Oh man, there goes the neighbourhood!

[abbykatt]

Walking out to get some Indian food takeaway I see some little heads popping up and down behind a fence on Brockley Cross across from a block of flats (one of which has aptly had letters removed from it's name, thus changing it from "Conifer house", to "Conifer Use"). Up pop two little head screaming "surprise!". Two cute little kids, one little

Comments

[quercus]

We had something similar a few weeks back.

Two of us went out to dinner in St Pauls, Bristol. Nice restaurant, we go there regularly. Now I've lived here for years, I used to work right on the Frontline, so the whole Scary, Scary, Scary St Pauls!! thing doesn't really bother me. These days is _nothing_ to how it was 10 years back.

We walk back to the car. A couple of kids, 9-10 years old are walking in front of us and one of them is playing with his revolver.... It's black, there's no orange muzzle to it, but by the way he's clicking the hammer down onto leaves in the hedges I soon clock it as a plastic toy. I think no more of it, we walk past them.

We get into the car. It's a hot night, we put the windows down a few inches. Then laddo sticks his hand in through the gap in the window and demands (I kid you not) "give us 10p".

Now what do you do? It's not beyond possibility that someone will do this for real on that street. If anyone over 4' tall had been standing nearby, I'd have been watching them in case they did try it on (I'

[mlh4002003]

Oh dear. That is truly awful.

[gothictier]

The sheboon put him up to it.

[ellebabe]

I reckon you should have taken him by the shoulders, turned him round and kicked him square in the arse and told him that was for being stupid. And Quercus above should have grabbed the kids arm, pulled it in the window, wound it up and started driving.

At least teach them that violence gets violence in return.

[quercus]

What happens if you do that, then recount the tale in the pub afterwards?

If the reaction is likely to be that you're a caddish kiddie-kicker and only one rung up from Gary Glitter, then I'd have to query this as an optimal solution.

Yes, we could either of us have kicked the kid up the arse. Yes, this might have been an effective lesson to the brat. But could you defend your actions afterwards?

[ellebabe]

I'm a Kiwi and am confident that anyone I would be recounting such a tale to in the pub would agree that the lil shites were asking for it.

I am no pro smacking kids, but sometimes they just can't be reasoned with.

[quercus]

Ah, the sensible country. However we have to contend with both the Legacy of Rantzen and the Daily Wail:

1. All children are Angels.

2. Anyone within 50' of a child is a pervert.

3. Heavily-armed children with psychopathic tendencies are your fault, not their parents' fault, and certainly don't bear any sort of personal responsibility.

4. Any child re-enacting the scarier moments of The Famous Five is In Mortal Danger, which is also your fault.

[lesliev]

This is actually one of the biggest reasons against us moving to England. We want Jenna to grow up around normal kids. Can you believe that a South African should say that? So she can't ever go out on her own because of the extreme violence we have here, but at least she's in a school with "normal" kids!