Down from the highs up on the announcement of the 2012 Olympic Games, London's commuter chaos struck early. Mistimed for a celebratory attack on the underground, explosions and shrapnel rocketed through the streets and tunnels. Double Decker buses were not even safe from ridicule as passengers were treated to extreme, an doggedly, amateur fireworks display.
Carrying few scads of skin and heavy clouds of smoke, mayhem and bedlam filled many copywriter's block. Cracking out puns merely a day before, they fell deep into the quagmire of a soul imposition.
With the bombs disrupting the relatively quiet G8 meeting, the members brushed a lunch break to announce their disgust at the blastings. Numbers of the survivors and victims coming through are lining hazy sketches for those keeping score at home.
From the initial plumes of rubble and hissing smoke of hysteria, terrorists anointing themselves the Secret Group of al-Qaeda's Jihad in Europe, have claimed responsibility for the attacks. Uncertain is the payout at which the managers of the head al-Qaeda organisation, in all its many pronunciations, have chosen to call leasing out the use of their name.
Rumours are flourishing that this rabid faction may have stepped across the boundaries of trademark infringement in blithely appropriating the moniker.
Timing of the attacks, in a rough echo of the 9/11 strikes featuring the World Trade Centre in New York, suggest numerologist will remain out of luck no matter how many dice fall on the table.
Two days too late for Paris.
Written on Friday, 8 July 2005