The day that was (and still is) 9th August 2011

Today I meet an Irishman who played for Munster in a match they didn't win against the All Blacks. "They were are bunch of bruts" he said in a thick Irish accent shortly after telling us how he'd broken his collar bone after a few drinks the night before.

Meanwhile in London, there are some angry people doing a lot of damage. The Police seem unable to cope, it is interesting to read this article written nearly eleven months ago, where:

The home secretary, Theresa May, has dismissed fears that deep spending cuts could undermine the ability of the police to tackle possible civil unrest, and insisted the British did not respond to austerity by rioting on the streets.

The politicians have all called off their holidays, although at first the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, did not think it necessary to return for initially, but then he did. And now he's not so popular.



I'm going to tread a tricky line here. While I do not in any way condone violence, and violent actions should have consequence, there are some points I would like to note. Firstly, from my limited knowledge of English history, the last time riots broke out were in the 1980s with similar economic conditions and a similar government. Secondly, young people at present are faced with the prospect of high unemployment, almost impossible university costs and cuts to almost every service that has been set up to help them (with perhaps the exception of prison services). They seem unable to articulate themselves, with media reporting what seem like wild and stupid rationale for violence. Perhaps it's opportunism, but perhaps it's also a feeling of rage and unfairness.

A Picture- Part One

In a cunningly devised plan I had to get back into blogging I decided to choose photos I had taken and then write a little bit about each one. This plan was going great as I set out to the internet cafe and paid for plenty of time to write this blog. It was then that I remembered that I had left behind the USB stick with all my photos on.

With a determination to push on I found someone else's (far better) picture of what I wanted to talk about. So here is the image:



This is a picture of the Barbican Highwalk. I found the highwalks by accident, when I walking back to Moorgate tube station from the London Museum and I really like them. They are a series of walkways (highwalks) that lie about 5 metres above ground and they are the first interesting thing I have found that I wasn't pre-informed about in a guide or by a local.

I was able to walk the kilometre from the museum to the tube without even having to cross a road or give way to anything, or go around a building. The walks simply go through the office and apartment blocks, and a yellow line shows you the way to the tube station. In the centre of one block of apartments was an amazing garden (the picture of which I hope will be in a later post).

From this height above the ground it is a great place to see the surrounding architecture. If you look in this photo you can even see a remaining part of the wall of London- from the Roman times. When I first came through I didn't have my camera, it was raining and I was hungry, so I didn't stop. But I came back the next day and stopped for a while. It seems hard to image how a mash of buildings covering hundreds of years can go together, but somehow they do. The masses of water below add to the mytic of it all, and it felt like I had discovered soemthing hidden, but wonderful. Like a secret garden.