As you were.

Here's some more Slate goodness, this time concerning the recent foiled London bombings:

Had the bombs actually gone off in the early morning hours, as planned, there could have been hundreds of casualties. One was parked near a packed nightclub; the other was nearby, in the center of the theater district. But this is a city that survived the IRA's terrorist campaign of the 1990s. It is also a city full of people who have to get to work in the morning, people who care quite a lot about traffic. I'm not going to lapse here into a string of cliches about British stoicism, but it really was a relief to encounter no hysteria whatsoever.

One of Mrs. Mosley's favorite historical subjects is the British homefront during WWII (this is one of the main reasons she's a big fan of Foyle's War). And this little paragraph does say a lot about the British character. It also brings to mind a T-Shirt showcased on Boing Boing last month: