Thursday 9 December 2010

Well - I HAD intended to post an interesting tale of new baby-tails, plus the next instalment of 'The Evolution of Jasper'.  No longer.

My partner and I have just returned from the house of my partner's best friend, the lovely Dolores.  My partner and I don't choose to receive television in our household (actually, it was my partner's choice.  I still miss my lovely cookery programmes), but have been sat with Dolores, glued to the BBC news coverage of the evening's sorry events in London.

It was UTTERLY disgusting.

I disagree with a lot of the government's decisions (particularly as my partner and I work for a local authority and have lately been at the mercy of spending cuts, staff redundancies, etc.) - but the way to protest against them is NOT by vandalising statues (least of all defiling that of one of our greatest-ever leaders, Sir Winston Churchill), damaging aged and important public buildings and breaking windows of shops.

Worse-still was the assaulting of the brave policemen and women, as well as the revolting spectacle of shrieking thugs beating the face of a police-horse with a stick.  I understand that some ten police-officers were injured - several very seriously.

And this is before one comes to the topic of the oiks who assailed and kicked-in the car carrying the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall.   It was shaming.   I was embarrassed to be English tonight.

I actually did manage to feel sorry for some of the students who were trying to make a legitimate, peaceful protest - they were stitched-up by the yobs as much as anyone else was by the scuffle-scum that joined the march with the avowed intention of causing mayhem.  I wonder if the rabble-rousers gave a thought to the amount of our taxpayers' money that will now have to go to pay the police's overtime salaries, for the medical treatment of the injured officers, or for the cleaning and repairs to the mess that the 'protesters' left behind them...? Probably not.


For our Winter reading this year, my partner and I have chosen the subject of the French Revolution.  We have already worked our way through some six books and have a few more left to keep us going through to the Spring.  It was hard to watch the news footage this evening and not draw a clear parallel with those horrific and bloody events across the channel which opened with the grisly scenes in Paris on 14 July 1789.  The riotous, seething mob, shrieking obscenities, daubing offensive slogans on public landmarks and buildings, lighting fires in the streets, and - most starkly similar and unsettling - were those who had armed themseves with poles pulled from railings, barriers, road-signs and dismantled placards, and were beating with them on the doors of the Treasury, the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Courts of Justice.  I am not exaggerating when I bark that, for a moment, I was genuinely frightened as to would have happened if the rabble had succeeded in hauling Prince Charles and Camilla out of their vehicle.

For goodness' sake - how did we go from peaceful rights of protest to this type of violent disorder?!  Is this the reason so many fought and died in our wars to preserve our country's freedom?

I am NOT a happy dog for what I have witnessed this evening.

Good night.