He sings the songs that remind him of the good times

[venta]

Well, Ealing has got itself tidied up smartish. Positive armies of bright orange people are out there sweeping up broken glass, and glaziers hard at work already. I trotted out to see if #riotcleanup wanted any help, but there seemed to be a lot of nicely-spoken people milling about with brooms, and not actually all that much work left to do. Rumour had it that West Ealing was still in a mess, so I headed towards it chatting to an older gentleman called Irving. On the way, I bumped into a friend who'd come from West Ealing and said that actually, it was all pretty much under control now. Most of the shopkeepers had started their own cleanup, and there was already a minor army of brooms heading that way. So I stopped skiving off work after all.

The Broadway doesn't seem to be in too bad a state at all given some of last night's YouTube footage. I can't work out which bits of it were on fire, nothing looked particularly burned. Most of the roads are open again. The area towards Ealing Green is still cordoned off, and seems to be the worst hit with tales of burned out buildings and cars, but I didn't think the efforts of the police and council would be improved by another gawker so stayed away.

Visage, the hairdresser I pictured earlier, now has all the broken glass knocked out of its frames, and is trading as usual with its frontage open to the street. The daytime cafés are all also churning out teas and breakfasts. Pizza on the Green is dusting itself off and getting ready for tonight. A vicar of unknown denomination seemed to be popping in and out asking if the shopkeepers were ok and needed any help. Tesco is closed, but to be honest it doesn't look very looted - it's a tiny Tesco Metro that sells nothing other than food, and it certainly seems to have a large, intact-looking display of wine right by the door.

There are a lot or reporters and photographers around. Possibly "riot in genteel, leafy Ealing" is a better headline than "Brixton at it again". It certainly doesn't seem the worst-hit area, and the council and the businesses affected all seem to have the resources to get it straightened out again extremely quickly. I'm not trying to belittle the people who had a terrible time last night, but I think my summary is "could have been a lot worse".

Comments

[ebee.livejournal.com]

I'm heading out to Ealing Common in a min and hoping it'll be accessible. Heard a couple of stories about break ins in other areas of the borough simultaneously.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Other areas? I know about Haven Green, Ealing Green and West Ealing (still hoping for a report from Jamie on the Hanwell end...)

Am under the impression all the tube stations are up and running (access to Ealing Broadway is back to normal).

[venta.livejournal.com]

No sign of life at Hare & Tortoise, though :( Fearing my initial assessment wasn't accurate, they must just have been quicker off the ball at boarding up this morning. Don't know what state it's in behind the boards.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Other areas as in domestic break ins in other areas of borough when knowing police otherwise occupied.
V sad re H and T. Maybe they'll refurb without the silly eye bending slatty wood design though?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see.

Having not seen into H&T I can't be sure, but all the other shops along there don't need any refurbishing, just a re-glaze and a bit of a sweep-up.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for Ealing!

"riot in genteel, leafy Ealing"

I have news 24 on whlie I'm working, and I am getting a bit tired of hearing how Ealing is a 'leafy, affluent area'.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Has anyone said "Queen of the Suburbs" yet? Shall we make up Bingo cards for watching the news ?

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I thought that was Surbiton. Are they rival monarchies?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've never heard Surbiton called that.

Googling for "ealing queen of the suburbs" and "surbiton queen of the suburbs" (without quotes) makes it 135K to Ealing and 62.2K to Surbiton. If you search wikipedia for "queen of the suburbs" then Ealing is the second hit (the first is a suburb of Mumbai).

So I'm going to say no, they're not rival monarchies. There's one queen and one pretender :)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I've never heard Surbiton called that.

I never had until I had a friend who lived there. But the same is true of Ealing… So it may be that both monarchies are in practice unrecognized outside their immediate domains.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I take it things weren't too rowdy round your way last night?

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

No, quiet as a mouse. I didn't even know there was a problem till someone texted me about 11pm. I'm in a very residential area, a long way from Ealing Broadway - right up by Hanger Lane. Nothing here you'd want to steal, I reckon.

[ebee.livejournal.com]

Can I get a lyric recognisation point please? Tubthumping, chumbawumba.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You may have one kudo.

You can have another if you can name a single other Chumbawumba song without looking it up :)

[augeas.livejournal.com]

Err... That whiny mid 90's one about enough being enough?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, although that's not really naming it now, is it :)

(I know the one you mean, but right now I can't remember its name either.)

A quick glance at the relevant album suggests it's actually called Enough is Enough, so you can have most of a kudo.

[killalla]

Perhaps sadly appropriately given the context, I recall them doing one called "Give The Anarchist A Cigarette," which included the line "nothing ever burns down by itself, every fire needs a little bit of help."

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

I'd like a kudo for actually recognising a lyric please, as I hardly recognise any lyrics :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Do you mean you knew the song it came from, or you just recognised that it was a lyric :)

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

I could confidently hum the song the lyric came from, but you probably couldn't hear it from all the way over there. Does that count?

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Amnesia is almost as well known, shurely?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I can't remember how that goes, ho ho ho.

<youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JkS9rYw_N4)>

I don't think so. I mean, it's probably the next best known one. But it's hardly as well known in my world.

Mind you, I'm actually not very good at Tubthumping-era Chumbawamba.

[venta.livejournal.com]

The answer to "why does nothing look burned" is that it was mostly bins which were on fire, presumably which had been cleared away by the time I was there.

The manner of inflicting of some of the damage I posted pics of this morning can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJkAo5f8mo4

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Good posts!

[condign.livejournal.com]

Please, please tell me that Pizza on the Green wasn't harmed. If it was, then I find myself officially wishing bloody vengeance upon the perpetrators, as I really liked that place.

[venta.livejournal.com]

When I went by at 8am this morning, it had all its windows broken and all its furniture made into a barricade (on the inside). So it's not unharmed, but it fared better than its neighbouring Thai - there's footage of people kicking the Thai's windows in and emerging with bottles of wine (we do like our rioting civilised in Ealing).

Later in the morning, staff were untangling the furnture and knocking the broken glass out of the frames ready for glaziers to come in. I haven't been down there this evening, so I don't quite know what state everything's in.