Business As Usual

I have had literally dozens of friends & family get in touch in the last 24hrs to check that we're all OK over here, which is lovely of course. Things must seem terrible from a distance - so I want to give some perspective on things from here in London where life is already almost back to normal.

Walking from the office to Marylebone (took about an hour) to get the mainline train home last night together with literally millions of people out on the streets, it was striking how relaxed and unfazed everyone was. London will absolutely take this in it's stride.

People are not about to let terrorism deflect us from normal business or our daily routine; much less from our beliefs or values. Besides, there is safety in numbers - the safety of the herd: while savage animals might pick off one or two individuals, they cannot threaten the herd as a whole.

As I explained to my kids this morning to provide them with some perspective and alleviate their fears, if there are say about 4 million commuters in London every day and around 40 people tragically killed then - as terrible as that is for the individual families affected - the risk to anyone of us as individuals remains very very small: 40/4,000,000 = 0.001% - and that's on the risk on one particularly unfortunate day; taken over time of course the risk is far less. (Clearly I'm no statistician, but I hopefully you'll get my point!)...

The trouble of course is perception: the risks seem far higher than they are due to graphic media coverage (which I am not knocking it by the way, and I wouldn't be without it). Some of our family and friends back home in Australia have said we should get the hell out of London, come home, get away from the trouble etc as it must seem terrible, risky and treacherous to remain here when confronted by the images.

I remember thinking and feeling exactly the same way about Northern Ireland in the early '90s and was in quite a state of fear myself by the time I visited there for the first time for a mate's sister's wedding - people back home then said to me "you must be nuts" for going to such a place. But of course reality on the ground as perceived by people as they see it personally, not as focussed through the lens of television.

Ultimately the terrorists will inevitably lose. They will achieve nothing.

Andy