Sinister: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups

[Kieran Devaney]

Dear Sinister,

Today I wrote 'Internet Love Gone Awry' on a desk in school. Such things 
appeal to my sense of humour, though I doubt anyone else gets it – I 
remember at the end of last year, the school organised this 2 day business 
course for us all, the premise being that various business type people came 
into school and told us all about marketing and designing and management and 
so on and then we used the skills they had taught us in a mini project of 
our own. Our project was making a mug, and my own design (rather ironically) 
stated ‘I *heart* Ayia Napa’, my friend saw it and fell about laughing, not 
at my rapier wit and cool sense of irony, but because he thought someone had 
seriously designed a mug like that because they loved Ayia Napa. I wonder 
what it’d be like to be an indie kid in Ayia Napa; terrible I imagine – but 
there must be some. Anyway, I’m digressing. I wrote ‘Internet Love Gone 
Awry’ with a similar sense of irony obvious only to myself, I’m getting 
quite addicted to scrawling odd things on school desks, I do it in pencil so 
it can be gotten rid of easily enough, or replaced – and I live in hope of 
the day when some lovely band title their lovely album after a piece of my 
own pencilled graffiti. I know one internet couple, they met on the internet 
and live a fair distance apart, but I don’t think they’re right for 
eachother at all. They are meeting in person soon and I fear the worst, but 
perhaps they’ll prove me wrong and live happily ever after. Stranger things 
have happened, and sometimes being proven wrong is the best thing that can 
happen for everyone, not very often though. It’s boring when people you only 
vaguely know talk about relationships between people that they only vaguely 
know isn’t it? I’ll shut up about it now.

The school I go to is unfortunately located in a rather violent area of 
town. If you are a fan of football then you’ll be pleased to know it’s 
within walking distance of the Aston Villa ground, snappily called ‘Villa 
Park’ and if you are a fan of HP sauce you’ll be happy to know it’s within 
walking distance of the HP sauce factory – in fact you can smell the sauce 
when you get off the bus if the wind is blowing in the right direction. An 
idyllic scene you may think. Well not really, because earlier on in the year 
there had been quite a lot of muggings on one particular route to school 
(not the route I normally use happily, the only time I’ve ever heard of 
anyone being threatened there was my friend Naz, in the first year who had 
his wellies stolen – but that was ages ago, and a funny rather than scary 
story). However, after over zealous parents coupled with a dictatorial 
headmaster and a police force concerned with figures and the aesthetics of 
policing rather than actually catching criminals, disaster ensued! “Not 
disaster!” I hear you cry, well yes, disaster I’m afraid. The police and the 
headmaster agreed that people should no longer use the routes where there 
had been muggings, and a ‘Safe Route’ was planned. This safe route would 
then be patrolled by smiling bobbies before school and in the evenings, and 
nobody would get mugged. “But didn’t you say disaster ensued?” I heard you 
cry again “This doesn’t look like much of a disaster to me!” well let me 
temper your haste and explain a bit more. The thing with this ‘Safe Route’ 
is that firstly it isn’t safe. The police seem to think that just saying 
that they will patrol it makes it safe. It doesn’t. And now the would-be 
muggers know where to find everyone. So there have been two muggings in the 
two weeks the safe route has been operational on the safe route. That’s 
more, statistically speaking (and I’m no mathematician) than there ever was 
before. Also, the route is longer than any other route to school, since the 
subways which go under the Aston expressway are out of bounds – this bit is 
the only part of the route the police patrol, they guard the subway 
entrance. This seems silly to me for a couple of reasons – firstly, since 
we’re not allowed to use the subways; we now have to cross the expressway 
somewhere else. Far more people die as a result of road accidents every year 
than do of muggings (incidentally – have you ever seen someone being hit by 
a car, I have; it was quite traumatic actually, I had nightmares for weeks. 
Luckily the kid that I saw being hit escaped relatively unscathed). So 
because you have to go around the subways and then cross the road further 
down, the route is much longer; wouldn’t it make sense to choose the 
shortest possible route to the school, because then it would take less 
policing? Well evidently not. The reason I mention it (it’s not just because 
I’m in the mood for a rant) is that I used this ‘Safe Route’ today; this was 
because I came through town to school. Why did I come through town? Well, if 
you are an upper sixth former at the school I go to, one of the things you 
have to do is prefect duty, which more or less entails standing in a doorway 
in the cold pretending to make sure nobody goes inside - that’s how I do it 
anyway. Unfortunately this years prefect rota has me doing a duty before 
school on a Monday morning, which isn’t very pleasant at all, especially in 
the cold weather like now. If I travel to school through town I can get to 
school pretty much just as the bell is ringing (a little after actually, 
because of the stupid safe route), and avoid the duty. So that’s why. If you 
come through town to school you have to use the safe route now, so I did. 
Nothing happened, but I fully experienced the silliness that happens when 
police and headmasters combine. Never underestimate the power of stupid 
people in large groups. Do you know what happens if the police catch you 
taking on of the quicker, alternative routes to school? They take your name 
and report you to the headmaster, who puts you in detention. It all seems 
rather unfair doesn’t it? It is. The other day my friend and I went to town 
during school time (which in itself is against the rules), to buy strokes 
tickets (I’m not much of a fan to be honest, but anyone who is anyone will 
be there so it should be a good night out). After we bought the tickets, my 
friend stayed in town (he had frees for the rest of the day), but I had to 
get back for double English. Not only was I unnecessarily nervous walking 
back from the bus stop to school on my own, because of the culture of fear 
created by this police intervention in our travelling to and from school, 
but it also occurred to me that I’d rather be stopped by a mugger than by 
the police at that time – other than the strokes ticket which was hidden in 
my French book I only had about £1 on me. If I was stopped by a mugger I’d 
have to give them the pound, but I could then move on. If it was the police 
then not only would I be reported for being out of school during school 
time, but if I was caught using the subway (as I did) then they’d report me 
for not using the ‘safe route’ as well. Oh the tribulations of school life. 
But still, it’ll all be over in under a years time. I realise this lengthy 
diatribe wont be of much interest to anyone except myself, but it’s 
catharsis you know? Letting it all out. If you email me and ask nicely I’ll 
send you a token reimbursing however much time you have wasted reading all 
that.

If I had something of interest to say about belle and sebastian then I 
would, believe me. But my numerous attempts to woo friends with the bands 
multitudinous charms have yielded little. Most disappointing.

Peace and love
- Kieran



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