Party Vibe

Thinking about it I had this book about crime in the 1950s London and there was organised fights, and people used the new fangled telephone to organise them.

Not everyone had a phone at home so the gangs used the red phone box or sometimes cafés that they would hang around in would rent a coin box from the Post Office.

As the Post Office obviously knew all the circuit numbers of the coinboxes (they often had a “X” listed after then to stop people placing reverse charge calls to them) what would eventually happen is a Detective Inspector would turn up at the Telephone Exchange and have words with the guy in charge, then shortly afterwards a new “boffin” type chap would be transferred into the GPO who didn’t say a lot to the others about what he was doing and one of these (usually the slow speed model which would get several hours of recording on a spool of tape) would be hidden up in a secure part of the Exchange, connected to a relay set and the circuits to be monitored.. Even today the folk what did this don’t like to talk about it as it was all done outside the Court system (even the tapes could not be used as evidence) and Britain used to claim we never did such stuff against our own people, but even back then it was happening..

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@spangle 456176 wrote:

I had heard it was unprovoked, seems lots of people of people got robbed too. There’s that photo of matey from Norfolk who got badly beaten up as well who needs plastic surgery not sure if it’s the same guy? I didn’t actually notice any trouble at all but I tend to be good at avoiding it, it definitely seemed like a different crowd to the big parties I used to go to round the same area though

a lot of the old skool people have stopped their involvement or gone to other events such as the one in Bristol, although that had the rig seized as well as apparently the “organisers refused to move it”. I find it very hard to believe they refused outright though, more that they were too full of ket to do it in the timescales the feds expected (which may or may not have been realistic).

In my local paper today there is a report about the local Ambulance Service (which is the same one as used in Bedfordshire) and they are suffering from massive overtime bills and people going off sick because of stress/overwork. This illegal rave would have needed at least 3 ambulances from the descriptions of casualties so far, without a single penny extra being paid by the organisers.

For all the faults of commercial dance events or even shitholes like Liquid/Envy etc, they do at least pay some money towards this sort of contingency and if people act like arseholes there they are properly detained and end up having a fair trial – often they going to prison – even if its “soft” in there now and shorter sentences they are facing the consequences of a lifetime criminal record rather than the slim chance of a fight against people which even if they lose they will recover from and come back for revenge and that future employers etc won’t even know about (until they end up attacking a colleague or paying customer, causing more people to lose out).

Also have any of the vigilantés even considered that against folk actually prepared to use knifes and injure people (and for whom obviously the risk of revenge attacks iperhaps a physically fit, trained copper with protective gear, plus the training and legal right to use a taser as well as enough backup might well have a slightly better chance against a pyscho armed with a knife than a group of wannabe Ali G K heads? (Even then they get hurt, one of our local bobbys and his dog got stabed up by a angry lad who had already seriously injured his own father – but they got him in the end and he is either going to prison for a good few years or secure mental health hospital..)

the real issue to the rest of society TBH isn’t even the fights/stabbings as these could happen at any large male-dominated gathering which is what night time venues are or the safety risks as these exist even in townie places or even the drugs but the fact that no one is paying the costs other than their council tax, and our country is now in a long term economic depression which could well last 5 or 10 years.

This particular area is a “strange” – as geographically its part of SE England but the govt/tax authorities class it as East Anglia.

Places like Bucks and what was Berkshire are actually richer than somewhere like Suffolk, even the shitty areas (I moved from Reading in 2006 and noticed the difference) so it looks to feds, NHS and Councils like a lot of people from SE England taking advantage of a poorer area where the cops can’t respond as quickly to shut these events down, and even those who are over 18 and paying taxes are paying them to SE England.

Previously most of these raves happened in the Thames Valley area but TVP eventually went on zero tolerance.

Also people do take more risks now – I am aware of more ambulances deployed as 999 cals to unlicensed East Anglian raves in 2007 than we called out at work – thats not even counting the amount of otherwise healthy young peopel who need treatment for acute or chronic drug use and and given that I work as a IT/telecoms manager for a healthcare organisation dealing with elderly people who are very ill indeed this sort of thing is clearly a burden on wider society (it was a major factor in why its near impossible to even do a legal rave in this county).

