London Riots

[Zarjazzer]

I have no desire to live in a Mad Max style failed state thanks.

No ambition, that's your problem.  Myself, I have my Lord Humongous costume in the wardrobe, and some wicked spikes all ready for the bonnet of my Fiesta.  If the collapse of civilisation is what it takes to bring studded codpieces and saxophone solos back to the mainstream, I say let the heavens fall.

Does your costume  have bare ass chaps? To be a real post apocalypse barbarian you gotta have bare ass chaps.

Anyway beware the rumor mill for I was sent home early at the behest of text messages/rumours etc claiming the Orcs were just over the hills but nuffink thank goodness.

Can't say I've really got an answer but the looters must be stopped and order returned to the streets before we can assess what the hell's gone wrong. Trouble is you bring your own views to this whatever people might claim...I think it's not simply a case of "bad" policing/lack of education in a bad society but ultimately bad people.

See? There I go again...

[Dark Jimbo]

I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted that there are folks from the board, which I always thought was a bastion of common sense on the internet, falling over themselves to make excuses for this mob of thugs and their frankly shameful and inexcuseable behaviour.

It's fair to say I've lost respect for a couple of people.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

get the troops on the streets

No. In my experience, it takes about thirty years to get them off again.

Spot on.

At the risk of sounding like a horrible person, watching the news has been filling me with perverse, uncomfortable nostalgia.

I think those people who are organising clean-ups on social media sites are brilliant and have been largely ignored in todays coverage. The way those people have chosen to deal with the situation is do be admired.

[mogzilla]

it makes me laugh when all these "right on" treehugging organic tofu types* are calling the rioters "young people" and disenfranchised ,yep there are problems in our green and pleasent land but the main source i belive of this trouble is the gang culture that has swamped the uk the hate/kill the police attitude that has used the excuse of the police shooting an armed man to kick off in the same way there was a lot of hero worship for raoul moat ...i really think its a matter of time before we hear of deaths as there has already been a much publicesd pic of a woman leaping for her life from a burning building.

and i hardly think troops on our streets to aid a police force in "civil unrest" can be compared to a war with an organised terrorist group.






*apologies to any tree hugging organic tofu types on here ...i'm generalising    

[Dandontdare]

Manchester city centre's a bit insane - everything shut down and I turned one corner near Piccadilly gardens to find a couple of hundred hoodies running towards me. I got the hell out of there PDQ. One shop on fire and apparently more aggro in Salford precinct.

Amidst all this one thing did make me smile though - a sign in a Tesco that said "THIS STORE IS CLOSED - WE APOLOGISE FOR ANY INCONTINENCE CAUSED"

[mogzilla]

take care fella.

[Dandontdare]

I'm in now and not going back out there!

[The Legendary Shark]

I don't think I'm apologising for anyone's behaviour, I'm just trying to understand it. Yes, looting and rioting and arson are not the best uses to which human beings can be put, but there are worse. To look at the looting and arson and shaking your head and condemning it is all very well, but just leaving it at that is lazy and counter productive. I suppose it's human nature to dwell on the acts and the people who undertake them because that's the bit that's visible. That's the inflammation, not the infection.

I don't apologise for anyone's behaviour except my own (and then only rarely) and I know that what's happening is frightening a lot of people, endangering a lot of people and causing actual damage. I can't change that, I wish I could but I can't. So I try to understand it because then maybe, just maybe, if the same thing starts to happen around here I might just have a chance of talking some of my neighbours out of it - or into it. When all said and done, though, human beings will do what human beings do. Sometimes that means building a bridge and sometimes it means tearing the place apart.

Offering possible reasons for behaviour is a far cry from condoning said behaviour, but failing to condemn is not condoning either. It's too easy to fall into the trap of not thinking of rioters or protesters or looters or arsonists or politicians or whoever as actual complex human beings with every bit as much relative decency, honour, humour, needs, strengths and weaknesses as anyone else. We dehumanise people by labelling them as idiots, cretins, looters, scumbags and so on because then it's easy to condemn them for who they are alone without considering all the possible personal and social factors. There are more than enough people willing to condemn others, I don't need to add my voice to theirs. If that causes some people to lose respect for me then good, because that's the kind of respect I can live without (and only a muppet would respect a tosser like me in the first place).

The most important part in all this isn't the property, it's the people. I don't care who is involved, either directly or indirectly, I don't want anyone to get hurt. Beyond that, I'd like to see us starting to build a better society for us all. I think I've said it before, but all I want is a decent life for everyone - no exceptions, no compromises.

[The Legendary Shark]

Stay safe, DDD.

And everyone in the shadow of this.

[Zarjazzer]

keep safe Dandontdare. You have faced the Hydra and lived and kept your sense of humour!

[Hoagy]

Can anyone see that? This is the man responsible;

http://www.lalimey.com/index.html

[klute]

I'm in now and not going back out there!

Yeah stay safe DDD.

With some organisation and luck maybe just made this will be nipped in the bud asap i'd like to think the book will be thrown at these people BUT as i have said countless times before the law just doesnt seem to be on the side of the law abiding citizen.

It's times like this im pleased i live where i do yet find myself saying to the wife lets sell the house and move abroad...but why should we, we love not only where we live but this country and all of the good things that go with being an honest person in society.

Yet there are the things we see in day to day life that make us think what the hell is happening in our fair country and im reminded that i could be starving to death in somewhere like africa with 5 dead kids and another one on the way out. there are plenty of places in the world like that.

I think sometimes people tend to forget how good we have it in the country even some of the less fortunate amongst out society are better off than some people in our small planet.

I want to see a perfect world....will it happen no but we can give it a good try and before we look at other country's messes and try to fix them we should be looking at home first there's plenty to be doing here.

[Beeks]

Just seen footage of Forbidden Planet on Oldham St Manchester with it's windows smashed in

[JOE SOAP]

I have to say I'm pretty flabbergasted that there are folks from the board, which I always thought was a bastion of common sense on the internet, falling over themselves to make excuses for this mob of thugs and their frankly shameful and inexcuseable behaviour.

It's fair to say I've lost respect for a couple of people.

No excuse for mindless thuggery but spontaneous mass violence doesn't explode on such a scale for no reason. Organised violence usually needs a leader of some kind, this isn't it and there's none so the reasons are partially due to circumstance, culture and individual male stupidity...and it won't last. People either die or get sense.

[vzzbux]

It's got nothing to do with being poor.
As a kid we were threadbare, I can even remember our mum bundling us up stairs on a friday evening and telling us to keep quite so the debt collectors couldn't hear us.
I didn't go out rioting and looting or being abusive to the emergency services. I got off my arse and made sure my life worked out so my family never go without.
I live in a deprived area and see workshy layabouts around all the time with no intent of getting a job, taking their kids to school with a can of special brew in one hand and blackberry in the other (maybe a couple of rocks to sell to the addicts in their pockets), yet they are the first ones to claim the immigrants are stealing all the jobs, you can see the cycle happening with their kids as with their parents.
If it kicks off in Leicester ([spoiler]Saturday is the word on the street[/spoiler]) then these are the scum that will be there. Lazy good for nothing shit bags who blame everyone else but themselves.





V