Tuesday 9 August 2011

London, what are you doing?

My work send me home early today because of the riots. It feels very surreal to be honest. The area I work in was not affected directly. However, one of our London offices was close to a riot centre and the police advised businesses to let everyone go home early before the violence could spread. So they send us home as well.

The area I live in was not affected. It is a very residential area with no shops around. I live behind a prison. I don't know if that makes me feel any safer tonight though.

I heard a lot of sirens during the night. Today I found out that on my nearest high street people had broken into shops and destroyed cars and property. I go the opposite way to work so I did not see any of this. But when I came home today I popped into my local supermarket to stock up on food (just in case, you never know) and stores in that area looked very different. Lots of them were closed. The ones that were open left their shutters as closed as possible. Just open enough for people to enter/exit. The supermarket had put a really scary security guard in front and all stores had at least on person in front of their doors keeping watch. 

What makes all of this even more surreal is the good weather we are having. The sun is shining, it's warm and nice. Though some people are acting like complete assholes, there are also those that are extremely nice. Feels like they are almost trying to make up for it. When I went into the tube a guy who sells The Big Issue (magazine made by and sold by homeless people to have some income) came towards me and greeted me very warmly. 

Waiting for bf to come home now. I guess we will wake up again tomorrow and see what's happening. As long as the tubes are running I will be going into work. So far that has worked good. So fingers crossed that people will smarten up and things will calm down.

Everyone be safe tonight!

3 comments:

  1. I was watching footage of the riots on the news last night, it's so crazy! That's good you're not really in the area though, but still, stay safe!

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's absolutely insane. Stay safe. I'd be stoking up on a few days worth of food too. Hope all the craziness stops and life can get back to normal and London back to trying to promote itself as a good place for the Olympics!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Woke up and the house is still standing. Good stuff. It seems like London has quieted down. I guess the 16,000 officers on duty helped that. And thanks for the well wishes.

    I think that was the first thing most politicians were worried about. That this might be a bad image people would get of London ahead of the Olympics. People at the office were actually joking that now they would get a chance for tickets as clearly everyone abroad would give theirs back. I'd gladly return mine if that would give people back their houses, businesses and livelihoods.

    ReplyDelete