I've just got back from the GR counterconference in Hammersmith and thought I should tell everyone what it was like.

Overall it was a good day. There were various interesting speakers, subjects under discussion and stalls for different groups. But first the complaints: The entrance to the Ponanana, where the main meetings were held was like a fecking newsagents with a variety of different socialist groups trying to sell you their stupid paper (I thought socialism equalled anti-capitalism, but then what to I know I'm an 'anarchist') and they began to get very, very irritating, very, very quickly. There were also the number of leaflets I picked up which I thought were literature on some important socio-political subject, but which were in fact little more than propaganda encouraging people to join this socialist/lenminist/stalinist organisation or that. I also noticed a distinct lack of contributions from anarchist/libertarian type people (apart from the Afed handing out slagging off-type leaflets). Something to think about next time perhaps...

The first meeting I attended was, "Resisting McLabour" in which many people spoke including Tony Benn. This had originally been intended as a anti-privatisation event but took on a more anti-war element in light of recent events and John Rees was particularly poigniant in his attack on the very idea of the war.

This meeting was followed by a break for lunch. Food was available, but the queue was so long I arsed of elsewhere. I then went to a meeting about privatisation of education (as I am currently at college). But as there were more people on the platform than in the audience so it was cancelled and instead I went to a talk on the media. Paul Foot and John Pilger spoke along with Indymedia activists about how the media works and how we can use it. A Daily Express journalist also spoke about how their union had opposed "porn barron Richard Desmond's" racist headlines on asylum seekers and was actually v. good and v. well received.

The final talk I went to was on on creative resistance at the Riverside Studios which I eventually found despite the crap map. This was interesting and due to a reduced number of speakers left a lot of time for discussion which was nice and even I got a chance to speak.

In conclusion GR still don't represent where I am politically, but they can put on a v. interesting and informative event with many big name speakers and I have to reiterate that many of them are very nice people. Now if only they could get rid of those bloody paper sellers!