If I kept a diary yesterday, this is what it'd look like...

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

The day started with getting up fairly early, about 8am, feeding myself a nice, hot carb-heavy breakfast and a big cup of tea, dressing myself in multiple layers and heading out the door on my bike across town to the University of London Union.

I arrived at about 11am on the dot and I was underwhelmed with the number of people on the street (about 50-70?) and fairly irritated to see an equal number of mainstream media photographers already set-up and ready for their action shots as well as a TV van.

The SWP and Coalition Against the Cuts had tables with their propaganda. About 5 minutes later a group of protestors with placards came marching 'round the corner onto Malet Street. Things instantly got more lively with folks chanting "No ifs! No buts! No education cuts!" and the other standard slogans. I spent a couple minutes listening and looking at the banners, admiring the original ones and even admitting to enjoying the "Tory Scum here we come!" SWP banner...I decided to take this opportunity to visit the facilities at ULU, figuring I might not get another chance until we hit Trafalgar Square or even much later.

I emerged to find the group, which was growing slowly, still chanting. I walked through the crowd, handing out leaflets, complimenting people on unique banners and chatting to people I recognised in the crowd.

The crowd moved south on Malet Street and the Samba Band appeared and marched at the front - leading us like the piped pipers they are at about 11:40. The Dissident Island sound system turned on, with the customary dubstep bass-heavy tunes pumping out a rhythmic beat towards the back of the crowd, and I stuck nearby to enjoy the music.

There were a couple hundred protestors at this stage - and we snaked round Russell Square to pass by the SOAS campus where we seem to have picked up more people to walk with us. All the while cops almost completely surrounded the marchers (on three sides) and vans made up the rear. Spirits were high and really positive. The sun was shining and it was a gorgeous and brisk day for a walk in central London - near perfect demonstration weather! Folks pretty much ignored the cops and enjoyed themselves. I spotted some folk in fancy dress. Edward Scissorhands was out again, a lots of creative face painting, feathers, accessories and fun things - living up to the 'carnival of resistance' theme that was announced for the day. As we walked down Southampton Row, students and staff from another college (St. Martin's?) leaned out their windows and waved enthusiastically and received shouts, waves and smiles in return.

Around 12:00 the march was passing Holborn. Traffic was stopped to allow the march to proceed unhindered. We walked all the way down Kingsway and veered left, round Aldwych, and then it seemed that the police had formed a cordon to prevent the march from proceeding onto the Strand. This sucked - as I was looking forward to taking up one of the most traffic heavy areas of London! Instead we were suggestively escorted onto Arundel Street, where we weaved in and out of traffic and the cars that were forced to park and wait while a couple thousand people and cops made their way past Temple Tube Station onto Embankment. Not exactly a smooth police operation! Or perhaps it was intentional, to avoid a problematic traffic situation, or to break-up the momentum of the march (which was getting comfortable taking over huge streets and making lots of noise) and to generally confuse us. Or perhaps it was a gesture by the shadowy folks in charge of the police, watching us from their CCTV and helicopters, to indicate to us protestors that the police could change our course at any time - essentially our will was subject to their OK.

We ended up on the Strand eventually - after walking along the pavement of Embankment for a bit (traffic was halted on both sides, with a long line of police vans parked on the side closest to the Thames) and then walking up Savoy Street. At this stage I was a bit tired of marching and got on my bike and slowly rolled past Charing Cross Station onto Trafalgar Square at about 12:45. There were LOADS of people in the Square, and lots of noise and colors, lots of tourists looking on and being confused, lots of cops running around. It was a demonstrator-soup of many ingredients. The marchers from ULU didn't halt at all but went straight through the intersection down Whitehall.

Now, many experienced protestors say that "Whitehall is where demonstrations go to die". This probably has to do with its layout and how easily it fulfills the requirements allowing the infamous Metropolitan Police of London to practice their ridiculous 'kettling' tactic in which the people on a demonstration are contained within a confined area, with police officers standing shoulder to shoulder at every possible entrance and exit, and which prevents people from joining the protest and, most importantly, leaving.

If kettling is the aim, Whitehall is the perfect stage. Whitehall is a big street with few side streets and exits to allow people to escape a cordon. Whitehall, being the seat of the imperalist government of the United Kingdom, located in the centre of the most surveilled city in the world, has got excellent CCTV coverage on its side. No need to be present on the street when it's 2 degrees outside - Mr. Police Detective can sit on his fat arse with a doughnut and a coffee in a warm office looking at a TV screen instead! Fucking brilliant! I can imagine he even has zoom and instant replay facilities available to pick-out the "criminals" and "terrorists" and "trouble makers"...

