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This leafy road joining Clapham to Brixton has long been torn open, the trees gone, the front lawns lost to road widening; the few villas, gutted beyond recognition, are tyre fitters, plumbers' warehouses, low grade late night food marts. Across the road is Fulham Timber; piles of planking, forklift trucks, reversing trucks, a yard which has been burned out three times; arson, says local wisdom. The first time I found a telejournalist with a videocam anxiously waiting on the steps of my block in need of a vantage point. I took him upstairs and he got his flames. The warehouse was rebuilt; then it was claimed that the police used the upper storeys for surveillance. And why not? But being Brixton this had to be deemed "provocative". Indeed the timber yard positively deserved its new incendiarists, who arrived during the next riots. This time my twelve year old son was out; it was dusk; flames were bursting through the roof and the fire brigade was still to come; drums of paint started to explode. In between detonations the slim figure of my son sauntered past and let himself into the block. I get ready to be cool: Hi Felix. Hi Dad.

Next to the timber yard is Sam's Cafe; surly Turks fry up heart attack breakfasts for the refuse teams. They know each other well, the Turks and the dustmen. (They can only know each other well: "Ere, Ali, you fackin paki, hurry up with my fackin breakfast").

We move on down the street; Take Two Caribbean Foods and Dinner House Wokaway Chinese Carry Out. No nonsense with urban unrest at Dinner House. From my sitting room during the most recent riot I watched a bevy of lads swarm in and slither across the counter to rob the till, to be chased out, comic-book style, by a white-aproned chef with a cleaver. Opposite, too, the Duke of Wellington; the Iron Duke swings rustily above the pavement, looking down with curled lip (but perhaps also some of the relish he evinced for the underclass) on Yardie street mayhem. There have been at least four shootings here in the last couple of years. I am used to the crack-crack-crack of a pistol, the closure of the street, the victim wheeled across to an ambulance. I have had the plainclothes police in my sitting room; they wear carefully ironed grey slacks, white shirts, ties and light brown leather jackets in order to pass unnoticed in the Brixton streets. A sign at present padlocked to a lampstandard directly outside my block proclaims:

"Firearms incident. On Wednesday 28th August 02 at about 11 pm a shooting occurred where three black males were shot at by a large group of black males who were outside the Duke of Wellington Public House, In strictest confidence please phone…"

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