HURRICANE!!!

IRENE
The Storm of a Generation

Irene. Irene. Irene. I-Reeeee-eeeen.

Wait... sorry that's Joleen. But we're all rather glad that the Hurricane didn't quite live up to expectation here in Chapel Hill.

Yes, that's right, despite that huge swirling mass that you can see in the picture above as the storm graced the East Coast with its presence, we're all ok. It was strange actually - I admittedly slept through a lot of the rain, waking up quite late after a crazy night on Pritchard Avenue - but it was pretty much like that infamous day in Edinburgh all those months ago.

If you remember The Windy Day, it was a Thursday and it seemed like the sun never rose it was so dark. Trees were uprooted, branches snapped in the wind, slates came off rooves, people buttoned up their Barbour jackets as tight as possible and donned their heaviest boots to reassure themselves that they wouldn't fly away. It poured and poured. We pushed against the horizontal winds as they lashed out around us and laughed and joked as thunderous gusts bellowed above us. We thought it was insane. We were insane. We just giggled as we dashed through the Meadows and as the Boreads tried to push us back down the steps from DHT.

Well people here weren't joking or laughing. They were sending out warnings about moving electricals away from windows, hiding valuables like passports in places far away from the door, memorising routes to safe places in-case-of-evacuation.

But it was no worse than Edinburgh here.

Of course, that's not to make little of the effects Irene has had on the rest of the American East Coast.

For some people it's been terrible and there are people here whose friends and/or family were moved out of the danger zone or who chose to flee the coast before the storm hit.

I just wanted to make sure you all knew that things in Chapel Hill have continued as usual (despite some very heavy rain and some gusting winds) and no one needs to worry (if any of you were). In fact it's now a beautiful beginning to another Carolina Blue day right now and probably a Carolina Blue Week. As they all say here: God must be Southern.

My thoughts are with those who have been effected by this event.


Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

EARTHQUAKE!!

The First Day of Class

On the first day it's traditionally been considered good luck to drink from the Old Well. Traditionally, the frat boys have always pissed in it the night before.  

Luckily for us it's no longer a well but a water fountain. Oh and they give out bottles of it the night before classes begin.

The first day of 'real' UNC life began on Tuesday and what a day!! It started off pretty mundane, eight o'clock crawl from bedroom to bathroom, glaring at the carolina-blue sky outside as it  blinded my sleepy eyes. Then the nine o'clock trek from South Campus Horton to top-of-the-North-Campus Caldwell Hall. At this particular moment everything was going a long just as a first day should be.

My first lecturer, Professor Lescher, introduced the class to German Idealism and Continental philosophy. I sat scribbling furious notes and trying to focus on understanding the quotes from Kant. I think it's going to be quite a useful class although I'm not looking forward to buying all the books he's recommended. First stop today is going to be the library's philosophy section.

Anyway, after class,  by-passing the Old Well, I ran into Abby Hart then ambled down to the Library to meet up with some of the others. This eventually ended up with Alex and I going for Lunch, only, we decided to go for Chick-Fil-A. ERROR.

It ought to come with a warning. Chick-fil-A, for all those nut-allergy sufferers out there, is cooked in peanut oil and they don't come with a disclaimer sign like most would. Not going to lie, tasted pretty good, if a little odd. KEEP AWAY smart nutters. Anyway, this small mishap meant I went to the health centre, made friends with the nurses and was given a shot of the epinephrine/adrenaline that I've never used before. Then they dosed me up on these heavy pills. The whole thing was hilarious, I couldn't stop laughing.

And then there was the EARTHQUAKE!!

This is one of the News reports of the earthquake.

It was really strange because at first we all thought it was construction or something because it was just a rumble but then we properly started going up and down!! I thought that I was hallucinating or imagining it at first too because of the crazy drugs but apparently that wasn't the case and they made me sit and 'try to ignore it'. That's good advice right? How to protect yourself in an earthquake - pretend it's not happening.



Anyway, so after that things were kind of calm. I went to my first lecture with Simon Blackburn (which was AWESOME). He's pretty cool, seems quite chilled and dislikes the 2.5 hour lecture as much as we do. Who seriously thinks a young-adults brain is going to stay alert and brilliant for 2.5hours from 4pm to 6:30pm???

