This week I’ve be battling s slight cold and yesterday night it developed into a fever. So no going to the office for me. In the pre-internet days being ill on a Friday probably wasn’t that bad because it meant that you could enjoy a three day weekend. But not these days, no, no. Thanks to the internet you can work at home even if you’re ill. Thank god, or some other higher power I really don’t believe in.

If you live outside of Scandinavia you probably have not heard about the Copenhagen riots that started yesterday. The authorities closed down Ungdomshuset, a “house of political and cultural gathering” as the users of the house describe it themselves on their website. The police did not agree and evicted everyone from the premises yesterday morning. A lot of people didn’t like that, and some of them - probably the guys who made the alleged bombs the cops found in the house - started throwing rocks, setting cars on fire and whatnot to show how angry there were.

Of course, everything was on live TV and watching it was an interesting study in crowd control. To gain control of the masses, the police had to remove the most violent elements from the group. After having blocked off the mob in one of the main streets, the main police force pretended to slowly fall back. This spread the crowd out on a larger area because the people throwing the most rocks followed the police, while the main part of the crowd didn’t. Suddenly, six or so large police vehicles emerge from a side street, efficiently separating the main trouble makers from the rest of the group. Quickly the main police force move forward again and apprehend 10-20 people.

Very impressive stuff.

I tried to find a video showing what happened, but the closest I came was this photograph of a video.

Tonight I was supposed to meet Klas before he leaves for Australia, but because of the fever, I guess I’m not.