We've been anticipating the arrival of the Olympic Torch since 2005, but no one could have predicted the kind of flame the rioters would bring to London and other parts of England just one year before London 2012. For those few days I was glued to my computer, on constant ‘refresh’, moving between tabs of video footage on BBC News, posts and comments on Facebook, and streams of tweets and retweets on Twitter. Everyone talks about Londoners being cold and distant, but that week (I’m pretty sure) I could feel some solidarity in the air, even along the deathly silent wavelengths of the Tube, as people looked over each others’ shoulders onto the front pages of the Metro, which were plastered with images of London burning.