So we left early, had dinner in Lenoir - I was still high as a kite from whatever the nurses gave me - and had fun with the nalgene machine.

That evening we went to a 21st of a girl called Emma Edwards from the first frat party we went to!  She's lovely, crazy curly haired (on the night) with a huge smile and a really good laugh - we all turned up and she was wearing a huge medallion with the twenty-one things she had to do on her twenty-first. I so want one of those for mine! We scuttled between that party and the frat party down the road (another Phi-Delt party) and just managed to escape the house before the cops came to break it up!! Luckily Emma's bash was still in full-swing so we just went back and had a rave over there. Most of the invitees were part of a hip-hop dance group too so they were AMAZING dancers which made me and Fiona a wee bit nervous at times I think.

The way home was just as eventful - as Andrea and I made the trip back on the P-2-P, a fight broke out on the bus, a drunk girl made me promise to go to Las Vegas when I turn 21 and a sophomore asked me out on a coffee date!

These people are CRAZY.

Next time, I'll tell you all about Irene.

Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

What Percentage Virginity Are You?

To quickly explain the odd title of this post, I need to explain that, in an utterly baffling conversation a couple evenings ago, Fiona was asked what percentage of a virgin she was by her fierce room-mate Tiffany from Fayetteville. Natural instinct to the British would probably be to say you either are (100%) or you're not (0%) but apparently not in North Carolina. You can be a 77.3% virgin, a 21% virgin, a 5% virgin. Not sure exactly how they calculate this, but I thought you might find it vaguely amusing to learn back home.


We certainly found it hilarious.


This conversation came after we had our first American House Party and our first Frat-Party!!!


As you can see we have the read cups down! And the goofy posing.
What you don't realise is that these red cups are from the House Party - they had a system where you turned up, paid a fiver and were given a cup which then meant you could have unlimited alcohol paid for by the hosts all night. The drink was a mixture of this stuff called EverClear. It's a grain alcohol that's essentially just-about-legal moonshine. The first party had mixed it up with lemonade and about my weight in sugar in their bathtub which you then scooped out with your cup. Classy right?


The Frat guys were even better, you didn't have to contribute but they had mixed their stuff in bins. I seriously hope they were cleaned first.... But as you can see we had fun taking over the dance floor. Oh yes! The Frat house (Phi Delta) has a full on dance floor with DJ and techie.


The house itself is just amazing in general. It's that same southern antebellum that I keep talking about but it's hard to believe that students our ages live in these houses like their own. Think of the houses that old aristocracy owned in the UK once-upon-a-time and then imagine living in it at university. It's akin to that sort of situation although the houses aren't quite as huge. Us three girls have decided to Rush though which is kind of exciting. Imagine if we became 'sisters' in a sorority house and moved out of dorms? I don't know if I'd go that far to be honest since I think most of the girls in the houses are younger and the older years live out in their own houses, albeit still usually with their sisters.


Since then things have been pretty crazy.


The university had organised a party at Target (imagine having a DJ in asda or tesco). It was bizarre!! Several hundred students descended on the store, dashing through the aisles as music pumped through the air and snatching up budget items for their rooms.

 People were really dancing!!

And Alex couldn't resist doning the MAN OF STEEL boxers. 

You may have seen these photos on one of my new pages too - I've started an 'American to English Translator' page and a 'Tar Heel Characters' page just for ease.


Finally FALL FEST - a 10pm-2am freshers fair in the street with huge stages, performances and lots and lots of Christian groups. I've signed up for my acapella groups and sports societies and the odd dramatic arts thing. Not quite the same without my Edinburgh friends but amazing all the same.


Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

First in Flight

Welcome to North Carolina

First in Flight

So I've been here a few days now and things have been pretty hectic hence the lack of an update to let you all know how things are going. 

I spent the first few days at the beautiful Carolina Inn. It's an amazing hotel that adheres to the full traditional southern style, which is kind of like a relaxed and happy version of Luton Hoo or the Manoir. They call it a cross between southern antebellum and colonial revival, but it reminds me a little bit of Haileybury. Actually... quite a lot of the buildings have that Georgian style to them that I associate with the front of Terrace and the entrance to Big School. They had the most comfortable beds that I've ever slept on, you could just sink into it, but without drowning as some super soft beds are wont to do. Anyway this was our room:

It might look a little dark but it was amazing - and so cool compared to the incredible heat outside. 

