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I did, and do. Not all the time, but spend a lot of time in the locality. I'm spending 3 nights at a hotel near Old Street tube this week.
Pretty worrying stuff really. Brought home what an uncertain world we live in.
I hope the security services are somewhat more effective in stopping their plans in reality.
i saw it ages ago, might have been a different one, but its pretty scary, dont work in the city, but live there....could really f things up with anyone bothered making one, apparently the parts are readily available to anyone in the old USSR states
Actually many of the parts are available to anybody dealing with hospital / dentist xray machines. A few years ago a scrap dealer in America picked up some xray machines as scrap, the metal ended up in concrete reinforcing. The problem was discovered when a contaminated lorry delivered some material to a nuclear research facility. Anything that had been in contact with the stuff ended up in landfill.
I live in London and work in the City. The BBC's 'Dirty War' screened tonight was a major wake up call to everyone who live and work somewhere close to London!
I'm not going to question the 'facts' in the program as I presume that BBC would have done its homework on these, especially after its 'coming together' with the government last year. I'm not going to argue with those who think that the program is propaganda, Muslim-bashing, scare-mongering, etc. I'm only looking at it as an intellectual exercise:
- What would happen if X, Y and Z happen?
- What would be the government's reaction?
- What are the emergency procedures?
- What kind of preparation has been carried out?
- What are my chances of getting out of it alive?
- What kind of long-term effects are there?
I think I live in the 'real' world and in the 'real' world, I think I can say with a certain degree of certainty that, London is a rather attractive target for those that the UK government has been trying its best to p!ss off in the past few years. I have no illusions about that. However, if living and working in London is a calculated risk, I want to know that are the parameters and how are the measured. I want to know as much as I can about my chances (as well as my wife's) of getting out of the situation alive and relatively unaffected. If we consider the risk to be too high, we're going to get the hell of out this place. Simple.
The 'Dirty War' program raises a number of questions regarding what I'd consider as parameters in my calculated risk approach to living and working in London. Additionally, the program showed me that London doesn't have the answers I want to hear. If things don't improve in the next 12-18 months, I'd have to seriously reconsider my vocation and my residence.
I didn't watch it but from previous programmes of this type by the BBC and independant TV outlets they are by and large biased to the view of the producer so will carry his/her prejudices and political outlook. Sensationalised, a nice fluffy programme though potentially true, won't get you ratings. Producers like to see words like 'groundbreaking' and 'thought provoking' in the critiques. Not 'boring' or 'dull'.
So I shall go about my business as per usual when I'm in the city aware of closer real world threats such as muggers, chavs on diamond white overload, homocidal taxi drivers and equally homocidal London drivers.
I work in Holborn, so halfway between the City and the West End. I didn't watch it, but I pretty much know what it's point was. I don't give it a second thought TBH, I'm not scared of terrorists. By being scared you've effectively let them win. If I'm killed in a terrorist attack so be it, I know full well that the government are worrying about it and making plans- a friend of mine is part of an emergency task force that would swing into action to co-ordinate rescue and containment efforts in the event of an attack.
Rich :¬)
there was a bomb scare in the victoria centre in nottingham in the run up to christmas
apparently it was said that the bomb would be placed inside the shopping centre and that John Lewis was a potential target
John Lewis put safty precautions into place telling all the members of staff (of which i am one) if there is an overhead announcement just randomly through the day saying "the time is now xx:xx PM" then that was a code for bomb alert!
just like if someone in the shop thinks someone around is trying to steal something, they will ask another member of the team to turn the airconditioning on (its always on anyway) it just means get security :p
granted this is nothing on the scale of the dirty bomb program but just imagine what it would do
I work in Old Street and often visit clients in the city. It doesnt bother me one bit. I mean, how many westerners have died at the hands of terrorists in the last 25 years?
Personally I am more worried by travelling by train.
One of the interesting bits of that 'Politics of Fear' program was that it reckoned a dirty bomb basically wouldn't kill anybody. The amount of radioactive material released wouldn't be enough to irradiate anybody enough to hurt them unless they were near the blast site and then stayed in the area for 24 or more hours. Personally, I'll just walk home with my shirt covering my mouth and nose if it happens.
Rich :¬)
I've just rewatched this - and it's even more hilarious - one bloke talks about the experiment set up by the US department of energy - the worst case person got a "high" but non-deadly dose - he then goes on to describe that one of the assumptions of the experiment was that every single person did not move from the site for one whole year.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rave
"the danger from radioactivity is basically next to nothing, the danger of panic, however, is horrendous" - the other bloke, who really hits the nail on the head.
Whereabouts in Holborn are you Rave? My company has loads of sites in that area. You may even work in one of our buildings!
Ofsted's headquarters, which is Alexandra House, 33 Kingsway.
Rich :¬)
Not one of ours I don't think. We have 77 Kingsway though!