnt tell whether it was any busier than a normal Saturday night.
All in all tho it was a good night. I like the outside of the Rainbow, I hadnt been there before. Previous visits to the rainbow have involved shouting at each other over the music in a crammed corridor near the loos. The music was cheerful, the weather warm, the fairly lights sparkly. Do wish the music could have been a touch quieter. I am not getting old. I just think a night out to meet up with Matthew would be enhanced by hearing what he was saying, which I couldn't really by the end.