With friends like these...

Isn't it lovely. One riot breaks out to protest against something and the next three days are spent with groups of organised idiots who take advantage of the chaos to break into shops and set cars on fire. I'm sure this kind of thing has happened before but I can't put my finger on when it was. Thankfully, where I live is a pretty small and apathetic town of 43000 people and there's not much in our shops worth stealing, so we've not been affected.

Yet.

It's moved up to Manchester, or so I hear, which is fifteen miles from me, as well as Warrington, which is ten miles the other way. Cars where my dad lives (Reading) have been set on fire and the restaurant where a friend took me when I went to stay with him in London has been looted and set alight.

You would think, with all of these arrests, that there would be hundreds of people to do community service, but I'll be betting they'll all be fined and/or jailed. So guess who gets to clear up the mess. Where does the money come from? Tax payers. I'm not one myself, so you'll have to pardon my slightly-less-than-righteous indignation but my parents are, and we're not exactly rolling in money as it is without the taxes that they pay going to waste on some moronic vandal's idea of a good time.

I need a sodding cuppa.