THE BIGGEST RUSH

I suppose I should write about the riots although there has undoubtedly been too much 'ink' (to use an old-fashioned phrase) spilled on this subject already and we haven't seen the half of it yet.

You know, the politicos and the chattering classes seem, generally, to agree that this outbreak of lawlessness that affected quite a number of English cities, was a key indicator of some sort of breakdown in society.

Maybe, but I am less inclined to think in such dramatic terms.

The line I find most telling about this whole affair was the comment made by one of the defendants in court when asked by the judge why she went on the rampage, as it were. She answered that it was the "biggest rush" she'd had felt in her life.

And that's the point. Think about it. Suddenly you have the opportunity to run around the streets, being chased as if in a video game (only this time for real!) by the boys in blue and you're more or less free to break windows, torch cars, steal those things you've always wanted to own and - at the same time - you have a very good chance of not being caught. Being caught means you lost the game.

For me, this explains the rapid spread of the disturbances. There was, just briefly, a sort of riot tourism. People came into the cities to smash and grab and the very time that the frightened masses - the workers, you and me in other words - were hurrying in the other direction. It was indeed a rush - nothing like it had ever occurred, ever been available, during the (thus far short) lifetimes of the rioters.

Does this explain arson and the deaths - were these a mere function of over-exuberance getting out of hand? No of course not, it neither explains nor condones. These darker issues almost certainly arose from long-time criminals working under cover of the confusion for their own ghastly purposes or, alternatively, from racists seeking to settle scores (or to open wounds).

None of this makes things right but I think it's as good an explanation of any other. Society is, if you're young (and whether dispossessed or not) boring. Yes of course there are role-models we wish all the young folks would follow, but no everyone can be an Olympian or, indeed, an Eagle Scout but almost everyone, at the age of the majority of the rioters, was energetic and somewhat hormonal and, no doubt, keen not to be told what to do (at least for a while).