London, 2.25pm. we are at Hackney Central, between the local tesco and Hackney Empire, in a small street called morning lane. a sambaband is playing playing playing. Maybe 30 Sambas and 60, 80 other people, surrounded by about the same number of met police, surrounded in turn by people with cameras taking pics and swinging. Bizarre. I can't see a fit team, but they have been around earlier. seems to be a section 60. One man has been arrested - pushed to the ground by police, and taken away, so i guess he was arrested.

I had a txt msg this morning, just before noon, inviting me to come to highbury and islington tube station. which i did, then passed a few met police and 2 of their vans and found a bunch of euromaydayers in highbury fields, walking back to the tube. Suddenly there were many more police, i guess roughly 100, 150 maydayers and maybe 50 police ??. It wasn't that easy to get on the tube, one person was held back by police, and at the platform, there was a scuffle, seems that someone had wrapped a scarf round his mouth, and was forced to take it off. pushing, hitting, suddenly a gang of about 40 met police storming down the platform.

about 1pm, the tube arrived, we went in, the wagon was full but of course the met plc had to squeeze in. Quite brutal, shouting at people to move down the overcrowded tube, pushing.

we arrived in hackney central, running over the street, making our way to the tesco, running, followed by more police.

Tesco. The door resembled the entrance to a high security building. lots of police guarding the entrance, but against who and what?

samba sounds from inside, only few could get in. At the entrance, a big banner was put up: "all we have to loose is our chainstores!"

The sambaband was chased out of the aisles of the market where they had been playing for a little while, to the pleasure of customers and staff, people at the tills relaxed for a moment...

Now the crowd is stuck in morning lane, playing samba. some people made it out of the strict police circle which seems to be a section 60 but was not announced as such. and where promptly caught by some met police, and forcefully pushed back into the circle. I saw this happening to 4 people, but since I am in this internet caf overlooking the action, I didn't see everything.

A woman passing by, hackney local, said: this is disgraceful, such a waste of time and money. I presume she meant the police action.