Tuesday, August 09, 2011

North London Looting - a bookseller's personal report


From the blog of The Big Green Bookshop

I was going to write a lovely blogpost about figuring out what book you would hate to not have in stock if you owned a bookshop, but sadly things have turned rather ugly and horrible here in North London. Tottenham has taken the brunt of the rioting and looting and setting fire to anything that it is possible to set fire to, however at about 2am this morning things started happening in Wood Green.
People turned up, having realised that all the police were trying to control the stuff going on in Tottenham, and started smashing Wood Green to pieces.
Burnt out car on Wood Green High Road
The Body Shop. Where looters can stock up on their Jojoba.

These are two photos I took this morning as I came to work. They are both less than 200 yards from the bookshop.

We are not at all happy about this. The people who did this are not representative of how Wood Green (and Tottenham) feel. The people who did this, for example, to HMV...

are fucking idiots. They have used a controversial and tragic incident and turned it into an excuse to steal things and smash things and ruin things. They have no interest in anything other than what they can gain from this situation and I am furious.
I had a text message at 5.30am from one of our most wonderful and precious customers. She lives above a shop on the High Road (where these photos were taken). She texted me to tell me about how horrible things were and to give me a warning in case I didn't know. Now here's the thing. She is pregnant, and was due to give birth yesterday. The High Road has been cordoned off. All the police and ambulances are in Tottenham. Not a good situation when the looting and rioting in Wood Green has been going on for 2-3 hours without any police intervention (they are all still in Tottenham) and the likelihood of a taxi to take you to a hospital is zero. 

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