... not really a surprise that it was a student who was too dim to apply historical lessons. Nor is it a surprise that said student can't use traditional social skills to invite only the people they want to come.

In fact, it is getting easier to find dim socially underdeveloped people simply by whether they use a social network or not. fools.

Paris because she inspires this generation of dimwits.

"and his son badly beaten in the fracas"

What's the fracas, and does everyone have one? [/pedant]

... if people are so stupid as to advertise their parties on gutter trash sites like Bebo, Facebook, YouTube etc. then they deserve all they get.

Can we not use these sites to round up people, put them in space ships and send them somewhere else (as in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)? This would improve the human gene pool amazingly! But it would probably totally mess up any planet they landed on - belay that order!

WAAAAAY before social networking sites, if news of a party got out into the wrong pubs, you'd have a whole raft of gatecrashers on your hands.

I seem to recall several kids at my school whose houses got _trashed_ when they decided to have a few mates round whilst the parents were away...

(Where _IS_ the "Beer" icon, anyway? Hiho, a puking, paralytic vulture's close 'nuff)

being well beaten?

It's next to the rotunda. Caesar was stabbed in the rotunda, and it killed him [cf. Wayne and Shuster].

Stuff that...baton rounds, tear gas, and then live ammo if needed.

Time we got tough.

Students really don't learn anything nowadays.

@Edwin.

Nice...

The police got their chopper out?

Was this in the spirit of joining in the revelry?

Yes, I know... sorry...

...than a fractured fracas

My best mate who knows everything told me that where boys have a fracas, girls have an imbroglio.

I'll show you my coat if you show me your door.

The students have since apologised and pointed out that it was Facebook not Bebo they posted on. One party-goer also mentioned that some of the overspill crowd were patting and feeding the police dogs, so hardly a 'riot' then, more a kerfuffle.

Black Helicopter as it was dark and there was a helicopter (I live a couple of streets away)

and the worst the idiot is going to get is having her damage deposit kept by the landlord

still thats what u get when u make degree's like assholes and every muppet can get one, cus frankly the job market is no more attractive with a Bsc as it is with GCSE's just means u need a degree in tedium to run a high street store instead of an a level

"badly beaten in the fracas"

Obviously it was rhyming slang, the copper must have been too embarrassed to mention the real body part.

'Kin' A.

And Manchester Firemen should be armed with *at least* buckshot to drive off the rampaging chavs that call them out to false alarms just to abuse them.

Don't throw things at the police unless you're ready to butt heads. Riots are serious, not for fun.

The 'You're a smug barstard who only feels superior' award.

Well done to all of you.

Whilst an open event is clearly unwise, there's nothing inherently wrong about using such sites to arrange an event.

It's far more convenient to set up a closed event, invite 25 people with a few mouse clicks and provide address and event details in the invitation than it is to do the same with phone calls, chance meetings and text messages.

As to the users of social networking websites being socially under developed. Maybe you need to think that one through again Jeremey.

What happened to truncheons, and a night in the cells to sober up before the court appearance? Sounds like Bournemouth Plod could do with taking some lessons from the French CRS.

"Whilst an open event is clearly unwise, there's nothing inherently wrong about using such sites to arrange an event."

Where did anyone in here draw the distinction?

It is stupid (not to mention pathetically needy) to advertise an open event on a social netowrking site. You even agree with this. That's what people here are saying.

Nobody is commenting on an article where a social networker invites 25 people to an event: that's because nobody cares, cos these things do not turn into riots. That would be a different article entirely.

And pardon me, but imho thinking that the dangers of throwing an open event are obvious does not make one "smug", it just makes one "not stupid".

Hell, from my memory of college, even the lowest of the low look down on a student who's so insecure they have to yell "party at mine" in the pub to boost their "footfall"... and that's these people.

my 2 cents

No, technically our friends shouldn't spread news of a party so far it ends up being gatecrashed. But there is always a point where the probability that doing something will result in criminal/idiotic behaviour by other people becomes so high, it becomes idiotic to do it. The criminal nature of the inevitable result does not alter the stupidity of inviting that result. And when your stupidity is inevitably going to result in damage to other people's property, it becomes not just stupid but 'wrong' in every sense.

Walking through Peckham carrying a transparent bag containing £10,000 in cash is stupid, even if people aren't meant to mug you. Repeatedly pulling a cat's tail is stupid, even if it's not meant to scratch you. Advertising a party on a social network is stupid, even if people aren't meant to spread word of it until it inevitably reaches the gatecrashing chav type.

The extreme example is Terry Pratchett's Ankh-Morpork, where there are very few murders but plenty of suicides, since, for example, walking down The Shades at night or spilling someone's pint in the pub is considered suicide.

In the words of one singer and song writer

"That's all they really want

Some fun

When the working day is done

Girls - they want to have fun

Oh girls just want to have fun,

They want to have fun,

They want to have fun.... "

If Social Networking Sites can actually propagate the "Stupidity Virus" or do they just attract people who are afflicted with it?

Yeah I know.... doors that way.

Randall.

@ jeremy -

You old git lol ... I take it you just skipped being a student/teenager then?

You're one of those rare breed who just went from pubeless to pubefull over one night!

Why oh why do so many of us forget what is was like to be young now we are old!

...sorry to spoil the party mate, someone already did that - the ship landed HERE. S'probably why over 1/3rd of our population is illiterate and why 2/3rds are completely unproductive.

There are some things that I would very much like to say regarding gatecrashers, chavs and facebook... but I'd prefer to get the first comment in print. Now then, is this MY flack jacket?

I here there's going to be at least one party - post budget celebrations - in the big house on St Margaret Street SW1, do you think if we advertise it on Facebook etc. there will be enough uninvited/unelected guests the riot police might go in and sort it out with "extreme prejudice". My one's the Hawaiian shirt with the passport & 'plane ticket in the pocket thanks.