I feel really sad and depressed reading this. This city has gone crazy.
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- * American Music Club @ Bristol Thekla Social, 9/09
- * Bon Iver @ London Shepherds Bush Empire, 11/09
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- * Plans and Apologies, Jeffrey Lewis, The Atoms @ Derby The Royal, 12/09
- * Guided Missile @ London Buffalo Bar, 13/09
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- * American Music Club @ Cambridge Junction 2 The Shed, 15/09
- * Club AC30 @ London King's Cross Scala, 16/09
- * Adrian Orange, Sparky Deathcap @ London Cafe Otto, 16/09
- * American Music Club @ Winchester Railway Inn, 16/09
- * Andrew W.K. @ London Madame Jo Jos, 19/09
- * Rolo Tomassi, DiS DJs, The Ghost Frequency, Mirror Mirror @ London Old Blue Last, 22/09
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- * Club Entropicana presents: Tessellators, Shield Your Eyes and more @ London Kilburn The Good Ship, 23/09
- * Sonic Cathedral @ London St Giles in the Fields Church, 24/09
Very very sad.
Something must be done.
Saying that, i'm getting a bit pissed off at all these made-up figures that the meeja are bandying about - 20% of yoofs have been stabbed in the last year, 64% of yoofs carry a knife or a gun, 40% of yoofs say they're in a gang. Bollocks, all of it.
yeah, the stats are a load of crap
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Well that's the problem though, isn't it? You're reading it.
Kids have been stabbing each other in this country as long as there've been knives.
Only now since there's been more than one in the same area in a short period of time, that means the media have a story.
It's like the gun crime everyone was getting all stressed about a few years back. Now I'm supposed to get all crazy because the Daily Mail needs to fill space? Ain't worth it.
^this
absolutely right....
over the last decade we were all going to be eaten by dangerous dogs, die an agonizing death from bird flu, have our flesh stripped off us by the Ebola virus and pickled for eternity by SARS.
The media love to scare people as it sells papers.
Stop and search
as its not just targeting 'the blacks' or 'the asians' - just let the absolute penis brained arseholes who think they're owed something that they're not and carrying a knife will only end their own lives whether by the blade or the courts.
Seriously I do blame the parents crass as it sounds - every time someone is sentenced for killing someone the parents of the murderer should be put on display somewhere in town - so everyone can see them, see the people who brought into the world someone who turned out wanting 'respect' but not actually understand what the fuck the word meant.
why is the fault of the parents ?
you really do come out with complete and utter bollocks most of the time
Well Cadd
Prole does have a point though no?
it hasn't gone crazy though has it?
I'd love it if it did
^ this
the day I get stabbed
will be the day I care about this
Is that because you realised you were reading the mail
and then realised that you believed what it said.
Now I feel sad.
I am reading that site because I am bored.
And have already devoured the BBC, Reuters, and a few international sites.
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So you could have posted something interesting and/or meaningful, but decided on this. K.
Oh fuck off. Honestly.
What's up your arse..?
Actually, don't worry.
Have no interest in finding out.
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Ah, the old shoot and run. That never gets tired.
Anything else you did, but then suddenly decided you didn't want to know about in case it got a reply you didn't like?
Actually, don't bother - I don't care.
Neither do I.
Are you on your period or something, Stealthy?
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Today's policy is Give Rose Shit For No Immediately Apparent Reason. She knows why though. Next week, normal service resumes.
Actually I have no idea why
- you seem to think I'm psychic.
Do share - why give Rose shit for no reason?
I thought violent crime was down?
Wasn't that reported yesterday?
Down...
with the kids!
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Let's not bring stats into this.
I wonder how many people get stabbed for actually no reason.
And how many put themselves in a situation where they are at risk.
You'd have to define
putting yourself in a situation where you are at risk.
Well, not accepting being a massive coward.
I just mean like that story of the guy who was knifed on the top of a bus in Holloway.
Some guy kept throwing chips at him and his girlfriend so he got up and confronted the guy and got stabbed. A wiser man would have just moved downstairs.
hard to say unless you're in the
situation. It would obviously be the sensible thing to do but if someone was throwing things at my girlfriend and I just meekly moved downstairs I'd probably feel ashamed.
Yes. But I'd rather be ashamed than stabbed.
Clearly 99.99% of such cases would end with at most a bit of a scuffle rather than death.
But I guess my point is that people seem to take away from these stories fear for them getting stabbed for no reason...when really they should be thinking 'poor bastard'.
Maybe I just know a lot of easily scared people?
In my opinion, he was stabbed for no reason
He was stabbed for a reason. It was a fucking shit one, though.
My point was about public perception, however. There is still a big difference between you walking down the street and some guy just stabbing you actually at random and what happened to that guy.
You still can't draw a line between
what constitutes as a random attack on what doesn't though
I don't see how you can't?
The two incidents are very different.
