It appears that the explosions were at least a copycat attack (tube stations and a bus) and either (a) the people used the same explosives as the previous cell and didn't realise that unstable compounds have a habit of degrading, (b) they got the difficult bit right - the detonator - but fucked up with the rest of it, or (c) someone from the security services managed to bollocks up the trigger mechanism.

In any case, London has had a "near miss" or else we have a new wave of crap terrorists which is remarkably less scary. Speculations as to the motives, timings and location abound, although four devices going off simultaneously suggests a secondary cell to me. Fortunately, as only the detonator popped, only one injury and a couple of would-be bombers in custody, by some accounts.

Would have paid good money to see the look on their faces when the Promised Paradise failed to arrive.

"Allah Ackbar!! (click) . . . What the . . . ? Where the fuck are the virgins then? This wasn't in the brochure! This place looks just like the bloody tube.

Oh shit!"

Also would have paid good money to get the opportunity for a "citizen's arrest" and a swift re-educational booting, but Life is not that kind.

Australia have legalised witchcraft in Victoria, after saying the law banning witchcraft and fortune-telling was "200 years old and steeped in Dickensian England attitudes". And that's how we evolve, by practicing tolerance and forgetting our selfish monkey instincts and saying our imaginary gods want us to blow up other people.

Or reading a Harry Potter book will "lead to evil" as one Medieaval English vicar would have it.

I think Australia deserve the Ashes for that, really.

Less deserving is the "Monster Shark Competition" in Massachusetts. Metro has a picture of a very large and very dead Tiger shark being hauled in front of a crowd. The fisherman who caught it missed the deadline by six minutes so the poor beast died for nothing.

They've been here over 450 million years, survived numerous mass extinctions and are perhaps one of the most perfectly evolved predators on this planet. Let's see this "contest" evened up a little and try getting out of the boat, fuckers.

Great evening fencing, by the way. Won all my matches but oh by crikey I'm paying for that this morning. Took a heavy sabre cut right on the front of the clavicle, couple of epee dinks on the sternum and my tennis elbow is playing merry hell.

Also seems to have royally buggered up my hip, don't ask me how. Hopefully nothing a long lie-in on Saturday won't cure.