Wednesday 10 August 2011

Rant


Times like these draw me up and bring me to a halt - at the same time as giving me a kick up the arse and sending me into action - if action it can be called.

I have been behaving like a retired person, but since I did not join a merchant bank or the ranks of army officers graduating from Sandhurst about 40 years ago, I am not - nor will I ever be - a 'retired person'.

In any case, what would I do? Sit back and wait for death, or just carry on like I have always done - half-arsed and lack-lustre?

For any non-Brits reading this, bear in mind that the British media have, for once, got it right when reporting on the riots and looting going on in most of our cities right now. They are plain, unadulterated, 100% just that - looting. Nothing political, nothing socially minded (just the opposite) just pure, greedy looting by a bunch of young shits who have no fear of authority, and no respect for their own communities. When they broke into shops in New Orleans after Katrina, they were looking for FOOD, and I would have done the same. This bunch are looking for designer clothing and electronic, luxury items.

Yesterday, rather than grabbing hold of a couple of youths who drove into my car-park and giving them the kicking they deserved in advance of their predicted anti-social behaviour, I politely asked them to take away the plastic bottle they had thrown onto the ground, because it is ME who clears the yard up, and they said they would. They did.

Then, they roared off with wheels spinning and threw the bottle out of the window of the car as they left. I was already in my car, and so I started the engine and set off in hot perseuit - too much in a hurry to be able to spell the word even. I knew that I was not going to do anything to them, I just wanted to scare the shit out of them, and caught up with them about a mile down the little country road, having covered the distance at around 80-90 MPH.

At the weekend, my pub was invaded by a bunch of about fifteen, 30 to 40 year-old drunken louts, who started to take it over, throwing stuff around and scaring all the men behind the bar, until I had enough and went over to them to tell them to calm down or fuck off. They apologised and went quiet. That's all it took.

There is a different culture these days, which makes people think they can shoot red lights and almost run down pedestrians, and this is the mindset that these little shits have been brought up in that go around looting JUST BECAUSE THEY CAN.

Not in my back yard, if I have anything to do with it.

Rant over.

19 comments:

  1. The more of us that break the barrier of fear and stand up to these little, and indeed older, tossers the better. I've had a 'chat' before to a thug threatening other kids with an iron bar and had it out, reverting to best estuarine accent, with the druggy tossers who live next to Mum and Dad who thought it was all right to party every weekend. And it worked both times. I can now guarantee I'll get a peaceful night's sleep when I go back to my childhood home on a council estate in Essex tomorrow.

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  2. whatever the reason for the troubles.....lack of respect, a want it now mentality, no male role models, bad parenting, a sense of hopelessness and injustice
    it is the "little" people of this country that need to get together to say NO MORE
    this is not on...not acceptable.......not done......if that doesnt work...

    my money is on Tom

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  3. The local civilian cleaning parties that have been set up in the aftermath of the looting and rioting are the best thing. I am starting to hate the police more and more, but - in this case - taking matters into your own hands by setting an example is what David Cameron probably meant when he mindlessly coined the phrase, "Big Society". All of a sudden, it has meaning! Magic!

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  4. I'd like to smack the little twits!
    I listened to an interview with three young British women on CBC radio yesterday. They stated, quite categorically, that this 'were all the fault of the rich people", and that they were showing the police they could do exactly what they wanted.
    We have raised a generation of idiots.

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  5. Good for you Tom. It can be risky to stand up to these idiots. These punks need to be jailed and forced to make retribution. They haven;t a clue, or I suspect the brains to fight a real cause.

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  6. I'm glad you're standing up and not taking that loutish behaviour. More people need to do it.

    I'm seriously shaking my head and wondering how these rioters think. They are a sad reflection of what is happening to a part of our society. xx

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  7. While your actions were definitely praise worthy I hope you take care. A bunch of scum bags isn't worth getting your head caved in over.

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  8. brismod

    they think s things
    "I am angry"
    "I want things"

    what they feel?
    excitement

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  9. My German friend texted me today, saying that their government had wisely predicted the reaction against bailing out banks and Greece, etc., by allowing poor families a standard fee of 5 Euros to attend most concerts, art galleries and other cultural events. Too late for us to do the same - we would be accused of giving them a 'reward' for bad behaviour. Most of them already have wide-screen, plasma t.v.s anyway.

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  10. P.S. - I have run the risk of getting my head caved in since I was their age, Dolores. Most people are too cowardly to actually do it. It takes a true psycho to do a thing like that, and I have been - so far - pretty good at avoiding them.

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  11. Good for you Tom! Sometimes one voice of reason or an act of,
    'I'm not going to stand for this sh**'. Is what it takes. We are all one small step away from experiencing this. And they looted senselessly after Katrina too. Not everyone but the few that wanted to take advantage of a tragic event. Ann

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  12. Well said Tom; it's what EVERY non-hoodie-owning Brit is thinking.

    Did you hear the light muffled cheer go up over Britain when they showed film of some scroat being whacked by the fuzz? We could hear it from over here!

    re the plastic bottle: I had the exact same thing happen in Brighton. Fuckers!!!!!!!!!

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  13. I was stood in the high street the other day, wrestling with a huge large format camera that weighed a ton, when a group of 'youffs' sloped past.

    "Just take it", I heard one of them say.

    "Choose life", I replied, snarling.

    We could always start a 'grumpy old men' vigilante group!

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  14. Well done that person. I think we all need to act like this in that kind of situation. It's not as though they are the poor underclass - the more I read in the papers the more I realise that they are just in it for kicks. Three promising young men - two from the same family - run down for no reason. What dignity the father of one of them showed.

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  15. Good for you, Tom. Just thinking about it brings on the red mist. I'm all for wrist and ankle restraints and storing them all in an army van to be looked at later.

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  16. Re Chris' last comment ... just try being female at night on any street at a certain hour. Large format cameras don't come into THAT dynamic.

    Thanks for your post Tom. I was wondering how you and others were going. I don't have a tv but the radio makes for some pretty interesting listening here in Oz.

    The Radio National consensus is "It has become an attack against community, not against the police or class structures."
    Silly Fuckers. (thanks Cro)

    That said, the yobby silly fuckers will always take advantage of a climate of legitimate grievance - if it means getting to righteously glass a few folk.

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  17. Sarah, I HAVE tried being a female at night on a street at a certain hour!

    A strange looking chap in a Volvo tried to pick me up but my beard must have put him off...

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  18. Who was your beard Chris? Sarah Palin?

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  19. I think making a joke out of Sarah's comment suggests there are some silly fuckers on here too.

    I work in the middle of Nottingham and we came into work on Tuesday to find our front door smashed in.

    I'm not taking on anyone who's looting, rampaging or whatever. They killed some poor sod who was just trying to put out one of their fires.

    OK - I'll admit I'm a girlie and I'm scared.

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