If ever there was a time to use Twitter . . .

As I assume people know, there are currently a series of riots going on in the UK in the major cities (or more accurately, in areas of low socio-economic status in inner cities of the UK). Now, if ever, is a time to use Twitter. I've never engaged with it before, always seen it as something as a passing-by interest but nothing I'd do myself. Last night it was amazing to watch the riots unfold in real-time on Twitter - unfortunately being essentially a large server of Chinese whispers meant that the vast majority of "tweets" are just rumours. It's good that the police constabularies use the service to debunk the rumours though - Derbyshire and Leicestershire were two such services.

The people doing the rioting are lowest of the low. There is a quintessentially succinct phrase that springs to mind: "don't shit where you eat". Why is it that the rioters/looters (sorry, BBC, "protesters") are targeting small family businesses and a couple of smaller chain companies? It is heartbreaking to see family businesses that have been run for decades destroyed overnight by brainless thugs.

I think that the Met Police have done an excellent job in handling the situation. In a way, if they had gone in heavy-handed on Saturday night then it probably would have quelled things down and then resulted in a much larger uprising against police brutality. It's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for them, and I sympathise with that. Hopefully with the police out in force tonight, they will be more "robust" (nudge nudge wink wink) and teach the looters that the biggest, baddest gang in London is the Met police.

The Cambridgeshire police seem to have gone south to join their London pals - the only place where there may be an issue with rioting here will be Peterborough. Cambridge need not worry - its residents are decent folk, and the University folk of course tend to be somewhat more cultured and intelligent than the idiots rioting in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. I suppose that we should probably touch on race given that generally the lower-socioeconomic groups in the inner cities are minority groups; without wishing to get too deep I shall just say that the largest minority group in Cambridge is by far the Chinese. So, we will not have any problems here. Just delicious food and brilliant mathematicians!