@Kelly-Ann 456394 wrote:

What does a zero tolerance policy on free parties look like? Does it mean basically breaking it up using masses of resources instead of waiting for it to die down? Presumably more arrests for drug/motoring offences? [/quote]

Yes, exactly that although the resources don’t cost as much as people think.

There was fuckloads of new cops recruited in the 2000s due to a fear that every British Asian bloke was going to spontaneously explode (I am British Asian, and have remained unexploded for the last 39 years :lauigh_at:) Plus a lot of people were laid off from office/IT jobs due to outsourcing and were angry enough to want to join the old bill. Even a fair few ravers have crossed the blue line over the years. A lot of these coppers are all genders, sizes and colours, and they are not your stereotypical meathead/bully type. Some are in fact very smart men and women indeed, and many senior ones are my age and know exactly what tricks people get up to to fund and put on raves, both legal and illegal.

There are always public order trained officers (riot cops) on standby in every large town because of the townie and urban music venues anyway. The big venues are made to pay for them,however there are other ways of downsizing the rave scene than just using muscle/force at runnign events, especially in times of economic depression.

in my area its not just zero tolerance on illegal events but a policy of asking for full cost recovery on legal ones, £2500 for a 1000 person club up to £20 000 for a larger festival. Of course not everyone can afford that, which leads to folk from SE England putting on events up here not because of genuine “community” but because its still cheaper than what is charged in areas nearer or in London!

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(Having said that, probably best not to leave the ambulance unattended if it had a canister in it. 😉 )

that is precisely why Eastamb don’t want to leave the ambo unwatched. They have had loads robbed even from hospitals. To be fair though they wouldn’t attend a simillar incident in a townie club without protective escorts from either the Police or SIA trained security officers/bouncers.

Also the first few times a serious incident happened in EA (k head falling from height) the organisers, cops and paramedics all worked together to get the casualty into the Ambulance. The goodwill evaporated because of the sheer number of avoidable incidents, and the canisters going missing (again people from SE englaind were driving up here to rob them as South Central have already clued up to this sort of risk and hidden them better).

@Jimmytheduck 456425 wrote:

In bed ill????? or unconcious……. :p

I was at the party lots of good vibes in general, but i swear the rigs involved attracted quite a few dickheads, heard of a few mates being robbed by chavvy dickheads. ots the problem with big parties nowerdays, facebook lets anyone get hold of the location and dickheads turn up to take advantage! miss the old word of mouth styles!!

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the only reason these worked is 10 years ago those what had internet and/or mobiles with text messages (and there were a fair few even then) were smart enough to keep things a bit more discreet.

Even then there was sporadic trouble, but what has happened in recent times is places like Liquid etc are becoming far better at keeping dickheads out of their venues (hence their financial troubles, as such dickheads probably have make up a fair proportion of the clientele of such places :wink:) whereas unlicensed raves by their nature now find it difficult to be sufficiently judgemental about who can and can’t get in. They don’t after all have the backup of not just SIA trained guards but the cops and Council CCTV operators behind them…

I also suspect some misguided people are even tolerating their friends being a bit of a twat at parties simply because said friends have access to cars.

Also zero tolerance policies of both UME’s and legal events, the stubborness of “genuine” East Anglians and higher car ownership means many will drive to SE England, where they are seen (incorrectly) as a “soft touch” by wannabe rude boys from those areas…

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My mate even got smacked in the face because he complained that one of the balloon vans was seling car nos as medical nos – he tore the fake medical nos sticker off and revealed the car nos one and got decked for it….they kept on selling ballons to people regardless. that shits dangerous!

that would explain why there were two hospital admissions from the stuff. TBH a lot of the comments here, even the supportive ones just reinforce the argument of Superintendent Linda Kelly that the event was unsafe.

I think both SE and Eastern areas need to go back to licensing smaller scale events either via TENS or traditional night time venues but even then it appears that when they have done so, these events have still been blighted by violent incidents, sketchy behaviour and overdoses, making them no safer than the townie ones that until recently big London based companies were paying premium licensing fees for to offset the other costs…