Lost in Suffolk and rioting spreading to other cities

This morning's news was of flare ups in Liverpool and Manchester. Everyone is waiting to see how the government ad police respond today.

Set off to meet with a new author, Alan James, in the depths of Suffolk, south of Bury St Edmunds. The satnav generously took me to highpoint prison, perhaps in anticipation of future misdemeanours. After some driving around unexpected blocked roads, I arrived half an hour late. Fortunately, my hosts were not unduly put out.

The following hours were busy in establishing some simple guidance on formatting the first manuscript and setting up file sharing, as well as finding a wealth of paintings that could be used to illustrate the book. Numerous cups of tea and a lunch later and it was almost 5pm before I departed, the route back being more straightforward.

Unfortunately I had missed an afternoon call, but the new client called back later with a request for some work on commenting on a text in the next week.

This evening, found myself suddenly committed to looking after some cats for the weekend and a chicken too, as well as volunteering for a cub scout activity lead later in the year.

A German video order had arrived and I settled down in anticipation to watch episode one of the cult German sci-fi TV series from 1966, “Raumpatrouille Orion” (Space patrol Orion); Black and white, with the best effects of the day in shaky spaceship models and examples of the future of dancing in the year 3000. Very enjoyable.

The financial markets had recovered after falls during the morning

With 16000 police descending on London, violence was present in Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham. Looters already active in daylight and cameramen attacked, with frightened women stranded due to the cancellation of buses and trains in the centre of Birmingham. London was relative quiet.

Car fires and shop looting and arson of stores appear to be the main activities captured on camera. Fortunately, plain stupidity is also apparent with some London looters tweeting or posting YouTube videos on their activities. Sadly, someone is already cashing in with London Riot T-Shirts.

In previous nights, much had been made of the use of social media to coordinate the looting and fast paced change of locations. Today, a positive alternative when social media were used to bring together a large group of volunteers who met in London to help clear up after the trouble.