Last night there was bomb threat half a block from the house and no one could go in or out of their houses. Today I got out and saw all the sights, but with cops everywhere, sirens literally every five minutes, I waited in line at an ATM and all these police cars and sirens went through and cops running on foot — some asshole skinhead in line in front of me made fun of the cops yelling “they’re over here” like it was a joke and the cop came back and practically beat the shit out of the guy in front of me. I’ve never seen naked rage as was on the cop’s face. The skinhead deserved it, I wanted to hit him. I wanted to tell him to take a walk a few blocks away and go help dig bodies out of an Undergound station. Anti-Arab (read: brown people) violence is crazy, crazy, crazy, and I keep overhearing Indians talking to each other about it. After the ATM incident I got on an Underground line, then changed to another line, and right after I got off they took my train out of service because of a suspicious package. Tonight 20,000 people were evacuated out of the Birmingham city center. There is no moment when something freaky isn’t happening. It’s extra scary because the British are so reserved; I feel like I never really know what’s going on.
On the other hand, London Boy is very cool and we hit the gay bars last night after they cleared the bomb threat, then ended the evening around 3-4 in the craziest seedy little strip club ever. Just a 5 by 5 square of wood floor and a tiny disco ball and ten dollar beers. The women really paid attention to me; fully nude, too.
But other than that it is very tense here, and the public transport is unreliable, and half the service is down. I don’t feel safe and I’ve tried to get an early flight home but the airports are jammed. Virgin (which is the best airline, ever) got me out a day early with no extra charges because of the situation. I’ll be home Wednesday.
Here is my growing London photo album. It’s disjointed because I feel so strange. Fucking sirens again outside now. I want to go home.
