August 4, 2011 - Police investigating gun crime shoot 29-year-old Mark Duggan.
15 miles away in South Woodford our hero and his flatmate Dave are availing of the Indian restaurant across the road’s 3 courses for £10 menu. Both order tap water. Our hero will complain bitterly about a mutual friend who borrowed his favourite jumper.
August 6 (16.00 GMT) - Duggan's friends and family gather outside Tottenham police station for a peaceful protest.
Our hero gets a text from an old school friend, Eoin, who is in the city for one night. Our hero really should finish some work but is informed he cannot as it is Eoin's birthday eve.
August 6 (21.45) - riot police at the scene come under attack from people throwing bottles and missiles. A red London double-decker bus is set alight, there are reports of shops being looted.
6 miles away our hero meets Eoin who insists on drinking in a park.
August 7 (17.00) - the violence spreads to Enfield, a neighbourhood in northeast London. Shops windows are smashed and a police car is damaged.
After receiving news that his flatmates family are coming over to help clean the flat, our quick thinking hero decides to take Eoin up on his invitation to travel to Cambridge to continue the birthday celebrations.
August 8 (01.00) - Police say they are dealing with "copycat criminality" across London.
Our hero gets drunk with lots of lovely programmers in Cambridge, briefly considers becoming a programmer.
August 8 (05.30) - more than 100 people have been arrested overnight and nine police have been injured.
Our hero, Eoin and a German programmer named Christian arrive back at school friend’s house. The school friend and Christian play FIFA while our hero falls asleep on the couch complaining about the fate that has befallen his favourite jumper.
August 8 (16.00) - clashes are reported in Hackney, northeast London.
Christian and our hero head back to London. Christian mentions that he heard something about some riots in London. Our hero shows his empathy and astonishment by saying "Jaysus..." a lot.
August 8 (20.00) - TV news channels show aerial footage of large fires in Croydon.
Our hero returns to an immaculate flat. Dave and his girlfriend Opel arrive home. They talk about the riots. Our hero makes out that he's well up to speed on the topic. After talking to them he goes on twitter, searches for #londonriots. Jaysus.
August 8 (21:30) - The violence is reported to have spread to Clapham, an upmarket area in southwest London. Rioting follows in Ealing in the west and Woolwich in the east.
"Sure that’s miles away, we're grand out here in the sticks" - Our Hero.
August 9 (00:30)
Looters hit South Woodford removing an ATM and robbing a jewellers.
Our hero, recognising that the street is one minute away from his own, searches for something to cave a punk's head in should the situation arise calling for such a measure. In his panic he fashions a machete-truncheon out of a whisk, wooden spoon, carving knife and sellotape. The machete-truncheon will never be called to service.
August 9 (01:00)
There have been no new developments in South Woodford.
Our hero turns off the lights and starts walking between the two rooms facing onto the street, peering behind the curtains for signs of marauding youngsters with looted shoeboxes under one arm and grenade launcher under the other. Our hero writes a note about recent thug activity and leaves it outside Dave's door. It is written in such panicked cowardly hyperbole that the phrase "Good luck. We're going to need it" stood out as being particularly subtle. Our hero falls into a heroic sleep while clutching onto his laptop and machete-truncheon.
August 9 (11:00)
Cameron addresses the media, says he will recall parliament and put 16,000 police on the streets of the capital on Wednesday, almost three times the number out on Tuesday night.
Our hero, now with an opinion on the atrocities besieging his current city of residence, hypocritically yells "Where were you?" at Cameron before going onto twitter to double check that everyone else thinks he's a bastard before yelling more righteous vitriol at the prime minister.
August 9 (14:00) - Cameron visits Croydon to see the damage from the previous night's violence.
Our hero leaves South Woodford for his uncle's house. Shop owners and elderly members of the community stand out before the store fronts giving our hero, the only person on the street under the age of 50, the stink eye as he passes by. Such is his fleeting feeling of disenfranchisement our hero briefly considers looting them.
August 9 (15:00) 16000 police are deployed on the capital
At Holland Park our hero notices that a rug shop and a hair salon have had some of their windows broken. Our hero checks for news of rioting in the vicinity, opens pages just for tweets about Holland Park and Notting Hill. Although there is a lot of terrifying speculation and misinformation this exercise only proves that the film "Notting Hill" is watched somewhere on earth every fifteen minutes.
August 10 - August 15th Police reports that despite some disturbances there are no major incidents in the city.
- Hide quoted text -
Our hero takes this to mean that the rioters are merely biding their time. He rings up his friend to check on the jumper and breathes an over the top sigh of relief upon discovering that its fine. Feels a wee bit more relaxed. Realises he's allowed himself to become overtaken with fear, is going to go out and help with the clean out. While buying a brush our hero sees two youths, decides they are going to kill him, leaves the shop without the brush, invites himself to stay with his friend on the south coast.
August 15th (15:00) Attempted armed robbery in Holland Park
Our hero sees this tweet on the day he's planned on returning to the capital and changes his mind. He will find out later that the Holland Park mentioned in the tweet is in Australia.
This appears in the latest version of the zine "Flip Sake", special thanks to Heather Mills and Barry Richardson
