London braces for terrorist attack on ‘The Tube’, but gaiety goes on unabated

LONDON – The Evening Standard was out on the streets last Monday with huge banner headlines usually reserved for declarations of war – but you know how tabloids are!

The London daily blared forth: "KEEP ALERT ON THE TUBE." The "tube", of course, refers to the London underground or subway trains, which speed over 408 kilometers of track under the city, and transport more than three million commuters daily.

Trumpeted the Standard: "Tube passengers are being warned to stay alert for terrorist attacks today as it emerged that three al-Qaeda members are on the loose in Britain."

The newspaper added that "the government is to launch a poster campaign advising passengers how to increase their survival chances if poison gas is unleashed on the London Underground. Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson said the campaign followed an increased risk of attack by terrorists using chemicals or gases such as the nerve agent sarin." (This is the type of nerve gas which killed 12 commuters and hurt 5,000 when pumped by a fanatical religious cult – called the Aum Shinrikyo – into the Tokyo chikatetsu or underground system some years ago.)

Prime Minister Tony Blair at No. 10 Downing Street reiterated: "There is still a heightened threat. There is still the need for vigilance."

These caveats, however, had practically no effect on this metropolis of 7.5 million people. The trains were packed, the 18,300 black taxicabs, a landmark of London town, were on the streets, while cars, lorries, vans, and the ubiquitous red double-decker omnibuses caused traffic jams all over the 600 square miles of this leafy capital, their fumes alleviated by the 33 percent of the acreage devoted to lush parks and green space.

Last night, the Strand, Picadilly, Leicester square, St. James’, and, indeed, every nook and corner lighted by winking neon, was packed with pedestrians, rubberneckers, and merrymakers. In the West End, the theaters were full.

For that matter, London teems, at every hour, with a babel of voices. Here live inhabitants speaking 300 different languages – 25 percent of people working here (a Londinium magazine survey discovered) were born overseas.

Count in this number more than 60,000 Filipinos, some 22,000 of them nurses.

Alas, wrote Ann Widdecombe in The Times the other day: "It isn’t Latin that is a dead language, it’s English!"

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The Times of London contributed to the excitement with a front-page story headlined: "M15 Finds Threat of Chemical Attack on Tube."

The report by Daniel McGrory, Stewart Tendler and Michael Evans said that the Secret Service had "discovered that Islamic militants had discussed a chemical bomb on the London Underground."

"Three men of North African origin arrested in secret nine days ago," the newspaper said, "will appear in court today charged with alleged terrorist offenses." The men, in their 30s, "were seized in raids in North London after M15 infiltrated a suspected terrorist network examining many targets including the Tube."

Prime Minister Blair even summoned Cobra, the emergency Whitehall committee, to decide what to tell the public.

Why don’t they send in James Bond? All over this metropolis, you’ll find posters and store windows featuring Bond’s 20th mission, a £130-million spectacular starring Pierce Brosnan and a stunningly "Ursula Undress" Oscar-winner, Halle Berry, who intimated she shivered and froze in Cadiz (Spain) while recreating the older vamp’s bikini scene. She might have been shaken by the unexpected cold spell in that usually sunny clime – but all males who ogled the preview were reportedly stirred.

Even Harrod’s in Knightsbridge, that staid and quintessential department store, had Bond all over its front windows (too bad for Santa Claus), in his various reincarnations fromGoldfinger to Dr. No, and onwards to Golden Eye. Ashton Martin, the supercar, lost no time in proclaiming it was back (pooh to BMW) as Bond’s car of preferential attack. There were scenes galore from old Bond capers, with girl mannequins sprawled over vehicle hoods or draped over silk and satin, with bottles of Bolinger champagne and other lethal stuff sprinkled liberally over the display windows.

Monday night, naturally, Her Majesty the Queen herself played a walk-on role to grace the premiere of Die Another Day at the Royal Albert Hall. After all, more than £500,000 was expected to be raised at that grand opening for the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, of which she is the patron.

MGM, which owns what critic Adam Sherwin called "the most lucrative franchise in film history", spared no expense in orchestrating the launch – it converted Albert Hall into a faux ice Palace, and recruited former Bond film actors to join the 40th anniversary celebration of the ageless spy’s cinematic exploits.

Brosnan, in his natty Bond threads, roared up to the 60-meter red carpet, reporter Jack Malvern enthused Tuesday, in his Aston Martin, amid a pyrotechnic display. Other cast members, including Halle Berry and Madonna, came up in Jaguar XKRs. Roger Moore, a suave former Bond, headed a list of 3,500 guests. Sean Connery, sad to say, wasn’t around. To many glowing oldies, he’s still loved as the "best", but Brosnan, in my own estimation, has more than matched his style and self-mockery.

Brosnan did come under attack by anti-smokers for smoking a cigar in this movie. He argued that, since the scene was shot in Havana, a cigar (Cohiba most likely) was appropriate. Not so, so growled Clive Bates from "Action on Smoking and Health." Bates said that "Bond is one of the greatest icons in cinema history. For the film-makers to have him smoking is a completely astounding U-turn on the decision not to let him smoke in the last film."

Oh, well. Tabacalera objects only to Bond smoking Havanas, like the late Sir Winston Churchill — whose famous hunchbacked statue I once again spotted last night in front of Parliament. Sir Winnie, as always, looks down unsmiling, as if to exclaim: "Where did I drop that damned cigar?"

He won the war, but lost the British Empire, too, if I recall.

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Osamas may come, Osamas may go, Saddams may rise and fall. But there will always, I submit, be a James Bond. After all, that legendary Ian Fleming character is merely Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up. Except that he’s got a gun – in more ways than one.

There was once a Petula Clark song (she’s forgotten, now, save by me — always in my heart) about London. She crooned: "London, swing like a pendulum do." You bet.

Yesterday the sun came out. The birds began to sing among the eaves and leafless branches. There were bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover. The pigeons shitted on Lord Nelson’s shoulder as he continued to stand staunchly on his high plinthe at Trafalgar Square.

I drove by the "Texas Embassy" (yes, Virginia, there is one here!) and thought about the bumper stickers now being paraded by Americans in support of their Texas hero, George Dubya Bush: Kick their ass: Steal their gas.

I guess the Yanks are raring to kickstart their floundering economy by kicking butt, and the only terrorist they know with a permanent address (or palaces to be found) is Saddam Insane. Too bad, old boy: Onward to Eye-raq!