Critical Mass (bicyclistas!) 2pm Castle Hill

Pedestrians 2pm Midsummer Common

A map will follow shortly.

Street culture in the UK struggles to exist against an oppressive state and the apathy of a nation that would rather be told what to enjoy than venturing out and discovering 'fun.'

A street party in Cambridge sounds just the sort cheeky-fun activity that should be going on in everywhere this summer, slapstick humour, music and a finger up at the state!

Lets hope the sun shines and the pigs stay in their cells...

I'll be comin up from london - hope to see other anarchic performers too!!!

respect

Great to see some enthusiasm for the event coming from outside of Cambridgeshire. All support from other parts of the country is great news because if this event goes really well then hopefully the trend will start to catch on :-)

So feel free to come everyone, and have a day of cheeky (but positive) fun in the sun. (Even if it's cloudy you should still come!)

And feel free to spread the word amongst your friends and family, and on the internet.

It would be really good if anyone who wanted to went and plugged it a bit on websites like urban75.org and any other relevant website or email list or whatever.

Don't forget - if you have them - to bring juggling balls, juggling clubs, drums, whistles, horns, didgeridoos(!), face paint, beach balls, banners (if you like), and anything else you can think of that can add to the festival atmosphere.

Needless to say, if all you have to contribute is your happy smiley self then that's fine too :-)

These are all just suggestions. Afterall no one owns this street party - it's everyone's street party.

Having said that, let's keep it positive and happy - no leariness or hooliganism please :-)

See you all on J22!

Another thing: if anyone has any street theatre they can do then that would be fantastic.

Even if it's just a 5 minute sketch or something. Do something about George W Bush or something. Or Palestine or Chiapas. Or whatever. It's always good to see people doing street theatre :-)

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It'd be cool to tie this event in with the demo against the new Cambridge Uni primate testing facility which is happening on the same day.

The main protest got off to a slow start, meeting at Midsummer Common, so by the time we set off there were at least 6 police vans circling. We sauntered off down King Street, where it seemed we might actually get down to having a street party, but the police cordoned people off. I slippped through, thinking that they'd keep people there all day, and went off to get my bike and track down the Critical Mass, who'd been delayed, and check out the animal rights protest happening simultaneously.

I found the AR protest, more police again, another 5 vans full. Then, to my surprise, the anti-capitalist protest came down to Regent St as well, and were cordoned off again at the corner, blocking all the traffic for about half an hour, covering up a CCTV camera, and merging in with the people from the AR protest (odd police tactics). There had been one arrest, for taking the badge off a Merc, and one caution, for pushing a trolley at coppers. Lots of police video crews, probably looking for people dropping litter or something. People started filtering through to Parkers' Piece, I guess the police thought we'd all disperse or play frisbee on the park.

Instead, everyone headed over to Mill Road, blocking cars and letting through buses, right in front of the police station. Strange lack of police by the protest at that point. The Critical Mass appeared at that point, had been very successful, apparently, but got delayed by police - what a surprise. People then moved off down East Road, slowing one stream of traffic to a crawl. At the other end, at the roundabout, the police suddenly moved in vans to stop people moving down Elizabeth Way, then moved more up in a pincer movement. Rather than legging it back down East Road, people got trapped in, a few enterprising souls climbing up over fencing to get away. Saw another guy get arrested at this point.

The police were now blocking all the traffic down the whole of East Road, more than the protesters were doing before. Passersby all thought that the police presence was ridiculous, and were sympathetic to the aims of the protest. They walked the protesters back, blocking the road for about 45 minutes, then took them onto Parkers' Piece and kept them surrounded there, at one point by 200 officers (there were about 50 protesters at that point still blocked in). I counted 17 police vans, including some from Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, the Met... and of course there was the helicopter overhead all day. At one point, some water was being passed through to people being held, and they asked whether if the water was going in, could they just leave...? So strangely enough they let 8 people go, just like that. But unfortunately then they went an arrested one guy outside the ring for section 14, whatever that might be, something to do with calling an officer of the law a naughty name. Breach of the peace, maybe???

All in all, if the coppers had just left the party alone at King St, then everyone would have had fun, there would have been no arrests, only one street (with relatively little traffic) would have been blocked. Instead, the police cause a confrontation, aggravate people, and sent everyone on a walking tour of Cambridge for the afternoon. Can't imagine they'd have had over 200 police for some poxy Jubilee street party that didn't have permission... but it went against what the police wanted, so they caused hassle.

bollox i missed this one!

any details of numbers? on the critical mass and the rest of it... any particular groups come out to support it?


and hope to see some photos coming up...

ben

There were about 50 people on the critical mass when it reached its peak. We started with about 40 and picked up another 10 along the way. The hardest part of the ride was finding a road to do the critical mass on. Almost every road was already at a stand still due to the volume of traffic caused by police blocking off the centre of town. The council want to pedestrianise silver st. and Regent st. (which the police did on the 22nd)the 22nd gave them a picture of what would happen if they do this. All traffic would be moved out of the centre of town where no one (poor)lives and tourists can wonder around getting ripped off without having to be distracted by traffic. The disgustingly rich centre of town gets a better quality of life, without cars. Whilst the rest, mostly self centered middle class students learning deception at APU (sorry I mean Business and Marketing, they make the truth more attractive!)who live around the inner ring road are left with excessive traffic on streets where the pavement is not wide enough to be safe and the 'canyon' nature of the street traps and accumulates carcinogenic particulats throughout the day.
Yet again the rich triumph and the expense of the poorer.

Here are few screen caps of some video that I took on Sat 22.
When I have little more time I'll put together a narrated video which should be a tad more entertaining.

Freak.

Here are few screen caps of some video that I took on Sat 22.
When I have little more time I'll put together a narrated video which should be a tad more entertaining.

Freak.