05/07/2009
07/04/2009
my G20 experience,
I spent a few hours at the Climate Camp... after spending the whole week living at RampART and sorting out Climate Camp food, jacket potatos, baking cakes etc I was too tired to actually stay at the camp!
The atmosphere at the camp was just incredible. The whole thing was occupied in about 5 minutes, with 1000+ people descending from all angles at exactly the same time. Tents flew up and pretty bunting marked the boundaries. Within half an hour it had workshop spaces, toilets, a kitchen serving hot food, people playing snakes and ladders and 'hang the banker' in chalk on the floor... at this time the police were just observing and letting it happen, it was entirely peaceful. The camp occupied around 300 yards of bishopsgate, and by 2pm numbers must have been at least 2000. IT felt like a big party, a big social event.. i couldnt walk 10 meters without bumping into someone id met at some point over the last year, the atmosphere was just electric.
I left the camp at around 4pm when things were still happy and peaceful. I went over to the convergence space. The convergence space, Payne House, was a squatted space that we (a group of people staying at rampART in the previous few days) opened up to use as sleeping space for people involved in the G20 events. It was AMAZING. It was a 4-floor office building, about 200 yards behind Liverpool Street Station, and although it had been abandoned from 2002 it had heating, electrics, running hot water and working toilets. From the roof you were surrounded by office buildings, with the gurkin just behind.. We cleaned it up, decorated it, got two full kitchens going and hung the black flag.
We had opened up the space on the night of the 31st with around 100 people sleeping there. I returned at 4pm on the 1st to see how it was going and to do some door duty (and have a nap). I had literally got through the door when I received a text message calling for an 'emergence process meeting' on the site of the camp.. I heard from friends still in the camp that the police had multiplied in numbers and were sealing off the sides of the campsite. NOTHING the camp had done, provoked this complete change in attitude.
As the Bank protests died down, both protestors and police moved into the climate camp, and tensions started to increase as the police started to stop movement in and out of the site, and pushed the north and south boundaries.. squashing the huge number of people into an even smaller space. The next thing i knew about, was that people were getting (literally) thrown and dragged out of the campsite... tents, bikes and belongings were trampled on..
Large groups of people were suddenly turning up at the convergence centre, so we made the effort to collect people all through the night who had nowhere else to go. By around 3am the entire camp was evicted. People were expecting to spend the night in the climate camp yet found themselves on the streets. Numbers at Payne House reached 300+ and the kitchen crew cooked curry for everyone! The media referred to Payne house as an 'anarchist HQ' where people were 'plotting to blow up banks' which is a load of ****.. there was no mention of the fact that we stopped hundreds of people from spending a night in the streets.
It was a busy but peaceful night, and most people left early in the morning to head towards the ExCel centre, with no police prescence outside the house... yet just gone midday we realised that the street outside looked like this..
By the time the alarm was sounded they were already in the building, our reinforced doors were no more than a minor annoyance. The police apparently used a tool which is half crowbar half pickaxe, which is illegal in the UK. hmm.. Anyway they stormed through the building, tazer guns and CS gas at the ready. It was probably the most terrifying experience of my life.. i was fearing more for the people whos screams i could hear from other parts of the building than for our group of 22 barricaded into an office cell. We were all detained in plasticuffs for 'suspected violent disorder' and marched outside, where i could see at least 4 of my friends bleeding from the head. They blackmailed us with arrest threats into giving our names and addresses.. then sat us there in the cold for an hour, while we watched them close off the building they had just ILLEGALLY evicted us from. Squatting is a civil matter which is settled through courts, the police have no business evicting squatters.
Anyway, around 4 people were arrested as they were recognised as being involved in things at Bank the day before.. the other 50 or so of us were let go. By this time, the climate camp site at Bishopsgate looked like it had 2 days ago, business as usual. The area of London around the ExCel centre was a fortress, and we could do nothing but wonder back to rampART (which had suffered the same eviction process, but they managed to reclaim the building) and start on the beer.
The atmosphere at the camp was just incredible. The whole thing was occupied in about 5 minutes, with 1000+ people descending from all angles at exactly the same time. Tents flew up and pretty bunting marked the boundaries. Within half an hour it had workshop spaces, toilets, a kitchen serving hot food, people playing snakes and ladders and 'hang the banker' in chalk on the floor... at this time the police were just observing and letting it happen, it was entirely peaceful. The camp occupied around 300 yards of bishopsgate, and by 2pm numbers must have been at least 2000. IT felt like a big party, a big social event.. i couldnt walk 10 meters without bumping into someone id met at some point over the last year, the atmosphere was just electric.
