can i just say a big thank you to the samba band. i heard you inside, but assumed it was the sound of someone tapping on the wall of the cell or something. when we were driven off to Ripley to have our fingure-prints taken (basically just to waste our time) we turned the van into a mobile samba workshop. it's amazing the sounds you can make out of a metal box - from the inside.

anyway, i just want to make the point that this ridiculous section 14 nonsense is entirely dependent on those willing to breach the orders being a minority that is easy to pick on. if there is a mass movement of civil disobedience this summer - as opposed to a passive march and a direct action fringe - then the police will have no choice but to fill their cells with ordinary citizens.

so, please, if you're thinking of going to Scotland this summer, do! Don't just march from A to B though, prepare for a day in a cell, then walk TOWARDS GlenEagles. If more people are willing to actually challenge the authority of the state then there's an actual possibilty that together we might be able to change things, rather than a few of us throwing ourselves at them as martyrs to the cause. It's all about critical mass!!

another nottingham cyclist

p.s. Babylon stole my bicylce!

Civil disobedience means that loads of offences are comitted (well it wouldn't be disobedience there weren't), but the majority of people, even people who support the anti-war movement, have a lot of other things to do with their lives rather than fester in some prison cell with all the psychos, rapists, murderers, and peadophiles. A criminal record can be a barrier to so many professions (and not necessary being a high flyer at MegaBucks Inc. either), and people do tend to have lives outside of activism too y'know. It's usually a case of having too much to lose, and in some many cases people just don't have the right charchter to serve time without being severely traumatised at the end of it.