Joy and the predictable

Heard enough about John Smeaton yet? I know Will hasn't. Neither have I, and here's why. Everyone involved, and who has subsequently commented on, the Glasgow airport attack behaved as you might have predicted:

The terrorists themselves, it should be stressed, picked the first day of the Scottish school holidays, so as to maximise the potential mayhem.

As you might expect.

While Muslims and even former Islamists are telling anyone who cares to listen that terrorism can't be reduced to 'grievances about foreign policy', the usual suspects, whom I won't link to, are appearing - fingers firmly in ears - in comment boxes, on their own blogs, or the radio, or whatever, coming out with the usual crap about 'blow-back' and who the 'real terrorists are'.

As you might expect.

Meanwhile mealy-mouthed reactionaries 'of course' condemn terrorism - and then go on to say, in effect, that when Islamists go on about how debauched and degraded we are, they do have a point and we could do with drinking less and covering up our women a bit. So as not to offend, you understand.

As you might expect.

Simon Jenkins, being a more liberal Tory, suggests - as ever - that the real problem is that too much is being done, and that the solution - as ever - is to follow his advice. Which invariably consists of doing nothing much, really - because you'll just make matters worse.

As you might expect.

When I'm talking about joy and the predictable, I don't mean these, of course. It's rather the response of my compatriots and fellow Glaswegians who have behaved exactly as you might expect.

Or hoped, would be more accurate. Good and bad things about the Glaswegian in your face, 'come ahead' attitude, obviously - but when imagining a scenario like this, I've often liked to think it would at least come in a bit handy.

And it seems to have done, right enough. This city is for the terrorist somewhere where they'll find more people inclined to kick them in the gonads to the point of self-injury than they will people inclined to wring their hands and bleat, "What did we do to invite this?"

Which you might have expected - and which is, for me, a source of joy. You might think this is wrong, or in poor taste, or something - but it really is.

Or maybe you think this is bravado? Well, quite possibly - but I'm from Glasgow so what the fuck did you expect?

Hat tips: Norm, Will, Flying Rodent.