I left the camp at around 4pm when things were still happy and peaceful. I went over to the convergence space. The convergence space, Payne House, was a squatted space that we (a group of people staying at rampART in the previous few days) opened up to use as sleeping space for people involved in the G20 events. It was AMAZING. It was a 4-floor office building, about 200 yards behind Liverpool Street Station, and although it had been abandoned from 2002 it had heating, electrics, running hot water and working toilets. From the roof you were surrounded by office buildings, with the gurkin just behind.. We cleaned it up, decorated it, got two full kitchens going and hung the black flag.
We had opened up the space on the night of the 31st with around 100 people sleeping there. I returned at 4pm on the 1st to see how it was going and to do some door duty (and have a nap). I had literally got through the door when I received a text message calling for an 'emergence process meeting' on the site of the camp.. I heard from friends still in the camp that the police had multiplied in numbers and were sealing off the sides of the campsite. NOTHING the camp had done, provoked this complete change in attitude.
As the Bank protests died down, both protestors and police moved into the climate camp, and tensions started to increase as the police started to stop movement in and out of the site, and pushed the north and south boundaries.. squashing the huge number of people into an even smaller space. The next thing i knew about, was that people were getting (literally) thrown and dragged out of the campsite... tents, bikes and belongings were trampled on..
Large groups of people were suddenly turning up at the convergence centre, so we made the effort to collect people all through the night who had nowhere else to go. By around 3am the entire camp was evicted. People were expecting to spend the night in the climate camp yet found themselves on the streets. Numbers at Payne House reached 300+ and the kitchen crew cooked curry for everyone! The media referred to Payne house as an 'anarchist HQ' where people were 'plotting to blow up banks' which is a load of ****.. there was no mention of the fact that we stopped hundreds of people from spending a night in the streets.
It was a busy but peaceful night, and most people left early in the morning to head towards the ExCel centre, with no police prescence outside the house... yet just gone midday we realised that the street outside looked like this..
By the time the alarm was sounded they were already in the building, our reinforced doors were no more than a minor annoyance. The police apparently used a tool which is half crowbar half pickaxe, which is illegal in the UK. hmm.. Anyway they stormed through the building, tazer guns and CS gas at the ready. It was probably the most terrifying experience of my life.. i was fearing more for the people whos screams i could hear from other parts of the building than for our group of 22 barricaded into an office cell. We were all detained in plasticuffs for 'suspected violent disorder' and marched outside, where i could see at least 4 of my friends bleeding from the head. They blackmailed us with arrest threats into giving our names and addresses.. then sat us there in the cold for an hour, while we watched them close off the building they had just ILLEGALLY evicted us from. Squatting is a civil matter which is settled through courts, the police have no business evicting squatters.
Anyway, around 4 people were arrested as they were recognised as being involved in things at Bank the day before.. the other 50 or so of us were let go. By this time, the climate camp site at Bishopsgate looked like it had 2 days ago, business as usual. The area of London around the ExCel centre was a fortress, and we could do nothing but wonder back to rampART (which had suffered the same eviction process, but they managed to reclaim the building) and start on the beer.
11/03/2009
Climate Camp in the City!
I never wrote about Climate Camp, it was too huge.. it opened my eyes to co-operation, anarchism, police opression and mutual aid, It indroduced me to a huge number of amazing people, It was incredible.
It was decided quite a while back that this year, alongside the economic recession, it was time to draw the links between Capitalism and Climate Change.. showing that not only does capitalism not work, it is hugely environmentally desructive.
So.. along comes the G20 London Climate Camp setting up a autonomous zone in the financial district of London. It will be.... interesting.
23/02/2009
Folk The System
I discovered this band whilst sitting in the Cowley Club in Brighton... reading Now or Never Magazine over a cup of soya tea. I had to find out who they were. Its not my usual taste as im usually into crust and hardcore, though it makes a nice change from angry music and the lyrics are still spot on. Its fun, optimistic and makes me smile!
Myspace
Folk the System - Folk the System
1. I'd Be Happy
2. The Difference Between Wright and Wrong
3. Fake Your Death
4. Always Remember
5. Ian's Dream
6. Take My Hand Instead
7. Last Night
8. Cabins and Bear Traps
9. Unnescessary Actions
10. Ghost Stories
You can download them all (apart from Last Night for some reason) legally from their Last.FM page.
