And...Breathe

The Power Of Social

2011-08-11T17:14:00.002+01:00

"The streets of the UK are under siege" ...... "London's Burning" .......

"Anarchy in the UK"

The last five nights have seen scenes of rioting, disorder, and general fuck-wittery amongst the inarticulate sub-classes of this beautiful country of ours. You know the ones. They use words like "innit", "blud", and refer to their fellow rioters as their "fam".

The UK Parliament is in recess, which means that our Prime Minister, David Cameron, and his fall-guy deputy, Nick Clegg were off on their holidays. Fair play I suppose - everyone needs a holiday. However, we had THREE nights of extreme violence before they returned home looking all angry and full of words like "you will feel the full force of the law". IF they'd felt the full force of the law on the first night, nights two, three and four might not have happened.

The Cobra committee met and authorised the use of rubber bullets as well as increasing the number of officers on the streets of London from 6,000 (night three), to 16,000 (night four).The actions taken by Cobra do seem to have done the trick in London with the number of incidents reducing considerably on night four, and further still on night five.

However, starting on night three, other parts of the UK are having smaller scale sympathy riots. Except they're not sympathy riots - the sub-classes of Wolverhampton, Bristol, Manchester, Birmingham and my home city of Liverpool, are simply using the events in London as an excuse. They've picked up on how much looting has taken place in London over the last few nights, and whereas London's fury was vented towards the police, at the other "venues" across the UK, the looting seems to be the primary focus, with the occasional attack on emergency service vehicles just for effect.

Being a news whore, I've been glued to BBC News and Sky News, sometimes both at the same time, so as to ensure I didn't miss a trick. They were mostly focussed on goings on in London, which meant that news about Manchester and Liverpool was at best sketchy. I quickly discovered THE best outlet for real time news on what was happening. Twitter. The twitter accounts of the emergency services in Lancashire, Merseyside, Cheshire and Greater Manchester were invaluable. Even the transport police and North Wales have been getting in on the act.

During the evening of night four, the rumours about places in and around Wigan and Skelmersdale getting attacked and destroyed by rioters were amazing. Reading the public twitter feed was enough to put the fear of Jesus in to you. However, keeping an eye on the official emergency service twitter accounts meant that you were able to keep in touch with what was actually happening.

So, social media - be it a Facebook groups, Tweets, or broadcasts on Blackberry Messenger, were apportioned blame by the tv and radio media outlets for aiding the rapid spread of violence and destruction that took place. However, the emergency services using social media have demonstrated how easy it is to provide quick, clear and concise information to the masses can be conveyed when it needs to be. Two sides of the coin - both achieving the same goal of getting information to people quickly.

Social media is a tremendously powerful tool and I suspect that this might the first time that the authorities were caught on the back foot by it. But I'm certain it won't be the last.

For those of you that tweet, I have created a list of North West Emergency Services. You are welcome to follow the list if you so wish. It contains the official twitter accounts of all the North West Police forces, as well as Fire and Ambulance services and the odd "top cop" or two from across the region.

The Drugs Don't Work

2011-07-24T06:35:00.007+01:00

The past 48 hours have seen a great deal of death across the globe.

That sentence alone has made me stop and think. The famine in Africa is a "given", and that is sad - but it is just accepted by the majority. Band Aid / Live Aid / Sport Aid during the 80's doesn't seem to have worked. Still - my 6 DVD box set of Live Aid is a cracking watch.

There have been 7 people killed by a bomb Oslo. The headcase bomber then went to what appears to be a beautiful island and massacred 85 people, injuring many more. Spin the globe clockwise a bit, and in China, two high speed trains were in a collision in which 33 people were killed and another 190 injured. Spin the globe round a bit more until you get to Texas and you will find another 5 people dead and 3 more injured because of another headcase.