Um, because there have ben more than two incidents?
My post of 12.28 down there says more.
The things you list down there aren't really what I'm talking about.
Have people been stabbed for walking home alone? Really?
Mobile phones and cash are examples of things people tend to get mugged for and I'd wager the vast majority of muggings don't end in people getting stabbed, unless the person being mugged puts up a fight and fails to be aware of the possibilities arising from this.
I'm not putting the onus on the victims, I'm not saying 'here is an entirely fair reason someone got stabbed' because clearly no one should get stabbed.
But equally you have people like my mum who will read something like this and start thinking she might get stabbed tomorrow on the way to work. It's important to realise that most crimes happen for a reason.
Why do you suppose it is that some people you know get mugged a lot and others don't? Is it really luck do you think, or is it that the ones who get mugged a lot tend to dawdle as they walk, without much purpose and looking like they don't really know where they are?
If you put bars on your windows but next door don't then burglars will target next door. That doesn't make the onus on them to put bars on their window but it's clear after two or three times why it's their place and not yours.
What I'm pointing out here is no different from the police saying don't reach for your mobile when you leave the tube because you'll become a target. It's about not just saying "Carrying a mobile phone means you'll be mugged", but understanding how life works.
Christ you can be a patronising twat
"understanding how life works"- honestly Theo, fuck off.
The point I'm making (and one that you have arguably just illustrated for me) is that there are no clear distinctions between behaviour that marks you out and behaviour that doesn't. Overtly carrying valuables won't lead to you getting mugged, but makes you a more worthwhile target. Therefore, not overtly carrying those items will have the opposite effect, so it isn't too much of a stretch to say carrying such items puts you at risk more than not carrying them.
You're right, people aren't stabbed FOR walking home alone. But such behaviour puts them at MORE of a risk of being victims of violence. So you could say it would be WISER to not walk home alone, thus walking home alone is UNWISE, just like it is unwise to challenge someone who throws chips at your girlfriend. Not all behaviour is active.
Infact, let me put it another way
Imagine there is a sliding scale of risk, with 0 being no risk and 10 being very risky indeed.
For arguments sake, we'll say confronting someone throwing chips is an 8, overtly carrying a mobile phone is a 5 and keeping to yourself with no valuables is a 2. At what number on that scale would you say someone is putting themselves at risk, rather than simply having no agency in their risk?
Fuck off yourself. That wasn't remotely patronising.
Stop reading every cunting thing I put as some sort of personal sleight becuase it was just a statement. Oh sorry, should I have written "how life is"? Or maybe that would offend your hair-trigger sensibilities? How about "the realities of the situation we live in"? No, that still sounds wrong. Maybe I'll just write "I HAVE AN OPINION AND IT'S EXISTENCE IS NOT THERE PURELY TO TRY TO PUT YOU DOWN, MR. KELLY" and have done with it, shall I?
Moving on I am talking about knife violence here. I mentioned how some people are more susceptible to mugging only really as an illustration of other areas where things can spark up.
I'm not talking about a sliding scale here. Clearly there will always be crime that is unprovoked. However, excessively violent crime like stabbings tends very much to be provoked in some way, a way that is part of human interraction not just 'carrying a mobile phone'.
And all I am saying about this is that the media has a habit of making people think this is otherwise. The result of this is that instead of doing our best to help people out and change society and stop people having to live in ghettos at all, we get knee-jerk reactions about getting in loads of police to break heads and people walking about deciding society is falling to pieces. In my opinon. Which isn't meant to mean you're wrong for having a different one or something.
The first paragraph of your post
is hilariously hypocritical.
It is fine for us to disagree. Its also fine to tell someone you disagree with them, explain why and challenge them (you don't have to respond to the challenge if you don't want, obviously).
I've never questioned the role of media hyperbole, rather the idea of putting oneself at risk. Maybe that would have been clearer IF I'D USED LOADS OF CAPITAL LETTERS.
Challenge it if you want
just don't assume I'm trying to belittle you because I use a random phrase...
And to reiterate on the 'putting oneself at risk' notion: I don't agree that you can put carrying money/phones/etc. with 'walking home in the dark' nor either of those with 'responding to someone throwing chips at you'.
The latter is very much a case of personal interaction where your choices are very important to what happens.
With the former you are looking at things that it would be very hard to avoid in society. One must accept that yes, someone could elect to mug you if you walk down the street.
I'm not denying that random crime does happen, I was simply questioning random knife crime.
Moreover, there are still factors to being a victim of crime that make your chances of being random less likely but not having bars on your window or walking in a certain way is not to be confused with giving a guy some aggro when you could just back down and walk away with your hide intact if not your pride.
When I said you were being patronising
I didn't mean to me specifically. Rather, I thought it was more generally patronising to victims of crime
Ah right.
Okay cheers.
