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Notes
1 
Figure 1 Bruegel, Pieter the Elder (1528–1569): The Harvesters, 1565. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Oil on wood, Overall, including added strips at top, bottom, and right, 46 7/8 × 63 3/4 in. (119 × 162 cm); original painted surface 45 7/8 × 62 7/8 in. (116.5 × 159.5 cm). Inscribed: Signed and dated (lower right): BRVEGEL / [MD]LXV [now largely illegible]. Rogers Fund, 1919. Acc. n.: 19.164. © 2011. Image copyright The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Art Resource/Scala, Florence.
Rising from the spot where people are gathered for their repast is an old gnarled pear-tree, which provides them with shade from the sun, a back-rest and a prop for utensils. Being the month of August, the tree is in full leaf, and fruit is ripening on the branches. But it is not just any tree. For one thing it draws the landscape around it into a unique focus: in other words, by its presence it constitutes a particular place (Ingold Citation2000, p. 204, Emphasis as in original).On the tree in the painting The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the elder (Figure 1). I am very grateful to Stephen Farrall, of the School of Law, Sheffield University, for pointing out his work to me, in relation to riot, but in this case as Sheffield city centre being constituted by its absence of shops!
2 This commentary is based on an article written for ‘Poverty’ the magazine of the UK Child Poverty Action Group (titled ‘Riots, redistribution and reparation’). It also draws on work on why there were no riots in August 2011 in my home city of Sheffield, England, Lee and Dorling (Citation2011). Stephen Farrall's original observation was that Sheffield city centre was constituted by what was not there: the shopping mall of Meadowhall being out of town, which made looting in the city I live in less attractive.
3 Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, Chapter 4, attributing this to 1967.
5 The Reuters reporter was Stefano Ambrogi. Whether the northern word ‘nowt’ really was used in Brixton we may never know. The report is at http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/12/us-britain-riots-gangs-idUSTRE77B47I20110812
6 These figures are taken from a report by Gateshead CAB, which concluded: ‘The impact on someone with significant mental health problems is obvious and can only be a barrier to recovery and maintenance of good physical and mental health’ (Mark Gamsu Visiting Professor, Leeds Metropolitan University).
7 An email sent to the author from an adviser at Cambridge Citizens Advice Bureau.
8 Figures on the very affluent are released a few months after they increase their wealth by surveys conducted on behalf of newspapers. Figures on poverty tend to lag about 2 years behind events as there are so many more poor people to count than the handful of multi-millionaires in any rich list.
9 All the values are in 2005 pounds adjusted for inflation.
10 Hutton Review of Fair Pay in the public sector, interim report, http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/hutton_interim_report.pdf
12 If you want to see where falling income inequalities could eventually get Britain, look to the recent discussion of a minimum income standard in the House of Commons. An amendment to the Welfare Reform Bill was proposed by Kate Green (formally of CPAG): ‘such regulations will make reference to an independently determined minimum income standard’, 31 March, cols 262–279, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmpublic/welfare/110331/am/110331s01.htm