And it makes you laugh and it makes you cry, when London falls and you're still alive

So, last week I posted a rather long rant and carefully assembled ribbing of the fact that we're hosting the Olympics in London in a year and haven't got enough transport for the people coming to watch the sports as well as the people who actually live there. The solution that Transport for London suggested was for a set percentage commuters to stop using the Tube for three weeks and work from home. Which, of course, has so far been ridiculed. Now, though, it shouldn't be a problem. There aren't going to be anywhere near as many people wanting to attend the games after all, if any. And that's because of the panic in the streets as hooded youths jump on the back of a protest that went sour on Saturday and decide to do a bit of looting and pillaging instead of having a kick about.

The current state of damage in London looks like this-

with the widespread and untold spats included.

Whoever put this map together deserves credit, especially given the amount of sites not reported by the BBC, Sky or the local police to that borough.

Without getting into it in depth, or taking political sides in this eternal Conservative/ Labour war with frankly entrenched bigots on either side, I will say this. There is something very, very wrong with this country. It's undeniable, and for the first time we're seeing truly mindless violence and looting seemingly because kids are off school, bored and in want of something to do. There isn't even a remote connection now to the trouble that started in Tottenham, except that the pictures mirror each other. And with word coming in twenty minutes ago from Merseyside Police to officially confirm that there are mimics in Liverpool, as has been broadcast by people speaking over Twitter and Facebook for at least an hour, it's going national.

How many cities are going to fall under the bored teens' greed and hormone-induced, adolescent bravado being whipped into a mob mindset? Birmingham's had it, London has clearly had it more widespread than the official lines admit, Liverpool... Where next? A little hop from Liverpool to Manchester? Then Leeds? Newcastle, Southampton, Preston? Maybe filtering down to towns like Milton Keynes and Luton?

Having been at Millbank when the few turned a peaceful protest into a seige of an empty building, endangering themselves, the peaceful and police, I saw hesitant coppers. Having seen footage, more than the TV channels put out, of the G20 and other protests turned into media-styled violent mobs, I've seen the cruel and the disproportionate in police response. Here, though, they seem almost powerless. They are standing, for the most part, stretched and cowed, emasculated as an unrespected authority. To hell with it. Give them army backing, get water cannons to go in and instead of "facing off" by just standing in a line as a warning, just cut loose on these jumped up thugs in kids' bodies. The G20 action may have been cruel punishment, the student protest perhaps hesitant, but in the face of all this deliberate, organised "anarchy" that these people have jerry-rigged and tacked onto the conveniently-forgotten-as-commercial-and-capitalist aspect of getting the best Reeboks out of Footlocker, the authority response has to be swift and punishing. Punch them in the chest with the water cannon, charge the runners down on horseback, make the people who think the only response is going to be a few CCTV blurs a la Crimewatch being aired at six really fear and respect police, their neighbours and society again.

I cannot sum it up better than Reid Wason, a guy I know from university. He simply put this as his Facebook status; "rant time: there's nothing good in this, not the rioters, not the deprivation they come from, not the police failures that started it in Tottenham, not the government failures that have lead us to be unable to control this, not the media blackout of Newham and anything Olympic, everything involved is fucked up and answers are complicated. just keep safe everyone."

Something very wrong.