Anyway, the Carolina Inn is actually part of the university itself, having been donated by John Sprunt-Hill, an ancestor of one of my friends here, in 1935. It was design to cater to the 'special wants' of both university students and relatives when in Chapel Hill, but it has a great history from WWII. They were the official kitchen for troops during the war and had a huge cafeteria, now a grand hall, and photos line the walls of soldiers and veterans. I think it's kind of nice how much support they show for the Armed Forces here. Just down the road is the ROTC building too, which is also gorgeous and has this amazing front with three doors for the army, naval marines and air force. In the UK, I swear it would just be a grey, granite building with function rather than anything like this.

So moving on, I've moved in!! Ah!! It's really exciting!! I'm currently actually sitting on my bed, propped up on the colourful excess of pillows, sipping from my nalgene and relishing the air-conditioning. It's a 'cool 88F' here today, with a humidity of  51% right now so it feels even hotter. They're calling the weather 'autumnal' and all of us exchange kids are sitting here going 'my bloody god it's boiling' and their faces slipping off in the sun. 

As you can see it's blue blue sky!! 

And here is the historic Bell Tower, which is pretty much the land mark I use figure out where I am all the time.The Bell Tower rings like every fifteen minutes or something - so you can never get completely lost as long as you follow the sound.

It's quite amusing because we're down in South Campus by the huge Basketball Stadium and beyond the even bigger Kenan Stadium. It's a little ways from the main buildings and lectures but the walk will be good for us considering how HUGE the portions are!!! Every meal is like twice the size of tasteful - not that I'm really complaining because it's really good food and you can take away leftovers in boxes that are offered no matter where you are. 

I've been trying the local 'cuisine' - I feel like I should be calling it something special though like... grub... or something specific to the south. So far I've had Shrimp and Grits, Catfish and Biscuits. Grits is like a corn mix that some describe as 'hot cereal' but I think it's more like savoury semolina. And Biscuits aren't biscuits - they're scones, but also savoury. All the food is either really salty or really sweet it seems though and almost everything comes with either butter or cheese. We went to walmart for the first time (rather exciting) and all we could find was this weird butter that was 'sweetened and creamed butter: salted'. Weird? I've also been getting rather well acquainted with the Franklin St foodies. We've been to the Carolina Coffee Shop, BSkis, Spanky's, the Mediterranean Deli, Four-Eleven-West and Top-of-the-Hill. Eating out though is going to soon become expensive. I might have to invest in a meal plan so that I'm never in the position where I just don't have enough to really eat, especially since their bank accounts are a little bit confusing still at the moment. 

Ramble on food done. Once mum figures out her computer I'll also have a whole load more photos to put up of the room before the big move in but right now I've only got 'after' photos. 

My roomie is called Andrea. 

She's a lovely girl who has such a complicated background in terms of where she's from that I find it hard to follow. Suffice to say that she was born in Germany, lived in California, then Costa Rica, then Guatamala, the the UK and now here! But she's half Argentinian and half German (but her father was actually born in Russia). So you see what I mean??? We're in 407 and our room is AWESOME. It's very chilled out and we have music playing constantly and neither of us seem to be antagonised by any of the other's tunes. I think we're both pretty relaxed people when it comes to sharing the space and just getting on with things (although I'm sure it'll be a different story come assignment time). 

Then there's Fiona and John, both from Glasgow, who are in the building across the road from us. It's called Craige and is pretty much identical to ours which is cool. Fiona's living with an awesome girl from Fayetteville. She seemed a little excited to be rooming with someone British. John is with the mysterious 'TJ' whose real name has nothing to do with the letter J. Apparently, according to John's prolific facebook stalking, this TJ is a chilled seeming black bassist. I'm excited to meet him.

We've also met Alex, who rather bravely approached us on his own to say hello after noticing our accents at breakfast at the Carolina Coffee Shop.

Somehow between the five of us we've already formed a nice wee group that I think will mean that if we do go through the 'week six - wtf am I doing here' phase, as Amanda predicts, we'll be ok and have some good friends to drink tea with. 

