Traditionally, riots have brought out police with bigger guns, thicker body armour and more aggression and control than the riots.

STOP! It doesn't have to be this way, people!

Instead of black, menacing body armour, have the cops wear flesh-coloured armour, filmy black lingerie and fishnet stockings (Black, peaked caps are still OK).

Instead of rubber bullets... marshmallows and marzipan, laced with diazepam. Distribute hundreds of thousands of "Eccies". They'll get some of the crowd in.

Riot control vehicles look and sound like ice cream vans, playing "Greensleeves" as they move through crowds, spraying sticky marshmallow, ice cream and chocolate syrup. Huge water cannons on the rooftops of the trucks soak the crowd in Raspberry Lemonade.

Helicopters "bomb" the crowd with hundreds of cubic metres of whipped cream.

Instead of CS tear gas, helium (It's damned hard to behave angry when you sound like Alvin the Chipmunk) and nitrous oxide (Everything is so dreamy). The gas dissipates quickly but can be loaded into fire extinguishers and sprayed into crowds at high pressures. Both being gases that are highly miscible with air they are very difficult to filter, unlike CS, which can be filtered reasonably well with a wet cloth.

Riots become raves, fists become waves.