During the last week, you would be forgiven in thinking that the world had gone mad. Well, madder anyway. This time last week, parts of London and other cities in the UK were subjected to the type of street violence not seen Jeremy Clarkson made a joke about Mexicans.

Balls.

At the time, I was out of the country and had only heard minor mentions in passing stating that something was going on in London town, but to what extent, it was not certain. It was only after landing back in Stansted Airport late in the evening, as a number of people awaited the National Express back to merry old London, that things were made clearer by the staff working there.

No-one was travelling to the East End, and a limited service seemed to be operating back to Victoria Coach Station, but exactly what was happening was still a mystery. Upon arriving at Victoria, something unheard of in London awaited to greet us. No taxis, and one bus. It was only for taking a chance with a couple of Indian gentlemen who heading back out west in their van, that I was able to make it back for some rest from the bumpy plane journey.

Turning on the news unleashed the full horror of what was happening.

London was literally burning, and it was hard to actually understand why. It seemed that all sense had left us and in the morning, we’d all be hanging out with Mad Max in the Thunderdome, hoping that Tina Turner didn’t want us killed. A further investigation didn’t yield anything further in terms of the real reason as why a fancy dress shop in Clapham was a target of the mob’s wrath but here’s the cut-down jist of it.

It all started apparently from a police shooting of one Mark Duggan in Tottenham, who the news did at least state on no less than 3000 occasions, was a father of 4, when the chap was in police custody on Thursday 4th August after the boys in various colours (hoping not to offend anyone in being multi-coloured as per current police guidelines when dealing with the public) went ello ello ello at a car in which he was a passenger.

On Saturday, a protest march started out peacefully about the police’s actions, which at some point probably while everyone had sandwiches and some ginger beer, somehow erupted into full scale rioting, leading to Tottenham, a wonderful dump in the north of London, pretty much all on fire, cars, homes and shops decided to join in with the fun of being set alight, and pretty much you could have walked around with a loaf of bread in your arm, and it would have turned to toast by the time you got home. It was a scene of total carnage.

Even more balls.

On the bright side, Tottenham looked pretty much the same before it started.

The rioting over the course of the next 48 hours, moved around areas of London, with Hackney, Croydon, Ealing and Clapham all feeling the wrath of people who wanted to strike fear into the hearts of anyone caught outside and around when it all took place. The police were unable to cope at all with what was going on, and despite their best efforts, were losing the battle.

This video was used as an example of what kind of people the authorities were dealing with;

As Captain David Cameron, of the Pirates of the Coalition came back from his secret underground lair, to take charge at meetings of COBRA (Hang on, aren’t they the bad guys from the G.I. Joe cartoons?), and basically take police from everywhere else in the country to ensure that London remained peaceful, the same riots started in the West Midlands, where there was tragic loss of life in a hit and run incident, to Salford and Manchester, suggesting that pretty much everyone knew all the police were in London and decided to go on a little trip to see the sights and then burn them.

In a show of amazing goodwill, hundreds of volunteers organised themselves using Twitter and Facebook, and took to the streets in order to clean up the mess left by those who clearly thought they could do anything they well pleased.

Which for a time, that was exactly the case, as there were many instances of the police, not being able to deal with the pace and different locations of destruction at the same time, and also having to protect the fire crews putting out the flames, had to leave various people to fend for themselves. This was something of much heated arguments thrown at the politicians from the public, who had all returned after 3 days of the riots taking place to show that they had to care for a change, with Parliament being recalled for one day to discuss the rioting and what actions would follow.

In the aftermath, a great many questions were asked about pretty much everything under the Sun (for once, not the newspaper), and the number one thing was what to blame this all on. Was Britain truly broken? Were video games to blame for this trouble (we’re not kidding, this old sh*t came out again as a reason)? Were the Pirates to blame for the wide ranging cuts to pretty much everything which lead to the events we all watched in twisted fascination on screens up and down the country? Did we forget about young people and not actually listen to what they wanted?

Even more balls than before.

Actually, watching the events on TV, it was clear what it was.

A bunch of useless c**ts who wanted to steal stuff.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the shooting of the father of 4, which it seems has now all but vanished from the news, mealy was an excuse for a huge number of it seems anyone who wanted to have a go, to go and get a new TV or phone. This was no protest, this had no point to make, it was just stealing. The worst part is, that it was not as first thought, just “young people” having a jolly good time. The past few days have shown convictions for a teaching assistant and a graphics designer, not exactly those with nothing to lose.

What was even more clear, was that this was planned and coordinated on a scale the likes of which we’ve not seen in this country and the police, did the best they could, as much as they were allowed to, given that they were stuck between a rock and a hard place when it came to taking action (see endless criticism of the police from everyone for how they reacted), which has caused our wonderful leaders to start getting things ready to start shutting down services such as Facebook and Blackberry Messenger, in the light people use it to plan such activities, at the same time walking into a murky quagmire of governments controlling media.

The dangers now of going overboard on legislation to “protect” us are ever more present, and the problem is, that there will always those who seek to bugger over others and there is very little people can do to stop that, in fact the exact same situation exists with terrorism, it could happen despite any precautions you take.

The events need to be carefully considered from all angles before just going off on one, clamping down on pretty much everything in sight, as basically that would also mean this country is a crappier place to live. Remember it’s not all bad here….sometimes…..probably.

We should also be heartened, that in fact people came together to help each other afterwards, which shows that even in cities from time to time, we can all drop our Ipods and see if we’re alright.

And to end this piece, it seems that given the actions of the mob, social justice would dictate that every single person who participated in the riots deserve to have their balls chopped off, or ladies parts sewn up. Could be wrong on that one, but would anyone disagree at this point?

Thought not.