On a final note that I thought was really interesting - the North Carolina number plate is the reason for the title of this entry. Here it is:

Did you know the Wright Brothers, the first people to ever put a plane into the sky and properly fly it, were from North Carolina? No?? Well that might be because both North Carolina and Ohio claim the credit for the Wright Brothers and human aviation. It's a rivalry epitomised by their competing plates. What a way to try and stake a historic claim. 


Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

Good Morning UNC!

I'm here. I've arrived. The wait is over. The Scribbler is officially ON TOUR.


The flight over was interesting; we bought our tickets through BA and of course had assumed that it would be a BA flight as you do, but it wasn't - come check in we'd discovered it was an American Airlines flight (which really isn't the same product at all). The plane was a dark gun-bolt silver, the colour George used to paint his Space Marines before the lick of blue. Inside it was old, the seats still became floatation devices and everyone who wanted to watch a film had to do so on the hanging box-screens that, back in the nineties, was already old. It was bumpy at times, we lurched and we trembled and every time the seat belt signs went  on a tin voice told us to sit down and strap up. But we landed and that's what counts. Even if I doubted we would at times.


The sun was just coming out as we touched down after a brief electric storm (part of the reason the flight was so bumpy). Pathetic fallacy? I think so. I think the last few days have been a turbulent rollercoaster of emotions to use a cliché, but I feel quite settled here right now.


Mrs Hart, she's ever so lovely was there to collect us after the hour or so that we spent coming through customs - if you have a visa you need to fill out the I-94 as well as the arrival form - and she gave us a brilliant, scenic drive-by tour of the town showing me every place that I'll need to know. We started at Horton, my new halls of residence and we giggled at that, then saw all the stadiums (the most important of which is basketball - just across the road from me!!) and the main shopping street. It's a brilliant little town, although I think they call it a city, all that style that I imagined Blanche to come from in Street Car. There's a very strange sense of having stepped back in time. Everything is Southern style architecture but it's reminiscent of European designs - all pillars and equilateral porches.


I think I could love this place, albeit in a very different way than I love Edinburgh. Edinburgh is wonderful because it's a city, it's full of history and literature and culture (and pubs). I feel with Chapel Hill that I've stepped into the countryside, it's so unbelievably green, and as a place it's clearly very sports orientated.


Right now, as I sprawl out at 9am on the comfiest bed I've ever slept on in this  amazing place, I'm quite happy, very content and incredibly excited to explore.

Edinburgh I Love You...

I leave today. It's twenty past midnight... I have only a few hours left of being at home, in England and close to all of the things that I know and love. It's a strange feeling. I know, for example, that the last month or so I've become slow, sluggish in the manner than I do things. I haven't wanted to complete the task as if on some psychological level, that will stop me from leaving. 


But it's not like I don't want to go. I do. I want to go to UNC and I want to see America. I want to meet the people. I want to experience something that's so far from green hillsides and grey seas and European humour. I want to live and breath another culture and I'm going to America. So why am I still so terrified? Why am I still so reluctant? Because logically I know that I want to do this. But subconsciously my actions (in hindsight) are like a petulant child dragging their heels in the sand whilst their determined parent takes them away from the ice cream stand. 


I'm going to miss everyone. I already do in many ways. I miss being at 2/2 Marchmont Rd, walking the two minutes to lectures and tutorials. I miss wondering who I'll run into today and whether or not I can bribe them into Starbucks with promises of future tea parties. I miss my flatmates - Lydia, Claudia and Mineta - and coming home at 3am to bake cookies and eat paste with pepper and butter. I miss complaining about who bought the bleach last and whether or not it's bad to go to the Italian for the third time in a week (albeit for a different pasta). I miss the cold breeze in my bedroom and the strange off-green of the walls and the multi-coloured paint throughout the flat. I miss knowing that everyone has to walk passed my house to get home and therefore has no excuse not to drop in for tea. I miss Holt and Zoe, my wonderful, irreplaceable friends. I miss The Earl of Marchmont but even more The Argyle and visits at the table from Aslan and his Newfoundland companion. I miss seeing dogs in the Meadows and thinking 'awwwww puuuuppppyyyy' and contemplating names for whichever hound I get later. I'm fairly convinced of the name 'Think'. Imagine calling 'Think' across a park. It'd be wonderful. I miss the way that you can move between New Town and Old Town. I miss the Jeykll and Hyde City and all the places in between. I miss all of you amazing people that I've met there. 


Do I really want to leave?


