London Road

Over the last few days, Londoners witnessed a giant psychological experiment: what happens when the police lose control? All across London Town, regular law-abiding citizens were wondering if their city had become a real life version of The Road and were making secret mental calculations about what they should do if the forces of law and order were overwhelmed. Vigo Mortensen ran a bath and it is important not to let personal grooming standards slip even if gangs of looters roam the streets. But many of us, rather than washing, were doing a mental tally of potential weapons and realised that a breadknife and a beach tennis set were a bit lacking. My personal arsenal amounted to a squash racket, a kitchen knife and an elephant prod; so I'm fine if I come up against  a pachyderm armed only with squash balls and a courgette.

None of us are much keen to take part in another re-enactment of Mad Max dsytopia, especially not if we live in a flat above JD Sports. If renting above commercial premises, make sure you pick a retailing unit that is anathema to ratboys. I would suggest a vegan cafe, run by transgender classical music enthusiasts is a safe bet. Either that or make sure you flatshare only with cage fighters or ex-special forces.

It was a tough call which was more depressing: watching brain-dead junior G's torching their own neighbourhoods or listening to politicians scoring cheap political points during the mayhem. When your neighbourhood is on fire, let's concentrate on putting it out. That's you at the back Dianne Abbot and Ken Livingstone. I do hope Darcus Howe was drunk during his Newsnight performance of Monday evening, that would be some kind of excuse for comparing the looting of Foot Locker to political protests.

Although many people will also be asking questions about Teresa May. What is the point of having a Tory home secretary if they are going to say things like 'the way we do policing is through community consent'.  I'm going to take a wild guess and say the residents of Clapham Junction would consent to a more vigorous police response.  She should have stared down the camera lens and said  'we will terminate these riots with extreme prejudice' and watch the poll ratings jump.

There's no doubt that during the last 48 hours, many normally pacifist types will have been shouting at their TVs for some real police brutality, especially when you hear a rat girl in Birmingham saying the 'police don't respect us'. Apparently that's why she and her friends felt they could help themselves to the contents of the Orange shop. If we're talking respect, then we, the regular citizens, could reclaim the word. For every masked teenager that was out on the street, there were hundreds in Hackney who weren't, wishing that someone in their neighbourhood would stand up to the gangs and the hoodlums.

That's us, by the way, who have to stand up to the gangs.  You cannot solely rely on the police for a civil society.  Every time we let a teenager drop litter in the street, swear and spit at passers-by, disrupt lessons, play their music loud on the bus, rob someone in plain view, we lose respect for ourselves and our communities. We put our heads down and walk on by.  Sure, when there's ten youths smashing up a phone box, then calling the police is the right idea. I'm not getting stabbed for BT, particularly not with their line rental charges. But as a general rule, law-abiding citizens need to man up (in a non-sexist manner).

When anti-social youths demand respect, we owe them nothing but contempt. They are a minority in these areas, what about the silent majority in Tottenham or Dalston who has to put up with this petty criminality 24-7. Why did not one commentator talk about them? No, all the debate was how we needed to undertand the youths more. I think the rest of us understood what they wanted pretty well: to set things on fire and a new TV.

We should collectively take back our streets, our parks and our public transport. There's so many more of us than the scrotes, let's think Gandhi with attitude. The Turkish shopkeepers of Kingsland Road had the right approach, try to loot our shops and we will batter you with sticks.  If we don't take back our public spaces, then get used to some more nights like the past week.

For inspiration, clink on these links:

Community policing Turkish style

Grandma tells it like it is

More power to your elbows

Additional note Weds 10th August - the tragic deaths in Birmingham don't change the need for us to take charge of our own cities. More police on London streets has calmed things down, but we can't live in lockdown because of a bunch of ratboys and ratgirls. They are angry, so the usual apologists say, because there are no jobs. Yes, there are no jobs for violent, foul-mouthed wannabe gangsters, very true, employers tend to be a bit picky about the whole can you be trusted with stock or money thing. See this: . that little dot is the world's smallest orchestra playing for those poor frustrated looters. It's playing just for them.