No-one could ignore the new reality emerging when it was confirmed that a bus had exploded; the same disturbing moment of knowing that happened when you digested the information that two planes had crashed into the twin towers. And just like September 11, it sounded like terrorist attacks were everywhere - although this time I was sitting in the middle of where it was happening. Station explosions all across London, Tower Bridge had been blown up, waves of buses had fallen, town centres across the country were closing. The apocalypse was nigh.
The office strangely empty, you could almost hear the refresh refresh clicking as everyone wanted to know what was happeneing from their news web site of choice. Gradually, the news picture began to solidify into something coherent and consistent.
Later in the morning, I went outside to phone my parents again and got through, as I watched a police dog van whirl round the corner into Fore Street. My parents had had problems getting through to me, but I had no such problems phoning out. So much for the theories that the mobile network had been disabled.
As we talked, the police started to congregate around the end of Fore Street. They pulled a cordon across the road, preventing access to Moorgate station. Onlookers were told to go back and then they saw me up on the highwalk, chatting on a mobile, and even motioned at me to retreat.