Dear Octopus,
The streets are awash with an omniscient and tangible sense of dread. When the rioting started in the East End we joked about the bourgeois ways in which it might infect our leafy suburban locale (iced frappucinos being tossed disdainfully at portly tram conductors....middle aged mothers illegally syphoning double nectar points like stolen petrol....public schoolboys in straw boaters deliberately handing in their Latin homework an hour late....) but yesterday our ribaldry appeared to have transcended genres; forcing its hideously grinning face from dystopian fantasy into plain truth. Maybe we are being punished for our arrogance.
The Good Ship Media was effectively abandoned after four, leaving myself and a pal of mine from Capital Radio to fight our way west using underground trains heaving with the running and the scared. There were reports of trouble at Leicester Square and on Tottenham Court Road; then more unrest in Putney, Wandsworth, Southfields and Wimbledon. If the sum of all the world's rumours were to be believed then I'd encounter burning cars, screaming children and ragged riot police on every corner, and fight my way home only to find our darling abode besieged by zombie invaders, with Honksy and Dutch clutching tennis racquets, lamp shades and assorted kitchen utensils to fight them off.
The reality was very different. If anything Wimbledon Park was eerily quiet, with shops boarded up and streets deserted. At home the curtains were closed, and whilst Honksy was definitely gripped in a paroxysm of irrational terror.....it was no more so than usual. So we watched a film and ate Oreos, dipped in milk.
So why the discrepancy? Who got it wrong?
For all its wonders, social media is a hive of scaremongering and exaggerated rumour. While the riots' organisation were undoubtedly facilitated by its shadier mediums, so has been the perpetuation of their fear. At first everyone was updating and tweeting their simple, understandable horror (albeit all the time), but now we seem to have upgraded. The semi-informed political disenfranchisement of moronic left-wing students and right-wing young professionals - all groping ineptly for some flag with which to adorn their mast - clamour with equal gracelessness, and persistence. It seems there's really very little else to talk about. And this makes everything worse. The last few days appear to have shown that it is possible, after all, to have access to too much information, and to talk too freely when you have nothing to say. The riots are awful. But we are being undone by the habitual vanity of our own lives.
And, considering everything, I suppose I am a great hypocrite. I hope that you are safe Octopus, and not afraid. I worry about you. Let us hope that this great sadness passes quickly.
Your loving friend,
Action Squid
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