Watching Paris burn at the weekend, it occurred to me that saying ‘I told you so’ was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. 

I surprised myself by not emitting a bitter cackle at the viral clip of the young French woman trying unsuccessfully to reason with looters. She is seen repeatedly shouting things like ‘C’est pas la cause!’ (‘This isn’t the cause’) and ‘Pourquoi vous faites ça?’ (‘Why are you doing this?’) and seems incredulous as her world view smashes rudely into reality.

It turns out that when all your predictions were gloomy ones there’s not actually much pleasure in them coming true

It turns out that when all your predictions were gloomy ones there’s not actually much pleasure in them coming true

Incidentally, what exactly is ‘La cause’? The media are still, incredibly, referring to the riots as ‘cost-of-living demonstrations’. This is a fantastic new euphemism for urban destruction. I look forward to hearing it in different contexts – how about ‘In 1940, London suffered greatly from the Luftwaffe’s cost-of-living demonstration’?

The combination of mass uncontrolled........

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