I know I'll be back. I'm not ever gone for that long. But think about how much we've changed in the last couple years and I wonder how much I'll miss out on. I'll miss your 21sts. I'll miss any and every hook up. I'll miss your nights out and your nights in. I'll miss the walks home from Drouthys. I'll miss the random anglicised Thanksgivings and Zoe's mum coming for visits. I'll miss the concerts with musoc. I'll miss the run up for tour. I'll miss the banter over December exams and the panic as people debate the pros and cons of the library. I'll miss talking about teachers and how attractive we find them. I'll miss talking about how awesome Simon Malpas is and how much we wish Lee Spinks taught more. I'll miss arguing over who takes the better courses and whether or not philosophy really teaches you anything. I'll miss the magic tricks and the beer pong and the ghost tour makeup and the laughter. I'll miss Tenents-man and Brew Dogs. I'll miss hugs outside Teviot and LEAF - oh nature just rejected you. 


I wish I was going to be with you. I wish time-turners were real and I could do both. But instead I'm leaving in seven  hours and I love you. 


I'm so excited but I really really will miss you all.


Je serai poète et toi poésie,
SCRIBBLER

Leviation - Chapter 13.

So it’s not long now until I’m off to the unknown lands of North Carolina. Four days to be exact.

Things have been rather hectic the last few weeks since I returned from Poole Harbour; a trip to the south of France, buying suitcases for the big trip over, researching where to purchase things in North Carolina, finishing fairytales and having my twisted sister come to stay for a long weekend. It’s been lovely to see the people that mean so much to me before I go and I think if I hadn’t seen them these last five days before the move would feel so much more difficult.

I’ve started packing, probably a good thing with four days to go. The suitcase I’ve bought is huge, it could probably fit me or my sister in without a problem plus clothes and toothbrush.

Anyway, I’ve been packing books. In goes a couple of Nortons, James Wood ‘How fiction works’, Ulysses, Milton, some theory, some criticism, a hard drive of all my scanned notes, some Flaubert and Dostoevsky, Zola, a load of fairytale stuff... And then I reach philosophy. Which of the nearly one hundred or so books of philosophy do I try and add to my collection of heavy texts as it stands? Well I started with ‘Think’ because Simon Blackburn is going to be my teacher and then I added my copies of Berkeley and Locke, but whilst I was browsing the shelves for anything on Hegel (oh yes I am psyching myself up for a whole semester of becoming familiar with Hegel’s dialectics) I came across Hobbes and a notebook I’d entitled ‘L is NBS’ of course referring to the infamous quote that was preached numerous times in both Ethics (year one) and Literature (year two).

“Life is ... Nasty, Brutish and Short.”

Hobbes is commenting on man, on his idea of the political state, of the need for society and social constraints so that we do not live in the grim reality of our human condition that he so aptly describes above.

As we sat in the idyllic port of Sanary-sur-mer a week last Saturday, we talked about that exact quote. The sun was setting above the hills, a whisper of a breeze cooling the heat from our prickling skin and Alex, who would be so easy to describe as ‘afrothdizzingly’ dappy, explained parts of her life that resonated with it.

I don’t know how we arrived at the topic in the first place, probably discussing books we had read. But she told us about her father, about how he’d fought in Ireland having just left secondary school. He knew two nineteen year olds who were torn limb from limb after making a wrong turn in the road. When Alex was little, they lived in Ireland, everyday ‘playing a game’, secretly checking that there were no bombs under the car every time they went out because they wouldn’t have cared if little, blond, three-year old army brat Alex was killed in the middle of a war she was too young to understand. She told us stories of kindergarten teachers putting a drill through a doctors kneecap and a man shot-dead on Christmas Eve in the last tour before Christmas.

It makes you wonder, when most of the time people tend to ignore that Hobbesian sentiment, are we really civilised? Maybe we are just animals. How thin do you think that veneer of humanity truly is? We are more brutal, more mindless, more cruel than any other species when that facard falls. Yet we pride ourselves on our sense of superiority and propriety. We all like to think that we’re not like the mob that took down the Bastille, or that tore those two off-duty officers apart in Ireland, or like the boys in Lord of Flies, or even the hooligans in London right now. But what could we be pushed to? Is it human nature? Is it society’s fault?

Scary thought.

