Ahh London

So on Saturday we were walking to a friend's 50th birthday party at the other end of lovely Nunhead from where we live and as we were strolling down Nunhead Lane we passed a group of young men (seriously, young, like the oldest was maybe 16) carrying planks with nails sticking out of the ends, baseball bats and rocks. Now maybe, just maybe, I'm judging here, but I'm pretty sure that no one has ever been up to good when they walk down the road with a wooden plank full of nails. No, I'm pretty sure that such a tool, especially combined with the other items mentioned are surely implements of no good. So we waited until we were out of earshot of these fine young citizens and called the cops as fast as our fingers could dial 999, which is pretty fast.

Within seconds of the call we heard and saw at least 3 cop cars in the neighbourhood with sirens and lights looking for these nogoodniks, but I chaven't been able to find out if anything actually went down. It was all pretty fucked up. I've never, not even in Detroit, witnessed a group of kids so obviously kitted out to fuck shit up. Maybe the kids in Detroit are just better at hiding their tools, or maybe it's just that guns are smaller. Although I only ever heard a gunshot in Detroit after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup (sure I heard a lot of cars backfiring, but that's all that was cars backfiring, not gunshots, no no no.)

It's weird, even though I feel generally safer here than I did in Detroit, Vegas or Chicago there is also a greater feeling of unpredictability in London. People just seem to have a lot more aggression kept just under the surface here than they do in The States. I hate being out right after the pubs close, because some nights it feels like every drunk on the street is spoiling for a fight and they don't care who they have that fight with. I don't know if it's caused by lack of space, English drinking culture, or frustration over the recent elections, but the potential for violence always seems to be just under the surface here in a way that it wasn't in the cities I've lived in before even though I would say that all three of those cities were certainly more outwardly violent than London.

Criminal Acts Witnessed by Me since leaving Port Huron:

1. Street fight conducted in front of my appartment on Ferry Street in Detroit Summer 98. Started when one dude closed another dude on the sidewalk for no obvious reason then they both went away and came back from opposite directions with friends. At one point the clothesliner requested that I 'tell this bitch to get off your property.' I let him know that I was just renting so it could hardly be considered my property in any legal sense.
2. Attemped car theft later that summer, I saw a shifty looking character attempt to slim Jim my neighbours car one evening and called campus security on him, he returned twenty minutes after being picked up but saw me standing in the window like an angel of justice and took off.
3. Gun shot in the parking lot of my building in Las Vegas, Spring 2000. I did not actually see anything nefarious as I was too busy cowering in one of the interior rooms in my apartment but I definitely heard a gunshot.
4. Mugged at knife point in December of 2000 in Rogers Park (Birchwood and Ashland) only seconds after thinks, 'Wow, this is the safest neighbourhood I've ever lived in.' Jerk took my $27 and then I ran inside and called 911. The police had me ID him three blocks away while the shined a flashlight in my face. Way to make a girl feel safe, Chicago PD! I was the 4th o5 women he'd mugged that night and the 19th of 20 over the last month.
5. Witnessed the mugging of a girl walking to her friends place on the corner of Broadway and Devon Spring 2004. Hopped off Jeremy's Vespa to help her collect her stuff (she held on to her bag like a trooper even after the Cracked out mugger (no really, he was cracked out as hell) dragged her across a parking lot.
6. Spring 2007 witnessed burglary in progress on the corner of my street, after sitting on hold for ten minutes was finally able to inform police.
7. Spring 2008 kids with weapons spotted roaming the streets of my neighborhood in broad daylight.