(If you want to read my commentary on the thoughts behind this piece then click here)
broodboy: Same time next year yeah?
Meta_Lurgi: @GeneralCustard Do you mean out on the streets or here on Twitter?
Carly: Bring your broom tomorrow to clean up Clapham. The community to reclaim our streets from the thugs
GeneralCustard: It's a free for all. There's absolutely no control whatsoever
GeekChic: Flash mob rioting 2.0. This is the future folks!
sicpuppy: @eBaying4Blud Bravo dipshit, your ugly guilty mug now all over Twitter for the Police to identify you. You're going down
HoarseWhisperer: a building has just collapsed. I saw people jumping from it earlier. Just pray no one else was still in there?
eBaying4Blud: Electronic Booty @twitpic All offers?
EveHo: nuffink 2see here world jog on
TiddlyWink: To @skpollard Have you got home okay? Please just let me know
shabbashanks: Croydon's getting a facelift! Burn it down, can only look better that way
Under8: Police car on fire! BBQ pig!
VoyErr: I'm so frightened, I can hardly tweet straight
AJWheeler: Have just been threatened by a thug in a balaclava. it's really ugly out here. Don't know how I'm going to get home
BrapBrap: this aint no egg twitter mongs, its a molotov bomb an its coming your way
SkipJackTuner: <3 LOL and disorder
policeuk: Please RT to get @UK_blackberry to shut down #BBM till riots end #BlockBBM let's get it trending #LondonRiots
RTRT: RT fuzz are in full retreat! #Hackneyriot
RayLeeOtter: So apart from that Boris, how was the holiday? #LondonRiots #WhereisourMayor
RationList: If it's mindless to steal plasma tvs and smartphones, who emptied our minds with drooling over that shit in the first place?
smileyculture: we're all in this together right? U R now mothafuckas!!!!!!
SinNic: whatever can have possessed the dispossessed to take power for themselves?
R_Cane: Avoid Clapham Junction. It's a warzone
HighHeelDrifter: Why isn't there a curfew in place?
gangstar: U say were scum? What about police? Killed another innocent man. Shot him dead in his car
OscarBravo: we need the water cannons to clean this SCUM off our streets
QuantumAl: Stealing blackberries to organise riots to steal blackberries by...
FlimFlammable: That'll be the Wembley, Harlesden, Hammersmith posses. Window shopping now all the windows are kicked in
Trinny: What about Ealing? that's nothing to do with anything from the past. This isn't about deprivation or political protest
memememe: Why not? Nothing's changed since the last lot. Still Tottenham and Hackney gone up innit?
AliciaQ: I can't believe the police are letting it just happen
Nikos: I can't believe this is all happening. Again! #LondonRiots
CitizenSmith: Anyone looting in Tooting?
policeuk: incitement to riot is a serious criminal offence and carries heavy punishment tariffs
Gash: fancy me an upgrade on ma teevee. may roll down to ealing
topboy: keep the party going. keep getting more boys down and at it. They can't stop us. No police. No government. it's all ours for the taking
HistoryMan2.0: @StringVestTheory The Chavnots living the dream!
StringVestTheory: JD Sports? Truly this is the uprising of the Chavs
CarlSBerg: Broken Britain? it is now! #LondonRiots
RagandBone: #NottingHill shut your shops early and pull the shutters down. We're hearing rumours we're next #LondonRiots
clevertrevor85: there's something rioting in the state of Primark
Haughtense: They're breaking into all the shops. Clothes, mobile phones, hulking great tellies
Mash_Yeti: Come to Catford Bluds. No 5-0 down here at all. Make it happen. Mobb rule
OldMaid: There's people breaking into houses here #Ealing
ProfPlum: How many pairs of nicked Nikes equates to the education maintenance allowance? #youdothemaths
Brittstick: too few coppers to enforce order #cuts
SimonShelley: Bunch of about 50 hoodies gathering at Clapham Junction station #LondonRiots
gangbanger: Bluebottles lost their bottle. Oh no wait found it. Crashing down on their tit helmets!
