A couple of you have written in to ask me about the rioting in London over the last few nights. The first bit of this footage takes place about 10 minutes walk from my house, and literally on MCP's doorstep. The second section is down the street from R&E's place. Looting got a bit nearer the next day, but after the appliance store had been cleaned out there was nothing left worth stealing so the running battles moved back down to Hackney central.
More Soon
SBW
EDIT PS
Two bits of reportage that I thought were worth repeating, the first a call to arms from some of the 'yoovz' purportedly taken from Blackberry Messaging:
"If you're down for making money, we're about to go hard in east london tonight, yes tonight!! I don't care what ends you're from, we're personally inviting you to come and get it in. Police have taken the piss for too long and to be honest I don't know why its taken so long for us make this happen. We need a minimum of 200 hungry people. We're not broke, but who says no to free stuff. Doesn't matter if the police arrive cos we'll just chase dem out because as you've seen on the news, they are NOT ON DIS TING. Everyone meet at 7 at stratford park and let's get rich."
And from the excellent psychology blog MindHacks, some coverage that looks a little deeper than the tedious knee jerk reactions we've all read elsewhere.
'In the coming weeks we can expect to see politicians and pundits lining up to give us their smash-and-grab clichés for the recent urban riots in the UK. They’ll undoubtedly give a warm welcome to our old friends economic decay, disengaged youth and opportunistic crime, and those of a more psychological persuasion might name drop ‘deindividuation’ – the process where we supposedly lose self-awareness and responsibility in large crowds.This belies the fact that we crowd behaviour is a complex area that is surprisingly poorly researched. READ MORE HERE interesting stuff.
6 comments:
Thanks for the update. The headline was "Britain burns as Unrest spreads", and I was just checking in to see how you are doing. Glad to hear you're okay. I imagine it's been a little scary.
Stay safe ;).
Wendy
Thanks for your concern, I'm fine.
SBW
I remember seeing an antique sigh once that said "Boys who hunt and fish don't mug old ladies..." or something to that effect.
I imagine looting and rioting could possibly be added to the list.
Hodge
These kids are so afraid, they'd be scared to sit on the grass in a park.
The only measure of personal worth they have is what they've got, and their role models are the local hoodlums. Sad really.
SBW
We did this in 1940. It is frustrating that we cannot do anything now except send "best wishes."
Chas
If you want to help, I know I said 'Sold as seen no refunds' but it appears we would now be prepared to take Piers Morgan back, please deliver bound and gagged (especially gagged) to HMP Bellmarsh.
SBW
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