Lost England…

‘Bloody rioters, I saw around 80 coming towards the block of flats that I live in last night. I got in the lift to escape to find it full of blood, so I packed some bags and me and Alan stayed at his mum and dads over night.’

My cousin posted this on Facebook this morning. It made these riots real for me, so much so that despite not wanting to that I feel that I can’t leave the events of the last few days and nights uncommented on, not even as I wander in the sunny, rose-tinted, fields of WAWL.

I was going to say that there is no rioting in this pleasant, imaginary, Bedford Falls land of mine. I wanted to say that I’ve been able to keep it out. But of course there is and I haven’t, and the fact that I’m writing this means that the animals have escaped and are even now looting the Building and Loan. No doubt Mr Potter is rubbing his hands in glee-filled satisfaction as Gower’s pharmacy is stripped of its medicines, Martini’s bar of its bourbon and beer, and the residents of Bedford Falls flee their homes in terror.

God what a mess. This doesn't fit in with my idea of being English at all. It doesn't even fit my idea of being human. That poor man with the backpack surrounded by hyenas, and those stupid mindless morons on the TV news claiming that it’s it is fine to rob simply because they can, and off course those murderers in Birmingham.

I remember the riots in Handsworth in the eighties. I was even foolish enough to cut across the park one night and take a look from a safe distance. That was a mess too, but it wasn’t like this – this has the feel of mindless anarchy whilst back then I’m sure that I felt an undercurrent of organised anarchy, at least at first, and by some. I really can’t decide which is worse – or if there is any difference at all.

Somebody else on the TV last night, a rather stupid somebody said: ‘We are taking our taxes back.’ I wonder if they even know what tax is or care that at least some of it goes to help people who really need the help. Anyway, taxes are one thing, iPads another, but lives?

‘England my England.’ Where is our pride now?

Enough! Enough! Aghhhhhh!

What to do I wonder? There are places in the world where examples would be made; a few televised looter executions, the odd hand or two chopped off in a public place.

What to do? Should we? No, that wouldn’t be very English either, would it? I pick and choose I guess, I tolerate. I’m English after all.

You see, I love Banksy’s imagery but hate the actuality of it. I sing along to ‘Anarchy in the UK’ but want it to remain just a song. I admire the vision of Anthony Burgess, his Clockwork Orange, but would prefer it to remain as just words on a page. I don’t want it live on my TV, outside my home, in my city, or even in my country. I don’t want it at all. Who would?

Enough, obviously.

And we live in a country where the lamb joints in Sainsbury’s are security protected and light and heat are becoming a luxury. And we blame the police and the politicians and the banks. And most of all we blame the yobs who are doing all this. But should we really be blaming ourselves for letting our country slip away from us?

I don’t know, I really don’t. How did we get here? And where are we anyway?

Perhaps then, this is no longer England. Perhaps we are now all living in the same place and the world has become that ‘one big melting pot’ that Blue Mink sang about so sugar-sweetly back in the seventies. Well, no sugar here - and such a pity that the melting pot itself has melted, letting this nasty mess of basest humanity feed the fire that was always underneath patiently waiting to become a blaze.

Yes, it seems to me that England is gone and our country has lost its identity. We are just another part of the world in turmoil - Baghdad, Beirut, Birmingham, it’s all the same.

It’s all nowhere.

Where do you want to live?