I Predict a Riot - the Telegraph

Riots aren't what they used to be. When I arrived in this country everything that I heard about Notting Hill, Brixton and the Poll Tax made Britain seem like the last bastion of civil disorder. Not so the noughties where yesterday we all sat in the office enjoying our macchiatos watching one of the many LCD TV's on our floor and witnessed 4 protestors and 30 photographers kicking in the windows of one of our buildings. In typically British spirit, there was less concern about the physical threat that the protestors posed but a lot of disgruntlement at the fact that the increased security seemed to be denying us our right to drink in the sunshine. 'Bloody crusties' a colleague muttered 'how come they're the only ones enjoying the weather'.

Braveheart, a man who would lay no claims to being brave but is at least Scottish, was out for beers so I took advantage of the opportunity to leave early and met him and his equally posh colleagues at The Telegraph - some 50 metres away from the 'riot'.

The Telegraph is nothing special per se, but it does benefit from a wonderful location on one of those rickety, albeit now modernised, little back streets that gives the city its character. The sun was shining, the drinks were flowing and our crowd of PR's, M&A's and other meaningless acronyms acted with the reckless abandon that so enrages our anti G20 Bretheren. At one stage a small group of protestors on bikes stumbled across the pub (goodness knows they wouldn't have sought it out deliberately) and proceeded to encircle me, jingling their bells in a stand off that evoked memories of the Miners Strikes. As done by Disney. We all smiled at each other, before I sought out the company of Braveheart while they toodled off into the sunshine. Oh what a riot.