Dispatch from the Razor's Edge, the Blog of Michael Stephen Fuchs
The Battle of Algiers
"Student" "Protests" in the Capital
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
- Th. Jefferson
"Let me add that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
- ibid

It's like the Battle of Algiers out there. I counted no fewer than 41 police vans on, or just off of, Parliament Square. Actually, to be clear, the 41 I counted were merely on these segments:

For all I know there were more on the western side of the square.

If you're on this side of the world, you will be aware of all the recent student protests – protesting the necessity that they pay for a bit more of the cost of their underwater basket-weaving degrees – which on one occasion devolved into a full-on riot.

As long as I'm writing about it now: I was seriously shocked. I didn't think the British had that kind of bullshit in them. Violently protesting reality is all fine and good for the Greeks, or even the French, who all seem to want to retire on full pensions at 54, regardless of there being any way, or anyone, to pay for it. But I always imagined the Brits to be much more reality-based; not to mention stoic, phlegmatic – and orderly! Trashing buildings and battering lovely police officers, in defence of their welfare entitlements, is really not the British style. So that was disappointing.

Though, happily, and entirely suitably, the Prime Minister has promised to put these people in prison – where one ardently hopes they'll be violated by cellmates who never had the opportunity of an education. And, amusingly, the Telegraph published a whole series of photos of individual malefactors – tools who were too stupid even to cover their faces while being photographed smashing things – inviting the public to identify them. Ha ha ha.

Anyway, they've been back twice since then – with a great police presence each time. Today was just amazing. Ranks (and I mean hundreds) of really lovely, stolid, friendly Met officers, who cheerfully let me slip through their battle lines on my run. And a sad gaggle of student "protestors" who I would really think should be in class right about now.

I ardently hope student fees are raised exactly as much as was planned – plus the full cost of the damages from the other week, and the police operations since. With exemptions for anyone studying science, engineering, computer science, or medicine (or anything else useful to society) – and who can prove they were in class during the protests/riots.

On the upside, I got to run in the snow, which is always fun.

And as I type this from my desk right now, the snow has been whipped up into a frenzy, big fat flakes blown nearly horizontal. I hope they're freezing their bits off.

Critical Note/Addendum:
Dispatch from the Razor's Edge does not actually wish sexual assault on anyone. This was a joke. Tongue-in-cheek. A humourous (one hopes) rant. It might have been an offensive joke; perhaps even an unacceptably offensive joke. If you were offended by this, we apologise wholeheartedly. And we stress, once again, that it was and is not meant literally. But it also stays.

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about
close photo of Michael Stephen Fuchs

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very  long  walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

THE MANUSCRIPT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
PANDORA'S SISTERS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
DON'T SHOOT ME IN THE ASS, AND OTHER STORIES by Michael Stephen Fuchs
D-BOYS by Michael Stephen Fuchs
COUNTER-ASSAULT by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book One - Fortress Britain, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Two - Mogadishu of the Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Genesis, by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Three - Three Parts Dead, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Four - Maximum Violence, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Five - EXODUS, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN Book Six - The Horizon, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Seven - Death of Empires, by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead by Glynn James & Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : NEMESIS by Michael Stephen Fuchs

ARISEN, Book Nine - Cataclysm by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Ten - The Flood by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Thirteen - The Siege by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - Endgame by Michael Stephen Fuchs
ARISEN : Fickisms
ARISEN : Odyssey
ARISEN : Last Stand
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 1 - The Collapse
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 2 - Tribes
Black Squadron
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 3 - Dead Men Walking
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 4 - Duty
ARISEN : Raiders, Volume 5 - The Last Raid
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