So...
I said Id post here more often and then havent. Typical me...
But what is there to write? what do people write in these things.. I could write a summary of events and things that I have done, but thats not interesting to anyone even myself. I could talk about music, but ive talked about music for years and although I still love music, talking about it endlessly bores me. I could talk about politics, people, campaigns, products, how great my bike is, how nasty Shell are.. maybe I should summarise the Earth First winter moot, or maybe not.
But what is there to write? what do people write in these things.. I could write a summary of events and things that I have done, but thats not interesting to anyone even myself. I could talk about music, but ive talked about music for years and although I still love music, talking about it endlessly bores me. I could talk about politics, people, campaigns, products, how great my bike is, how nasty Shell are.. maybe I should summarise the Earth First winter moot, or maybe not.
Life as a Dialoguer
This post, is to put across my experience working as a charity fundraiser / dialoguer / chugger. I went for this job because I was sick of my labour going to large organisations. Yeah work is work, but ultimately the one that profits from your work is the organisation you work for. I no longer wanted to do this.. I wanted to do charity work, work that actually means something, but i need to be paid.
The answer came in the form of street fundraising. I had met friends over the summer who worked in this way, and although I was doubtful that i had the confidence I certainly wanted to give it a try. It was not what I expected. The work firstly was fantastic - I loved being out on the streets, in the open air, yes it was november, it was cold and usually raining.. but theres something liberating about spending all day outdoors. I loved talking to people.. Alongside the weirdos and scientologists, I met some of the most unusual and amazing people doing this job, like the guy in Leicester who was homeless, living off his bicycle but the happiest guy ive ever seen, he spent 10 minutes telling me how he just loves life, and loves people, and how everything is amazing, he was awesome!
The lifestyle was something else aswell.. living and working in teams of four or five, in random country houses, driving between sites in possibly the shittiest car ive ever seen. Saturday night we would literally cross the country for a house party somewhere like Southampton where i ended up sleeping in a ball pool in someones front room. It put student life to shame... other Dialoguers were in general amazing people too. You have to be friendly, funny and relentlessly positive to do the job in the first place, and people were obviously passionate about the charities and all had a favourite.
So what went wrong? Targets. Its a target based job.. where the charities have paid the company for a certain number of sign-ups in a certain amount of time. So targets are high, and If you dont meet them then you get the sack pretty much instantly. I didnt meet them.. I was good at stopping people, good at talking, but when it came to getting people to give out their bank details I struggled. But nevermind, it was a great experience while it lasted and ive learnt alot and gained a huge amount of confidence.
And to everyone i met on the streets, i love you all. x
The answer came in the form of street fundraising. I had met friends over the summer who worked in this way, and although I was doubtful that i had the confidence I certainly wanted to give it a try. It was not what I expected. The work firstly was fantastic - I loved being out on the streets, in the open air, yes it was november, it was cold and usually raining.. but theres something liberating about spending all day outdoors. I loved talking to people.. Alongside the weirdos and scientologists, I met some of the most unusual and amazing people doing this job, like the guy in Leicester who was homeless, living off his bicycle but the happiest guy ive ever seen, he spent 10 minutes telling me how he just loves life, and loves people, and how everything is amazing, he was awesome!
The lifestyle was something else aswell.. living and working in teams of four or five, in random country houses, driving between sites in possibly the shittiest car ive ever seen. Saturday night we would literally cross the country for a house party somewhere like Southampton where i ended up sleeping in a ball pool in someones front room. It put student life to shame... other Dialoguers were in general amazing people too. You have to be friendly, funny and relentlessly positive to do the job in the first place, and people were obviously passionate about the charities and all had a favourite.
So what went wrong? Targets. Its a target based job.. where the charities have paid the company for a certain number of sign-ups in a certain amount of time. So targets are high, and If you dont meet them then you get the sack pretty much instantly. I didnt meet them.. I was good at stopping people, good at talking, but when it came to getting people to give out their bank details I struggled. But nevermind, it was a great experience while it lasted and ive learnt alot and gained a huge amount of confidence.
And to everyone i met on the streets, i love you all. x
I got bored.
I dont have that many tattoos, I have more piercings, and my dreads aren't yet long enough to tie back... but otherwise its fairly accurate!
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