Be Excellent To Each Other

What I'm getting from Twitter is that the world's biggest game of Chinese Whispers is going on. There's a hell of a lot of shit being outright made up and then repeated over and over again by the gullible. I've heard three times that the petrol station at the bottom of my road is on fire, for example. It isn't.

I know! I read that Cibrushsille is up in flames, too.

For sure shot or Twitter 'shot'?

From Graun live thingy on Clapham:



So, opportunistic gang members then.

Al jazerra and sky said it.

I'd be very surprised if every party doesn't suddenly start crying out for more police in its next manifesto.

Except the Anarchist Party, obv.

There's surprisingly little 'front line' chatter on twitter that I can see. Lots of rumours with no sources or confirmation (even more so than is usual).

My family declared that "they need to shut down twitter". Presumably not realising that I was using twitter at that very moment. I mean, honestly.

Pleasingly, over on FOX news, they ate calling each other names over reclassification over the USA's credit eating being downgraded for a second time.

I've survived 9 years ok. I expect it's really shit where you live too.

I'll give 5:1 odds that Cobra decides that London has a curfew tomorrow.

What to do with such an action, force it?

I hope that now this has started, it lasts exactly long enough to force a major shift in attitudes and a 50-plus year plan to restructure society in a decent way (and not one second longer) a la Germany post WWII

Beer companies have no say over that kind of thing.

You're going to hell for that.

I don't think this is being treated with the seriousness it deserves.

Curfews worked very well for Mubarak, if I recall correctly.

/
Damn right.

Supposed to be going on Thursday.

I thought they should shut down Twitter.

This was before the riots, btw.

A lot of the 'namechecks' where you read "now X has trouble" seems to be coming from the twitter accounts of your Griffin types. Don't even grace his page with a hit... and don't belive somewhere is alight until you can see a picture of it a trusted source can confirm.

Acting Commissioner = Godwin's Law!

Sorry.

I can't seem to get any news feeds to stream properly anymore, it's not the browser or my connection. They connect for a bit, then just stop dead. It's very annoying.

Likewise. Also, they've got shit all content, anyway.

I wish they'd stop burning down lovely architecture.

Sky and BBC fine here.

EDIt - ooh, no, BBc now just showing stuff from earlier today. Odd. Stephanie Flanders and then back to the archive.

I think it was the bloke who was shot in the foot. Last week.

It's fucking Chapeltown.

*Lays hand on shoulder * Forget it, throughsilver.

Right, off to bed. Dear London - try and still be there in the morning.

I used to go with a girl from Rawden.

AJE are normally a lot better. I'm lucky if I can get 30 seconds out of them on this. It's quite bizarre.

Jesus. I go away for a long weekend leaving DavPaz in charge, and somehow the entire country is in flames, anarchy reigns and the stick market is down n points?

Seriously, I've been in the far north, totally cut off from news and everything since Friday, so this is all a bit

Hope nobody here or loved ones are badly affected though, it all sounds rather scary

Are they stealing beds now?

Harlesden situation seems quite bad now, but twin2 walked home OK via very circuitous route. However, things seem to be rumbling nastily in lovely Neasden now. Ikea was shut early for fear someone might steak all of the lovely D'aim cake, but Harrow Road between Neasden and Kilburn seems to be quite tense.

Twin1 still stranded though.

We're all using petrol bombs now.

Dear Mimi, cakes are not vampires.

And now I want Daim cake. Fucking rioters.

That is spelled 'stake', fool. Don't take the mickey out of my spellcheck errors if you can't spell yourself.

Shut up, that's why.

Sep 03, 2009 "RT @muskhalili: 100s of turkish men chasing a group of young black men down kingsland rd #hackney incredible scene"

"Kingsland Road chaotic as Turkish men attack other, predominantly black, youths with sticks, metal barricades and bricks"

I always have to have the internal debate about her, but the conclusion is always 'would'... even if she's had Balls AND Miliband in the nineties.

/edit you know, on reflection I suppose Balls would be quite a sporting chap to have at the other end in a spitroast.

Used this crisis to cynically post my 'Police Geniality' photo on Facebook for attention. Now I have received twenty (count 'em!) hits. But I feel somehow dirty.

Also Ms Flanders - also would.

Ken Livingstone - nailing it right now on News 24.

'My first instinct is to ask why is it happening?'

Imagine it! A private eye uncovering the dirty underbelly of west Yorkshire. The unchecked growth of Greggs and pound lands on the highstreet: is there something more sinister afoot?

Seriously?

Livingstone is using this as a campaign tool and is despicable because of that.

Is it just me, or is all the footage on all the outlets (even AJE) just the same pictures of one or two burning buildings?

We're being told everywhere that there are looters and rioters and clashes, and they just had one guy on the phone with an audible ruck in the background. But there's been absolutely no footage of actual rioting for hours. When I think "riot", I kind of think, y'know, rioters. I can't see any.

Very strange, no new footage for at least an hour...

Stupid sexy Flanders!

"You see Mr Findus most people never have to face the fact that with the right hot pastry and the right discount hairbrush they're capable of... anything!"

Yeah he's a proper old lefty and a bit of an arse at times, but Boris is a toff cunt who should stick to HIGNFY and quite frankly the question has to be asked why he and the PM have only now decided to cut their holidays short and come back to the UK, so I think he was quite right to get it in there.

There was some electioneering by Ken but his basic points were sound.

You can only crush the working classes and the poor and the total 'no-hopers' so much, sooner or later they're going to kick back, when the disparity between the haves and the have-nots gets so great it simply can't be ignored. Saying 'they have mobile phones and nice trainers' completely misses the point, trinkets and items ultimately mean little to human beings, we are nourished by the prospects of our lives, the promise of education and bettering ourselves, our families and friends, the hope of making progress.

When hundreds of thousands if not millions of people are systematically denied that, sooner or later the shit is going to hit the fan.