So there I am, cutting and pasting, fitting in the text I wrote about last weekend's glory days, when Andy calls to inform me that a man has been shot five times at a tube station not far from here. That's after the shock of yesterday, of realising that had it gone as was obviously planned, we'd be looking at more trauma, many more dead, more disruption and shock. Yesterday was a busy day and I came back into London from the North, so what with all the hassles on transport and the fact it took me close to two hors to get home, it's no surprise I couldn't face trekking out to the Clor gig I'd been looking forward to. And now this again. Apparently we are all putting on a brave face, returning to things as normal. That's what all the news reports keep saying. Apparently we are not afraid, and a man has quit his job to run a website where we can all post our messages of support. Well excuse the latent pessimist in me, but can I come out here and say that I am afraid. I don't like seeing police presence at the entrance to every tube station in London, as there was by 6pm last night. I don't like to see sniffer dogs in the hallways, I don't like checking an empty tube carriage for any sign of suspect tampering when I get into it on my own, I don't like the rucksacks that perfectly innocent tourists happen to leave by the doors that make me wonder why is nobody holding onto that, and more than anything else I don't like to think that at any point somebody I really care about might become a victim of a savage and cruel attack. I am a rational adult, and I accept that the point of terrorism is to make us scared and shaken, but in the same way that no amount of reassuring a child that the dentist won't hurt them before the drill hits that bit of the tooth the anaesthetic didn;t quite reach, so I feel we cannot stick our heads in the sand and say that everything and everyone in the city is going around its business as before. It's not true, and no amount of sending in cameraphone pictures with a pint in your hand and a smile on your face to self-serving websites is going to stop people on a mission to kill. It took more than removing all the litter bins from tube station platforms to stop the IRA atrocities, and we ought to be honest about staying vigilant and taking that bit of extra time to worry over our journeys, check what is going on around us.