Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Beware !

A North Yorkshire Police spokesman said: "The couple who own the house and their daughter had gone to London for the weekend. The daughter has allowed two of her friends to use the house. They have invited a few people in but word has got round and gatecrashers have come in and it has all got completely out of hand. When most of them have finally gone, two men have turned up and threatened the last dozen or so youngsters and chased them out of the house."

The owners cut short their break after being contacted by police on Friday night and returned to the wrecked house on Saturday.


Quite a lot of these stories recently. I don't think people appreciate what a difference a combination of the mobile and networking sites makes. In ancient days, you had to be in the right pub at closing time to find out about the party (which you hadn't been invited to) that night. Now MSN, Bebo and texting means half the town can find out within minutes - even - perhaps especially - people who've already gone home. It might only take one wrong person with knowledge of whose parents are absent.

The other night our son was at a gathering at a friends house - his elder brother was able to establish exactly who else was there via Bebo.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a useful and informative post. Just what I read Laban Tall for!

Anonymous said...

That and the endless stream of context-less ethnic crime shock stories, of course!

Anonymous said...

Alex, If you don't understand the context you really should try to read more widely.

Anonymous said...

I've never understood the appeal of Facebook and MySpace. Why would I want the world-at-large to know my personal details. It seems a little sad, what ever happened to going down to the pub and meeting people in the flesh?
Perhaps I'm getting too old.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of a story a couple of months where £20,000 worth of damage was caused by a big party. MySpace was the trigger-cause there.

It's a big concern to some people. One of my friends had doormen at her party to stop uninvited "gatecrashers" from entering.

Squander Two said...

It's not really a technology issue. It's a simple question of whether you let in people you don't know. If you do, you're an idiot.

I remember when I threw a New Year's bash when I was a teenager. I couldn't get my head around what exactly my dad was so worried about -- my friends were trustworthy civilised people -- and then it finally dawned on me that he honestly thought that if some unknown bloke turned up at the front door saying "I'm a friend of John's" that I'd let him in. Until that moment, it had never even occurred to me that anyone might be that stupid. And, once my dad realised that, he stopped worrying so much.

Then one of my friends broke a light-switch, but hey. It cost less than twenty grand, even though it was a dimmer.

Anonymous said...

Obviously the parents did not bring up their daughter to respect their property and produced an asocial delinquent.

There is no excuse for such behaviour and is reveals a great deal about the internal dynamics of such a family

Laban said...

Not necessarily, cctv. It's easy with modern technology to find you've got 150 uninvited guests turning up.

Anonymous said...

Why would you put your intention to entertain your friends in your home on the internet?

Millions of people don't.

Anonymous said...

Squander two, perhaps your dad was more worried that 20 pissed up and tooled up 'unknown blokes' might have turned up together...

Anonymous said...

Why would you put your intention to entertain your friends in your home on the internet?

It's well to remember that children make mistakes.

I recall holding a party at a shared house at university. Many people came to the door claiming to know one of the others. Short of asking all my house mates to man the door, there is no easy solution. There is also the problem of early guests letting in late guests. They are usually less discriminating.

One other thing that is worth bearing in mind is that virtually all teenagers are insecure and initially there is a thrill to be "so popular". The question of freeloaders or troublemakers doesn't enter the head until it's too late.

Anonymous said...

So no-one ever invited you to parties either, Laban?

I know the feeling. My mates and I had an extensive intelligence network which usually enabled us to find out where and when things were happening. We usually started putting feelers out on Tuesday for the following weekend.

It would be much easier now, but probably not as much fun.

Anonymous said...

I recall holding a party at a shared house at university. Many people came to the door claiming to know one of the others.

Oh I recall getting wind of a party in New Hampshire so a whole group of us left Boston in a convoy of cars....in the NH town we picked up a police black & white and were roadblocked.....then we had a police escort to the party....it was a bit like a mafia convention hitting town with a long line of big American cars headed and tailed by police cruisers