Jon Day

When I got there the signs were already up: 'Paternoster Square is private land. Any licence to the public to enter or cross this land is revoked forthwith. There is no implied or express permission to enter any premises or any part. Any such entry will constitute a trespass.' Bundles of legal papers were duct-taped to the archways leading into the square. Police stood about, watching. A few tourists drifted in and out. Photographers stood by, crash helmets dangling from their waists.

To get to Dale Farm you have to take a train to Wickford or Basildon and then try to get a taxi. ‘If your cab driver refuses to take you,’ the Dale Farm Solidarity website says, ‘tell them they’re being silly, then ask to get dropped off at the Belvedere Golf range.’ On Sunday I went to the Traveller site in Essex, where eighty or so families are waiting to be evicted from the green-belt land they own (it used to be a scrapyard, and hasn’t been ‘green’ for years), with Damian Le Bas, a journalist and Romani gypsy.

When I got to Mare Street people seemed excited rather than angry. The rhythm of the riot was well established. Every so often a police charge would surge towards Bethnal Green, scattering rioters into side streets where they’d regroup before pushing back. There was the odd cry of ‘hold the lines’, but no one seemed to pay much attention. Outriders ran on ahead, overturning glass recycling bins and arming themselves with bottles. Others fired fireworks at the police, at buses, and at cyclists.

Bicycle road-racing has never been much of a spectator sport. Its origins lie in journalism, and the first great races, the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, were designed to be read about rather than watched. The yellow jersey worn by the leader of the Tour is the same colour as the pages of L’Auto, the newspaper that first organised the race. No one really knew what was going on out on the road during those early races. Cheating was rife and Géo Lefèvre, the only journalist to follow the first Tour from start to finish (the race was his idea), was described by his son standing at night ‘on the edge of the road, a storm lantern in his hand, searching in the shadows for riders who surged out of the dark from time to time, yelled their name and disappeared into the distance.’