On abstinence campaigns, ‘Against the risk of disease, a Godless degenerate might argue, must be weighed the fact that many people find sex quite enjoyable’.

Unrelatedly, Virgin 1st Class is a highly civilised way to travel, not least because of the unlimited free booze. Hooray for bizarre yield management systems that make first class fares cheaper than standard class ones…

Everybody has to die; this can’t be stopped by anything. Millions have to live in misery; this could be stopped given the political will. So why are killings for political ends so universally (including by me) reviled?

Why are the NYPD leaking stuff about the London terror attacks? Is Ian Blair going to start leaking stuff about crimes in New York now? This would have the advantage for Mr Blair that crimes in New York tend to be more hilarious than those in London, and could therefore help him to find his true calling in life as a professional comedian.

Tube passenger numbers are down 30% at weekends and 15% during the week. Fuck you all, you cowardly bunch of losers.

Actually, in mitigation, large amounts of the Tube network have been shut for the last four weeks. Not any more: well done to TfL for getting everything sorted and opened today. Now there’s no excuse.

If you’re worried about terrorism becoming a biweekly event, then don’t be: on current trends, if today features any follow-up attacks, it will involve ruthless-but-useless bombers throwing French bangers on entirely empty Tube trains. And the French bangers will fail to go off…

I don’t like Jim. When Jim goes to the opera, he dresses in smart clothes and drinks gin and tonic, but when Jim goes to his local, he dresses in casual clothes and drinks bitter. What a despicable fraud Jim must be.

Apparently, now is a good time to attempt kidnaps and threats to kill. Although I’d counsel against either, even so.

Racial profiling to stop Islamist terrorists in London is a Bloody Stupid Idea. Not because it’s morally wrong – if we were being targeted by, say, Black Panthers, then there would be a serious and unappetizing choice facing society. However, this isn’t the case.

Let’s put the actual Islam-vs-terrorism debate to one side for the sake of argument, and assume that the point of this racial profiling would merely be to discover Muslims (who are, presumably, more likely to be Islamists than are non-Muslims).

Muslims of Pakistani origin look similar to Indians. Muslims of Arab origin look similar to Greeks (and Brazilians). Muslims of Indonesian or Malaysian origin look Oriental. Muslims of African origin look African. Muslims of European origin look European.

We can probably assume that Japanese people and Inuit are unlikely to move to the UK and convert to Islam. But beyond that, any racial profiling you carry out will still either leave 95% of the population within its sights, or will rule out people who are just as likely to be Muslims as the racial groups you’re including.

"Insecure leftist men love Islam, because they can’t stand uppity women." – Old Peculier, here. That time of the month is it, luv?

Obvious points: blimey, not good. Don’t worry about terrorists, entirely fuck-up produced disasters are far more likely to land you up dead (update: sounds like nobody died after all. At 11:30BST last night, it looked rather different…). If only it had’ve been going to Montreal, all the passengers would’ve been French Canadians.

Relatedly to the first point, which is perhaps more accurate than the second: "The last major jumbo jet crash in North America was on Nov. 12, 2001, when American Airlines Flight 587 lost part of its tail and plummeted into a New York City neighbourhood, killing 265 people" (here). Hands up who remembers that one? No, seriously… and yet it topped more people than any terrorist event apart from the events of 31 days beforehand.

Normally, I point out that planes and trains are safe compared to roads. One of the intriguing things about The War On Not Very Terrifying Terror is that it buggers about people’s public transport vs car risk perception to be *even more* useless than it already is.

(also relevant: December 23, 2002. I believe the expression is "heart of stone not to laugh".)

Can’t think of anything to say today. This is a shame: harmless transactions that annoy bigots are fun. Employees either lie or are mad (I’m trying to think of any working hours more horrible than 6AM-3PM, but failing). And this story is both sad news, and almost certainly the only way the communists can get anyone to pay any attention to them these days…