I hope you BOTH get stabbed
but the very fact that being stabbed if you intervene in an aregument or whatever
is a real concern is deeply worrying. you can say all you like about not provoking such an event, but it shouldn't be a real fear in the first place.
there's clearly a difference
between stabbings/murders where there are clear antecedents and those which involve no previous contact between the parties.
But that difference
is not the one I challenged Theo to produce. In the isolated example given, the 'reason' as it were for the stabbing is clear.
But what else constitutes 'putting yourself at risk'? I think you'd struggle to come up a clear distinction between behaviour which puts you at risk and entirely unprovoked attacks
I don't remember ever claiming there were NO instances of entirely unprovoked attacks.
But clearly there are many instances where you can see what the result is. I was trying to highlight that the media don't really seem keen on making that clear.
Fair enough
but if you scroll up to where this branch of debate came from, that isn't clear.
But how wasn't that clear:
"I wonder how many people get stabbed for actually no reason.
And how many put themselves in a situation where they are at risk."
I said 'how many', the implication being it would be a small number, not that there would be none at all.
Where do you mention media hyperbole
in that post?
You don't. You ponder how many people put themselves at risk. I then questioned how you could define who had put themselves at risk, and what distinction could be drawn between them and people who just 'end up' for want of a better expression, at risk.
It's part of the same thing, though
It's hyperbole which comes from the fact that people don't consider those factors.
But you'd still be alive
I'm gonna get stabbed in London probably
I hate taking things lying down.
Once me and my housemate got robbed by 4 guys with baseball bats and still fought back.
We lost all our stuff but we did kick the shit out of one of them, until our neighbours thought we were randomly attacking a dude and stopped us.
Fair enough
but in broader terms, what would count? Walking home alone? Having a mobile phone, mp3 player or cash on your person? Living in an area with a particularly high crime rate?
Awareness and precaution are all very well (and most certainly necessary and wise) but I think you'd have to be very careful not to even subtley put the onus on victims.
cool, blame the victim
I'm not blaming the victim
I'm pointing out that one shouldn't get hysterical about these things, which isn't the same as not caring at all.
But it's strange to read people talking about the country going to the dogs, etc. and the media really playing and amplifying people's fears so that the ordinary person on the street is either too scared to approach anyone or assumes that they will always meet with maximum force and so is ready for that and behaves in that sort of manner.
Don't you think there are probably youths out there who carry knives now because they believe every other person does and that they'll get stabbed if they don't stab someone first?
oh i agree
it's hysterical screeching from tabloids like the Daily Mail and the morons who swallow their bullshit.
However! I don't know what the stats are, and probably violent crime is falling - but that's not the point. There has been an increase in stabbings, at least admonst yoofs, and that's a cause for concern. Partly because there could well be a culture of violence amongst some kids, which needs to be addressed. And because it becomes a vicious cycle, with kids carrying knives because other kids do. i doubt the media is having much affect on such behaviour.
that's
ridiculous
Read my response above.
I'm talking about lessening people's personal fear of an act.
Interestingly
I've noticed that stabbings/murders don't seem to be *quite* as high on the agenda anymore. Some poor kid got murdered yesterday(?) and it wasn't the top story on BBC News
WE'RE BECOMING DESENSITISED
How have you noticed something
that clearly isn't the case? Maybe the credit crunch just won today's battle for the headlines.
Or we're coming out of the knife crime top story phase
Like we came out of the killer dogs top story phase, several paedophilia top story phases and countless others. One kid getting stabbed never used to be top story material. Except on slow news days. But make it the top story for a few days and you can say there's an epidemic and scare everyone.
Yes but
the BBC claimed that violent crime has actually gone down in the past 10 years.
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Depends where you're looking. Nationwide, knife crime stats I'd imagine, can't be all that useful.
Locally however, they'd be very useful. From working out if gangs are having a beef, or just some nutcase going around doing people.
They quoted research
that stated that locally, people beleive knife crime has gone down, but nationally its gone up. Also apparently its mostly in drunken affrays rather than in gang fights.
Now I'm generally mistrustful of most social research done by Journalists but I could see where they were coming from on this.
We should really be more concerned about
Achmed.
His threat was made time and time again, explicitly, on this VERY website.
London is knife crime capital of Europe
but at least Borris is going to ban drink on tube trains and ban bendy buses on the roads.
Good work Mayor!
I think people
should put it into context. Imagine what things must have been like in 17th century! Pirates in Wapping, radcliffe highway murders 19th century! I reckon the city must be a lot safer now than back in the day!
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Ah, but they were our pirates. The only attack the Spanish. And bums.
The police should have the
power to stop and search and if a knife is found be able to stab said villain repeatedly in the face. That'll stop it. Or at least reduce it.
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How about those carrying knives to protect themselves. Or gut a fish?
what are you, some sort of TERRORIST?
You don't gut a fish on the street.
In the safety of your own kitchen or the high seas only.