dentedStu: rioters & police playing kiss chase down Peckham back streets
policeuk: Parents, do you know where your children are right now tonight? #Londonriots
sansculottery: Arab Spring, London Summer. Finishing what Guy Fawkes started but we're not lightweights like him #LondonRiots
MCShitehawk: No hype, we own the streets. Feds just standing back watching us. They bare scared
TriggerFinger: Dap @twitpic of mi boys. Took it on mi brand new phone rinsed bout 10 minutes ago #londonriots
2Wheeler: Yeah our riot vans in convoys not police ones! We're cleaning the high streets out
PithHelmet: I've seen vans pull up and collect stuff looted. This is organised #Londonriots
TomCollins: Ppl are stashing their loot in front gardens under bushes & going back 4 more gear #Clapham
HighPilbrow: Can someone tell me what a shooting in Tottenham has got to do with the thuggery in Clapham? Just looking for any excuse
SoldierTru: An fuck snitches too
w7fyt: Fuck da police
SallyArmy: OMG ppl jumping from the flats above and people on the pavement are catching them. Where are the fire brigade? And the Police?
Crunk: Police vans heading to Clapham Junction, roll on to Lavender Hill and Battersea
RayWhittle71: There's shops on fire with people leaning out the windows in the flats above. They're trapped
Links: Fire sale in Clapham. price is right, come on down. everything must go #LDNriot
Mash_Yeti: no we're gonna burn yours!
PlanC: What, you going to burn down your own communities again?
pinhead: smell of petrol and smoke. Uncle says brings back sweet memories #Tottenham
DisU: Endz beef ends tonite
streetfighter: Its ours. its all fuckin ours. Not one Fed in sight
DeadEnds: Feds getting a beating. Bring your bottles and bricks
Tricksy: Bruv this aint about ends right now. Were together against 5-0 cos of Duggan and weve got the streets
SnareDrum: Heard that someone protesting the Mark Duggan killing was beaten by police. Don't they ever learn?
M16N17: Edmonton got no bizness being out of their ends. Lets smack em back down
IWitness: Bus on fire in Tottenham. Police being pelted with all manner of stuff
ghettofuck: Edmonton? Those tards dont even got no proper postcode
hoodboy: enfield? Those pussyoles got no boys. gotta be edmonton
flyboyagaric: its all kicking off tottenham & enfield an i dont mean footy seasons started early
12 comments:
I think this is done very cleverly Marc, there is the element of how serious this was and how those riots got organised and underlying all of this are splashes of humour.
Very cleverly done, Marc. As always.
Adam B @revhappiness
Great idea! Pen.
Great job on this.
I think the thing I'm most in awe of is all the twitter names you made up. (I'm assuming you made those up?) Anyways, this was, as always with you, a very different read. Love the experimental side of fiction!
Thanks Michael. Yes all the names were made up other than @policeuk and to be honest it was the necessary levity while writing a very heavy piece.
Oh, I laughed like a drain at some of the tweets in this, and some of the names too.
Oh this is BRILLIANT. One of your best pieces in ages. You capture the insanity of it. I particularly liked the Rioting in Primark joke.
And the comment piece that accompanied it was amazing too. Really agree with you. We were watching that match & it was something else.
Well done. Funny in spots but serious too. Good use of twitter. LOL
I remember all of this. You've perfectly represented - by language alone - all of the various classes and types of people involved, from panic-stricken commuters to rioters to those observing and using events simply as a means to display their wit. The Twitter handles were just the icing on the cake. Well done.
I remember being caught up in all of this last summer. I'm not sure I agree with your assertion in your later post that everyone should have just shut up and watch it happen, since there's a bit of a difference between Muamba's collapse and watching a city fall apart, but you certainly captured the clamour of voices.
That's a fair point Icy but I'm not saying people should just sit back and watch in awed silence. More that they should stop clogging up social media with inanities or pontificating, or attempted levity or even trolling. Social media had a role to play those days and that was getting information out.
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