Issue seven contains news of death and love, scandal and broken deals, and a bobcat moving from this fine city to a place where the streets are paved with squirrels (that’s an appealing image to a bobcat).
We hope you enjoy this issue, which is our most news-packed yet. Thanks for reading.
Issue Seven, our lucky number, contains:
- Colonel Gaddafi is dead, Libyan official announces and a reporter learns: The Libyan dictator is no more
- Defence Secretary, ‘advisor’ under scrutiny as boy points out departures: British official eventually resigns, as predicted by a youngster
- Every-bussy’s got something to hide except for me and McCartney: Double-decker torments paps at Macca nups: As a former Beatle finds happiness, some of his group’s song titles are mangled in headline and subheadline
- West Ham football deal collapses, little boy kicks football: As a stadium arrangement falters, a young man excels at kicking
- Squirreling Away: The London Lynx says farewell: Our peripatetic, Internet-hunting bobcat signs off for a squirrelly place
Colonel Gaddafi is dead, Libyan official announces and a reporter learns
LONDON — Former Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi was killed yesterday in his birthplace of Sirte.
Mahmoud Jibril, acting Libyan Prime Minister, held a press conference in Tripoli to announce Col Gaddafi’s death. He said that the colonel was killed as a result of fighting between the transitional government’s soldiers and those who were loyal to the deposed leader.
Following intense crossfire, the deposed Libyan leader had been taken alive, according to the country’s officials, but died of bullet wounds en route to hospital. (Read BBC News’ coverage of Col Gaddafi’s death.)
British Prime Minister David Cameron said: ‘I think today is a day to remember all of Col Gaddafi’s victims’.
Speaking from the White House rose garden, US President Barack Obama said it was a ‘momentous day’ for Libya.
‘A long and painful chapter for the people of Libya is now closed’, the president said. He added that ‘the Gaddafi regime has come to an end’ and that ‘one of the world’s longest serving dictators is no more’.
Before being overthrown in August, Col Gaddafi led Libya for 42 years.
Travelling news
This morning in East London, as they ate breakfast a reporter and his son listened to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, learning more of Col Gaddafi’s death and what’s next for Libya’s transitional government.
Somewhat related
Read our coverage of Osama Bin Laden’s death.
Defence Secretary, ‘advisor’ under scrutiny as boy points out departures
LONDON — Speaking to MPs at the House of Commons, Defence Secretary Liam Fox came under additional scrutiny as he addressed his relationship with his former best man and associate Adam Werritty.
Please see the BBC’s backgrounder on the issue, which concerns Werritty joining Fox when the latter was on official Department of Defence business.
Buses’ disappearance noted
Meanwhile in East London, a young boy watched a wide range of vehicles roll past the road just outside his first-floor window.
He identified the cars, trucks and bicycles and buses as they passed, noting that when buses left the field of sight, they were gone.
‘Gone’, the twenty-three-month-old said. ‘Bus gone.’
[Editor’s note: Liam Fox offered his resignation on 14 October, four days after this story ran.]
Every-bussy’s got something to hide except for me and McCartney: Double-decker torments paps at Macca nups
LONDON — Photographers attempting to capture images of the just-married Paul McCartney and Nancy Shevell were temporarily irate at a bus on Sunday.
The double-decker temporarily blocked the view of paparazzi, said our correspondent Jon Tindale. Some of the photographers’ comments are reflected in this story’s art.
‘Roll over Bus-thoven’, or ‘I am the wall-bus: Goo goo ga-can’t shoot photos of my wedding’
‘Macca stepped out of Marylebone registry office about 4:30pm, there were maybe around 400 people cordened off’, Tindale said. ‘There were probably around 50 paps, all with aluminium stepladders, who promptly ran after Macca’s car after he drove off. It was berserk. Paps running with their step ladders over their shoulders, trying to outrun the Macca. They must have been camped out since morning’.
This story’s art was provided by Jon Tindale.
West Ham stadium deal collapses, little boy kicks football
LONDON — This week West Ham’s deal to take over Olympic Stadium after next summer’s games collapsed.
The Daily Mail reports that the deal was scuttled in response to legal challenges raised by Tottenham Hotspurs and Leyton Orient, as well as ‘an anonymous complaint to the European Commission’.
In other football news, a twenty-three-month-old in East London impressively kicked a football in the garden behind his flat. The young boy, who has been playing football on the garden pitch for more than half his life, has a strong kick.
The boy’s parents reckon that eventually that kick will cause the football to fly over the short wall between his and his neighbour’s gardens.
The neighbours seem to be very understanding people, and their taste in music was chronicled in our fifth issue.
Squirreling away: The London Lynx says farewell
In this story, the London Lynx says goodbye to The London Report.
Please see the lynx’s previous pieces for The London Report: 22 July, 29 July, 15 August, 24 September, 1 October and the Radiolab edition.
There is big news in the world today — a close friend not employed by the government was paid by ‘a wealthy backer’ to join Defence Secretary Liam Fox at official state meetings; UK unemployment reaches a 17-year high, particularly among the young — but I no longer am interested. My mind is full of love for a city, because that city is full of squirrels.
Upon watching this brief clip, I knew it was time for me to leave London. That clip of a recent contest between the St Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and pointed me to St Louis, a beautiful city in the middle of the US, and perhaps the only city where squirrels — the most succulent of critters — are brazen enough to participate in a major sporting event.
After spending the first 58 years of my life — those are lynx years, which are like dog years, but better spent — in London and, as of recently, scouring the internet for the juciest, most delicious stories that concern the news of the day or squirrels, I look forward to moving to St Louis and gorging on as many squirrels as possible.
In related news, the St Louis Cardinals and their fans have fallen for something called a ‘rally squirrel’, which is a version of the rodent that is somehow thought to bring good fortune in sporting contests. Well, like so many Furbys and those Tamagotchi electronic eggs that used to be (and may still be) big in Japan, I look forward to the day when St Louisians lose interest in their pet squirrels and abandon them for me to eat.
