Kings Cross had police wearing bullet proof vests and carrying machine guns throughout the station again this morning, highly alert and aware. Some people find their presence reassuring. I personally find it unsettling and surreal. Do I really live somewhere where heavily armed police are necessary? Am I really someone who is a target because of where I was born and live? Because I don’t have a car and have to use the tube? A little beagle sniffs around my ankles and my first thought is ‘how cute’, then I process the policeman at the end of the leash and realise he’s sniffing for explosives. Do I really live like this?

The debate has been raging between Muslim and non-Muslim groups. Some comments make me yell and rant and throw things at the TV, others humble me in their perceptiveness and delicacy of description. That there are youth so jaded and desperate they are willing to die violently, murder and maim those around them…that there are men and women so manipulative and cunning they would brainwash and turn those seeking purpose in life into a wasted death…I just cannot comprehend it.

Many people are blaming the Iraq War, but I don't think it can be simplified into an x=y Iraq=bombing equation. What did they blame when the USS Cole was blown up? When the US embassy was bombed? When the bar in Bali was bombed? When the planes flew into the Twin Towers? It’s not simply about the Iraq War, I fear it’s more far reaching and insidious than that. This monster is not going to die quietly or quickly.