Whilst all of these stories are getting news coverage, the "big" news is that of the passing away of Amy Winehouse, serial drug-taker, alcohol imbiber and singer of the occasional song. IF she didn't sing, she would have been condemned as yet another drug taker. But - she did sing, and when she put her mind to it, she was very very good. So - the alcohol and drug abuse takes a back seat to her talent, and she is now being hero worshipped as a "lost" soul. A gifted individual who lost her way, and was tortured by her demons.

So, to the hundreds of thousands of other drug abusers across the length and breadth of the country - there is a lesson for you. Sing a song. Be good at it, and it will kill 2 birds with one stone. You will be paid for being a good singer, which means you can buy the drugs that your body has become dependent upon. You WILL die, but at least it'll be a bit quicker than it might have been if you weren't a good singer. Oh - and the nation will have an outpouring of grief for you.

Thinking about it - maybe the reverse applies, too. If you are a good singer but your career's going nowhere - snort as much cocaine as you are able to stand.

"The public" love a hero, and for reasons that I can't grasp - they love a hero more if he or she is addicted to something. Proper weird.

Jimi Hendrix - Jim Morrison - Elvis Presley - Janis Joplin - Sid Vicious - Keith Moon - Kurt Cobain - Brian Jones - Amy Winehouse. Their death's were all caused by drugs. If not an overdose, then the fact that the drugs causing an altering of the state of their mind played a bloody big part in their demise. I'm sure there are many more that I've missed.- see this Wikipedia article for more information on what is known as "27 Club". So - Wigan's own lyrical master, Richard Ashcroft, really did hit the nail on the head when he said "the drugs don't work".

The people in Norway, China and America who have been massacred, killed or injured, my heart goes out to them. As for an out of control alcoholic druggie? It is very sad for her family, friends and fans, but - it was always going to happen.

Racist Attack - Or Just Bullying?

2011-07-03T12:14:00.004+01:00

I read a news story today, the headline of which was "Liverpool men wanted over racist attack in Wigan". Here is a link to the story.

I read it, and wanted to pick up the writers (most likely Greater Manchester Police) over a couple of points.

Firstly, they suggest that because the offenders spoke with scouse accents, they are not from the Wigan area. Are there no scousers living in Wigan? I dare say that there are. As well as cockneys, brummies, and the odd one from Bolton. Isn't it shocking that in this day and age you can live anywhere, no matter what your accent. What complete lunacy on the part of Greater Manchester Police.

My second point is with regard to the headline. The offence has been described as a "racist attack". The victim was stood at a bus stop as a scouse man walked past. The scouse man made a racist remark before walking off. Now - (not that it is mitigating in any way, but...) I'd be very surprised if the victim hadn't responded in some way to this racist remark. Also, do people really walk randomly shouting racist remarks? They might - I don't know. I digress.

The scouse man returned with a scouse friend, and between them, they punched him a few times, demanded money, and eventually left with his phone. Obviously, not a good state of affairs by anyone's measure. However - I don't think you can categorise this as a racist attack until you know the motives of the offenders. Surely they are the only ones who know WHY they did it. Was he stood at the bus stop tapping away on his shiny new iPhone4, and they thought "hello - i'm having that". OR - did they see a black man / asian man / polish man (delete as applicable), and think "hello - i'm going to punch him in the face and take whatever i can from him"?

Isn't it just bullying? Might it now be the case that the first scouse man saw someone at the bus stop and thought - I'm going to pick on you. If the man at the bus stop was white with ginger hair - would this story have made the news? Probably, but it would not have attracted the same readership - that's for sure. Obviously, I don't know all the facts of this case, but from what I have read, I don't see how it's any different if the victim was ginger.

Ginger people get called names, and bullied all the time - because they are a minority. Bullies don't bully someone who is part of a majority. I am suggesting this because I think racist attacks are one of the crimes that the police are particularly keen to crack down on at the moment, what with targets and all that.

The police have CCTV images of the two scouse offenders and there is a fair chance that they will - eventually - catch up with them. So - rather than categorise this attack as a random act of bullying, or a common or garden mugging, why not call it a racist attack and that way when you catch the lads, it's a big green tick in the box.