Sometime in 1994, when I was ensconsed in a damp basement flat in Frognal, Hampstead, I had a narrow squeak with an IRA litter bin bomb outside Domino Pizza on the FInchley Road.
It was about 10.30pm and I decided to pop around the corner to the pizzeria for a late evening take- away pig out on a deep pan Hawian ham & pineapple job.
As I was putting on my coat the phone went - it was some old friend I hadn't heard from for years and who was passing through & wanted to call in for a chat. He was just up the road, so I put the coat back on the hook and waited for the doorbell.
Within two minutes BOOM! Like some huge nearby thunderclap, the building and windows shook. Wow, what was that? I thought. Fifteen minutes later my friend called, saying the place was swarming with police.
Next day all was clear. The explosion was one of three on the Finchley road. All small ( 4oz of semtex ) bombs on timers placed in three lampost-mounted bins along a 500M stretch of road. My local binned bomb was right adjacent the Domino Pizza whos front glass facade had been completely blown out. I undoubtably would have been caught up in the blast to one degree or other had my friend not phoned. The Provos later claimed responsibility.
Short of my friend actually being the bomber, this was one of only a handful of incidents in life where I can be sure that I had been "touched" or spared by some higher power making diversionary arrangements.
MSM
The hand of fate MSM?...During my job I have travelled, as have others, in many diseased and violent parts of Africa. I wasn't that worried because I felt that if my number came up then it wouldn't matter if I was sat at home playing Virtua Tennis, or in a room with a gang of armed men. Must have been scary all the same. You have cleary been set aside for higher things.. try the pepperoni next time!