Just putting this here for future reference.

Last year, there were several people saying that cutting the police would cause riots, and cutting youth services in certain depressed areas of London would lead, eventually to social unrest (i.e. riots). One such article header is "Theresa May: We can cut police budget without risking violent unrest" from September 2010 and is being recirculated a lot right now for obvious reasons. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister was quoted last year warning of riots if the Tories - with their track record of cutting services for the poor and taxes for the rich - were elected.

And then the Tories were elected and police numbers were cut and youth services were cut. And then there were riots.

The Secret Caves Beneath Our Flat

Nottingham is built half on clay, half on sandstone. One of the things about sandstone is that if you want to tunnel into it, then you can do so by taking, say, a dessert spoon and going for it. I've dug out a small depression before now using a pencil. As a result of this, the underground of the city resembles a series of giant rabbit warrens dug into swiss cheese.

One of the places I grew up was Dryden Street, in a flat backing onto Peel Street. The flat was part of a modern block of six, the estate being dotted with such blocks. There was a lawn around the block, then bushes, then a brick wall around the lawn. Just outside this brick wall was a very small brick hut with a steel door, almost next to our flat, which we assumed the estate manager used to store chemicals, although we did wonder why it was only the size of a telephone booth.

It turned out that the door leads to stairs down to an extensive area of sand mines, which were opened up *once* to visitors and I was lucky enough to go and see them. I've just been reminded of this oddity today. The sand mines might not be especially large, as sand mines go, but it was very strange to have this whole network of tunnels right underneath our very ordinary brick houses, and especially to have them reached by a simple steel door set into a tiny brick hut.