A rant

[Mer]

So while I'm waiting for some sort of patch to download, I'm finally doing what i've avoided since Saturday: watch the news.
You see, the first time I visited London was in 1994 and I fell in love with the place. I stayed with a family near Wembley Stadium, visited the National Gallery, the Science Museum, Harrods, Piccadilly Circus and Covent Garden, saw the musical Cats, had a picnic on the banks of the Thames and declared I would one day live in that city. In 2006, Merman and I moved to the UK, Wandsworth to be precise. My school-taught Queen's English accent with a hint of American from the telly evolved into a proper Sarf London twang. I worked in Wandsworth and later Waterloo, met a bunch of fantastic people, adopted Londoner-style tube traveling ("Feckin' tourists! Stand on the right!!") and was devastated when it became clear that for health reasons, we had to get out of the admittedly foul city air.
I've lived in Kent for a while now and really enjoy it here, but the longing to move back to London is still there.

The city I love is being torched and looted by a bunch of hooligans who abuse a tragic event to steal and vandalise. The images of buildings on fire and disaster tourists laughingly taking pictures make me sick to my stomach. However one feels about the politics behind CCTV, random stop-and-searches and alledged police violence, there can be no justification for destroying other people's property. The chain stores that were ransacked provide jobs to scores of people in the areas affected. The independent shops that were looted often aren't insured against this kind of damage. Many people have their homes above those shops. Thankfully, our friends in Wood Green are safe, but my heart goes out to the people affected by this lunacy.

Simon from The Big Green Bookshop wrote an excellent post about it here: http://woodgreenbookshop.blogspot.com/2011/08/north-london-looting.html

The hooligans are shitting their own doorstep here and it pisses me off.

K. Rant over. For now.

[Feignheart]

I cannot express my anger of this. With the riots raging on my very own doorstep.

It's physically making me sick!

[Mer]

And now there's rioting in Birmingham, Bristol and other cities. Fires all over London.

[Faustulus]

I admit I don't know much about the riots but it seems to as bad as the riots in Paris back in 2005. Pretty idiotic thing to do, they're only hurting their own communities.

[Gwenny]

I do agree very strongly with this rant, it is just insane what these people do and this is not turning on the administration, it's simply criminal what they do to the people living there.