Student protests, round 2, 24 November
Ding dong! Round two of the student fees demos. Like many sequels, this one had essentially the same plot as the original, but a bigger budget and better special effects.
Last time out, a few protestors had kicked in the windows of an office block and the police had been criticised for their response. Just what the logic is of criticising the police I'm not sure, as I can't recall seeing a copper booting the crap out of a window. Possibly the criticism was that the police should have done more to stop the violence. What more could be done was not specified, but the sort of people who usually call for a tougher response tend to have lots of books about the war, own shares in a company that makes water cannons and have theories about the dispersal of crowds based on news footage of protestors taking a beating by coppers in some brutal regime.
The protesters' tactics had changed though. Previously, they had been kettled. This is a term the police use for surrounding a group of protesters' and keeping then together in one place for a few hours. Normally this is done in the street or a square rather than, say, a rather nice coffee shop or indeed anywhere with adequate toilet and snack facilities and the idea is that not only does it remind the mob that they can protest for as long as they want, as long as they do it in a side street where they don't cause any disruption, it also provides much needed overtime for the Met in the run up to Christmas.
To avoid tea potting, or whatever, the protestors broke up into small groups and rushed around the centre of London, like some sort of militant tour group.
This is not at all how schoolchildren should behave when out in public. They should form a long crocodile, and hold hands. If you are a boy walking next to a boy you don't hold hands properly but rather simply touch a single finger, because you are not whoopsies. If you are a boy walking next to a girl you hold hands with even less contact, because you don't want to be known as the sort of boy who likes girls; mysterious creatures who are a well known source of trouble and, probably, warts. Or you hold hands properly, all the time experiencing a rushing, gushing sensation in your tummy that signals a cauldron of hormones about to come to the boil. Then you go to the Science Museum.
These students had not come to London on a coach to further their education, unless they were drama students practicing their rushing about for their upcoming production of the farce ‘oops vicar is that your cock?’.
My nephew is entering his teens and hence is developing an interest in current affairs, partly because he wants to have a greater understanding of the world around him, partly because he wants to act more grown up than his brothers and this requires sitting at the grown ups table which in turn requires knowing who the government are so you can understand all the moaning being done, but mostly because it makes radio four comedy shows interesting and they are the best places to hear the word 'knob' spoken aloud by an adult before the watershed.
He has also picked up on his parents starting to say the word 'university' not with hopeful expectation but rather with a sense of gloom of a couple who are going to have to sell a kidney to finance the further education of their offspring.
As a result, he took to chanting 'no ifs, no buts, no education cuts' for the afternoon. After fifteen minutes of this I felt like reaching for the CS gas, so it's understandable if the coppers want to do some kettling, tea bagging or whatever it is when confronted by an unruly mob doing same.
Last time out, a few protestors had kicked in the windows of an office block and the police had been criticised for their response. Just what the logic is of criticising the police I'm not sure, as I can't recall seeing a copper booting the crap out of a window. Possibly the criticism was that the police should have done more to stop the violence. What more could be done was not specified, but the sort of people who usually call for a tougher response tend to have lots of books about the war, own shares in a company that makes water cannons and have theories about the dispersal of crowds based on news footage of protestors taking a beating by coppers in some brutal regime.
The protesters' tactics had changed though. Previously, they had been kettled. This is a term the police use for surrounding a group of protesters' and keeping then together in one place for a few hours. Normally this is done in the street or a square rather than, say, a rather nice coffee shop or indeed anywhere with adequate toilet and snack facilities and the idea is that not only does it remind the mob that they can protest for as long as they want, as long as they do it in a side street where they don't cause any disruption, it also provides much needed overtime for the Met in the run up to Christmas.
To avoid tea potting, or whatever, the protestors broke up into small groups and rushed around the centre of London, like some sort of militant tour group.
This is not at all how schoolchildren should behave when out in public. They should form a long crocodile, and hold hands. If you are a boy walking next to a boy you don't hold hands properly but rather simply touch a single finger, because you are not whoopsies. If you are a boy walking next to a girl you hold hands with even less contact, because you don't want to be known as the sort of boy who likes girls; mysterious creatures who are a well known source of trouble and, probably, warts. Or you hold hands properly, all the time experiencing a rushing, gushing sensation in your tummy that signals a cauldron of hormones about to come to the boil. Then you go to the Science Museum.
These students had not come to London on a coach to further their education, unless they were drama students practicing their rushing about for their upcoming production of the farce ‘oops vicar is that your cock?’.
My nephew is entering his teens and hence is developing an interest in current affairs, partly because he wants to have a greater understanding of the world around him, partly because he wants to act more grown up than his brothers and this requires sitting at the grown ups table which in turn requires knowing who the government are so you can understand all the moaning being done, but mostly because it makes radio four comedy shows interesting and they are the best places to hear the word 'knob' spoken aloud by an adult before the watershed.
He has also picked up on his parents starting to say the word 'university' not with hopeful expectation but rather with a sense of gloom of a couple who are going to have to sell a kidney to finance the further education of their offspring.
As a result, he took to chanting 'no ifs, no buts, no education cuts' for the afternoon. After fifteen minutes of this I felt like reaching for the CS gas, so it's understandable if the coppers want to do some kettling, tea bagging or whatever it is when confronted by an unruly mob doing same.
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