Missing events (London again)

Following on from my musings about no-ones wanting to come on the media (don't we all? why else do we blog?) to tell their graphic tragic events, I heard from a couple of friends who were in town that day.
One had been in Tavistock Sq 10 minutes before the bus went up
The second was in a cab just around the corner just as the bus went up. He had to let people in the cab to just get them "...the f--- out of there!"

Now, I'm grateful that they were un(physically)touched by the experiences. Nobody wants to see anyone (espec friends) go through that sort of incident. But a small voice within me then made me question my previous comments.

Vicarious experience is all well & good: safe, clean & utterly preferable to actually being there isn't it . . . ?

But that humbling, mumbling wee little voice always likes to rock my boats: "Hmmm I always seem to miss these things - wonder what it was really like . . . what I would have done . . . I could have been on the telly instead . . . "

Funny that

London

Just seeing, hearing, reading the latest going's on - & up - today, wondering why so many pontiffs pontificate endlessly & why we're all so drawn inexorably in to hear them.
You can listen all day, souring like an over-ripe orange - not so much about what's gone on: the utter horror of it & the total lack of human empathy that makes anyone determined to rip apart so many lives for the sake of - what?. But about the amount of air wasted over speculation & spurious suggestions causing the exponential discussions over coffees and pints.
More so maybe for the numerous non-entities crackling & gasping, giving their eye-witness accounts to so-called presenters grabbing the most details out of them as possible in the shortest space of time - almost as if it's costing them too much for the phone-call - only to be picked over endlessly: that is, until the next no-one appears with their installment.
News is no longer "News" - it's more an "experience"
Gone are the days when you'd have to wait until six oclock to get all the news; prepared and packaged and carefully considered while you tucked into your fish fingers.
No longer are you protected and allowed to get on with life until the right time to hear it.
Now, you have to live it as well.
Unless you choose to turn off the radio, tv, internet and carry on regardless, ignorant and isolated; blissfull in your own small world, work, life.

But bugger it! It's so exciting! And there's nothing else on . . .