Pause.

Overtaken by events.

It’s an interesting phrase isn’t it? A mundane aphorism that we use to describe sudden momentous events which have made our pre-existing plans and expectations suddenly obsolete.

And that’s what’s happened here, these last few days. We’ve been overtaken by events.

Everything else I’d planned to write about a week ago now feels redundant. Out of date, defunct, anachronistic and wholly, horribly irrelevant.

On Sunday my brother told me that the pub had been shut because trouble was expected in town following Saturday’s Tottenham riot.

And I thought it was ludicrous. Preposterous even. I mean this is Enfield, right?

Enfield.

That kind of thing doesn’t happen here.

The idea of it.

Except it did. On Sky News and in HD. It did.

And then it wasn’t just Enfield. The next day it was Hackney and Brixton and then late on Monday night Croydon was on fire.

London was on fire.

Overtaken by events.

[Regular scheduled posting will resume shortly].