Homo Stultus Vulgaris

Last weekend I went on a night out into the great city of Manchester, something I rarely do considering it’s ridiculously expensive and heavily over-rated but nevertheless it happened.

The night itself wasn’t too bad and was largely enjoyable, however there is always a problem with going out on these excursions: transport.

Getting there is easy enough, you simply go to the train station and get on a train. Sure they’re packed out to the point where if there were a fire everyone would die a horrible horrible death as they scrambled around trampling people underfoot, but they get you from A to B fairly quickly and cheaply.

Why the long face?

I saw in the news yesterday that jockey, Richard Hughes, has effectively retired by giving up his riding licence. He’s done this in protest to a new rule that limits the amount of time a rider can whip his horse.

Apparently the new limit is seven times in a flat race and eight in a jumping race with an additional five in the final furlong or something. This has Richard Hughes up in arms, claiming it hinders the riders.

Rioters: They’re not big, and they’re certainly not clever.

Being British can be embarrassing at the best of times but this week has taken it to a whole new level. For no real reason a bunch of morons have decided to riot across England, looting and leaving a path of destruction in their wake.

All of this started when a man possessing a gun in London was shot by police. During a peaceful protest from that man’s family on the streets where he died, some thugs hijacked it and started rioting. It spread, not just across London, but across England, with riots being started in Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Gloucester amongst others.

Labelling, re-labelling, or not labelling at all.

London has been taken over by rioters over the past few days. People have been vandalising shops, looting goods and setting fire to everything and anything including fire engines themselves. If you haven’t heard about it you’re probably a hermit crab, or David Cameron.

It has understandably been the main story across all the news media recently, but after reading about it all, or watching news bulletins on TV something is troubling me. Why are the rioters being called ‘protesters’ or ‘demonstrators’?