We also talked about the ‘Junior Officer’s Common Room’ by a man Colonel Lloyd once knew. He wrote about Rwanda. I probably don’t need to explain but what shocked me was the fact that this autobiographical novel describes the way that the UN repeatedly didn’t act despite the presence of ground troops because America (too busy with Afghanistan) and France (who’d given their support via Congo to the Hutus) used their right of Veto. This UN soldier sent notice after notice until he was reporting the blood on church walls and the fields of dead bodies. My brother’s teacher from prep school was there too; he gave up counting the bodies at 2000, only a quarter of those sprawled across the area. How could America and France do this, when they’re so proud of their culture and history and superiority?

Ignoring facts, turning a blind eye or a deaf ear, that’s not so strange is it? Do you remember that sickening moment in the Heart of Darkness when the protagonist sees a pit being dug but he wilfully ignores it purpose in his narrative despite seeing the emaciated forms of black slaves dying in the shadows. A mass grave, but he doesn’t allow himself to acknowledge it, even in the surreal silence and darkness of the yawl he tells his tale on.

As you can tell I’m in a funny mood. But I had better return to my packing otherwise it’ll never be done in time.

Four days!! How exciting!!

Body Electric

I woke up today with one of those headaches that makes your whole world wobble every time you move, and even the dull sounds of distant planes and the tapping of keys seem painful. I’d had the weirdest dreams thanks to my mother’s lasagne last night. In it I was sitting outside on a warm grey day in London, perched on a dark wooden bench, no dedication, looking out across the Thames. In the corner of my vision was the London Eye and in the other the painted bow of HMS President (1918). She’s a naval vessel turned restaurant. Talk about recycling. The Thames is beautiful. Its grey-green wrinkles are speckled as the sun peaks out for a moment and the Eye glows in the distant bend, the Westminster flags flying as silhouettes. I think in the dream I was wondering about the riots and if they’d reach me but there wasn’t any sign of them.

It’s odd really. Two nights ago we were all sprawled out in the sitting room, my Twisted Sister, my brother and I, after eating far too much roast dinner. We were contentedly watching Top Gear when my brother’s computer tells him that he’s being called on Skype. So he wanders out and despite the good humour in the air, as James May wins the challenge for the mere reason that his tin car was £2010 under budget (despite losing all the mini-competitions).

“Are you ok?” I hear him asking, “When did it happen? Are the police there?”

Arman, a boy that I’ve known since he was thirteen, who sang bass in the school choir and has more charisma in his little finger than half the people I know, is calling my brother from the wreckage of his family’s shop in Enfield. Terrifyingly, my brother himself was there the night before, out partying without a care in the world. The shop, a family owned and run watch shop has been looted, the windows emptied of the painstakingly toiled over watches and items of jewellery.

I can’t quite believe the extent to which these rampaging hooligans are going. It’s almost terrifying but because it seems very far off from here, most of our conversations are rather self-righteous and philosophical.

I started an article when we were away in France, comparing how the police in London treated me when I was burgled to how they treated my best friend Alex in Paris. The police in London didn’t come for eight hours, simply told us to sit tight and not touch anything. The police in Paris, on the other hand, laughed at my friend Alex and said it was her own fault for being a girl, took her watch from her wrist because it was ‘evidence’ and then told her to stop wasting police time all the while leering at her.

“Every day,” she said, “there’s a new story in the papers about how someone has been injured or killed by the gendarme in random acts of brutality.”

They’re corrupt.

“There’s no point in telling them about the fact that you’ve been mugged or sexually assaulted because they’ll blame you.” She continued quite candidly, after telling us about a man who followed her up to her room one night and attacked her but who she luckily managed to fight off.

I think we should put into perspective just how ‘bad’ the Metropolitan police are – we’re actually very lucky in the UK to have a Police Force that tries to do their job. Maybe if they had a little more power (eg. to actually attack a man whose drawn a gun, real or not because how can they tell from a distance) then they’d be able to do their job properly. A hooligan who’s struck down by the riot police should NOT be able to appeal for compensation because of police brutality; I almost feel the police should be able to sue them for wasting police time. The limitations we’ve put on our police make little sense when it means they are rendered almost useless in the face of criminal activity like we’ve seen the last few days. Of course we don’t want to see a return to the 80s but a mob cannot be stopped without reciprocal force.