Having a revolting time in London

Just my luck. I haven't been to London since 2007 and my first visit coincides with what's likely to be Day 4 of the riots.

Admittedly these riots appear to be in the areas that no self respecting visitor would visit. The sort of places I was forced to inhabit when I lived here.

So maybe a repeat of the long night of pub crawls when I got on a tube train, fell asleep and ended up in the backside of Dagenham, which in itself is a large backside, shouldn't be repeated.

The last train had vanished and every time I picked up the receiver to call a taxi, I found myself to be incapable of speech.

What followed was a long and half remembered trek winding between the tower blocks of Barking and Dagenham, that it seemed I survived against all odds.

So it's time to do quaint and touristy London; in fact the very aspect of London that Americans tick off their checklists, although I will draw the line at taking photos of a ceremony in which one man with an over sized woolly hat replaces another man with an over sized woolly hat that's known as the changing of the guards.

As for the riots, maybe the Olympic people have a lot to answer for when they chose The Clash's London Calling as a theme tune. Did anybody actually bother to read the lyrics?

London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing