The London Riots: Not Quite a Year On

It’s almost a year since widespread rioting swept through London, as frenzied young consumers made the collective decision to Stick It to the Man by stealing trainers from JD Sports and burning down the local post office from which their grandmothers collected their state pensions. Right on, bruv.

One bargain hunting young revolutionary, Reece Davis-James, a South London dance teacher, has decided to mark the anniversary by returning to the scene of his crime to apparently apologise for his actions, but I suspect this was actually an exercise in sizing up the joint should an opportunity for further five-fingered-discounts rear its socially unrested head. At one point in the short film Davis-James explains how he picked up a box randomly from the Argos store room and walked out with it. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he said. Now, I’m no criminal psychologist, but if I had to hazard a guess as to what he was thinking, “That’ll do” would be pretty high up the list.

Tut tut. A dance teacher too; but I can’t say that I’m surprised, as I’ve always thought that Diversity were a suspicious looking bunch. An acquaintance of mine once misguidedly attended one of their shows and later returned home to find that his wallet had been stolen. I have a theory that the little freaky one with the glasses and Fraggle Rock hair had it away during a back flip near the front row and carefully concealed his ill-gotten gains in his wild mane. Be warned street dance fans, if you exist.

 

(Thieving street dancer scum)

Skilfully choreographed  kleptomania aside, it is my opinion that Argos had it coming, and Davis-James was merely redressing the universal balance. Now, hear me out before you accuse me of being an apologist – I think you will arrive at the same conclusion when you learn of the pilfering exploits of the evil laminated catalogue-based purveyor of crap. According to The Haringey Independent 

"A Dad was left fuming after being charged double for his daughter's birthday present by catalogue store Argos.

Shoppers from across the country were hit in the pocket when the shop's system for processing credit and debit card transactions went wrong, meaning customers had to pay twice for their purchases.

Adrian Rolfe, from Princes Risborough, was among them, and paid double for his daughter Lucie-Jo's third birthday present, which his wife bought on Friday from the High Wycombe town centre branch."

Bastards. And that’s not the end of it:

"Mr Rolfe, a father-of-four from Lime Road, who was pushed into his overdraft after paying £40 for Lucie-Jo's £20 doll, says he has been put off shopping at Argos."

Yes, Mr Rolf was pushed into his overdraft to the tune of literally tens of pounds. No wonder he has been put off from returning to the high street den of larceny. Furthermore, the eagle-eyed among you will have spotted from the link that this tragedy took place as recently as October 2008.

Will we never learn? We can only hope that since then Mr Rolf has found somewhere else that he can purchase inflatable paddling pools, electric shavers and poor quality jewellery under one roof. Perhaps we should all take his lead.

So I say Reece Davis-James, for your much maligned services to redressing the balance, I salute you, Sir.