So we walked down Whitehall. Everyone was still in great spirits. We got to Parliament Street and realised that this was it. There was a great cordon of police and vans corking the end of Parliament Street that led onto Parliament Square. Police were gathered on the side streets. And eventually the top end of Parliament Street was corked with a line of cops and vans too. Ah well. The big dissident island sound system still had some battery left so that played on for a bit longer. It's about 1pm at this stage. People really rocked out to the dubstep and drum'n'bass! It was really like a street party.

From afar, where we were with the sound system, we could see a cop van had been abandoned in the middle of the cordoned area. We could see it being rocked back and forth, like someone was going to topple it (it didn't get turned over in the end). I reckon once everyone realised we were contained, that it was payback time, and public property damage was fair game. I'll mention at this stage that the only private property damage spotted included a window smashed to a building, but the Red Lion pub, the small sandwich store and the photo development shot were left untouched. I'll also mention that the Red Lion was very uncool in closing almost immediately when the cordon developed. Perhaps they were forced to by the cops, or perhaps they've read too much Daily Mail and are scared of violent protestors. Reality is, they'd have made a killing that day selling beers to bored protestors...

Walking around the area, I saw lots of smiley young people and realised I was one of the older people in this crowd! Kick ass. It seemed that a whole load of school kids who'd managed to get out of school had joined the march at some stage, many still in uniform, and had painted stuff like "cuts hurt", "cut the cuts" and anarchy symbols on their cheeks. I heard a tale of a group of kids demonstrating in front of Hackney Town Hall earlier that day and a group of rather shy 15 year olds admitted to me that they were certain they'd be expelled if their school found out they were here but found it important to make their voices heard and do to /something/ about all these cuts effecting their future. To which I replied "Hell yea! You're awesome!" congradulating them on their courage to take and stand and express themselves despite the authoritarian nature of their school administration and the potential consequences of their political choice that day - and then shared a couple bust cards I had one me, along with indymedia leaflets.

All around me I saw young people, some as young as 12, getting creative and making the most of this odd situation. People were climbing everything worth climbing. Some folks got up and spray painted "REVOLUTION" in red on the 'War Rooms' building facade, and soon after, another person painted "SMASH THE STATE" just down the wall from the other graffiti. Everywhere you turned your head, someone was letting off a bit of steam... the bus stop on the west side of Parliament Square was decorated with "FUCK COPS" and other eloquent messages of dissent as well as some anarchy symbols. A crowd had gathered around another sound system, jumping up and down. The crowd near the abandoned cop van were smashing and defacing it. Others were laughing and taking pictures of themselves and their friends in front of this symbolic expression of police-hatred. Another couple people managed to gain entrance to the back of the van through the window and promptly climbed in and 'liberated' some police gear and eventually let the siren sound. At one stage a young person stepped in front of the van, urging people not to deface it further as it was a 'plant' by the cops, 'baiting' people and encouraging and inciting them to violence, and to exercise self-control and not get taken up by these urges. To which some of the masked youth next to be shouted "So?! GET OUT OF THE WAY MAN!" - other youths were shouting stuff along the lines of "WE KNOW IT'S A PLANT! That or the cops are really fucking stupid to just leave their van in the middle of a cordon..." and other similar ideas.

Few were complaining, and making a big deal about being in a kettle. The sound system battery was drained by 2pm so we shut off the tunes. It was great while it lasted - and fun to see the small mosh pit form in front of the sound system as well as a steady flow of admirers asking who it belonged to and how to build one like it... There was another sound system that kept playing all night.

The rest of the day and evening blurs. Several significant things come to mind:

1) At one stage, myself and several of my female comrades had to pee. We searched for a viable option that allowed us to maintain a certain amount of integrity (i.e. to not expose our privates to the entire world). We ended up peeing in a cleverly sheltered spot which happened to be about 10 feet away from a police cordon line. We each took off and lowered our jackets to allow for a bit more privacy. As one of my comrades squatted to take a piss, several male cops (or should I use their more appropriate nickname "pigs"?) started sniggering, actively mocking our attempt to make a toilet for ourselves. So much respect and serving the people! And to think my taxes go to pay these people's salaries?! It seemed like quite a sadistic thing to laugh at and I imagined myself finding a container to piss into and then throwing it in their laughing face. Un/Fortunately my bursting bladder demanded to be evacuated as soon as possible so I had to forego the dream of seeing the sniggering coppers splattered with some steaming golden liquid...

2) I walked around a lot during the 7 hours in which I remained inside the police cordon in an attempt to keep my blood pumping. My feet were the coldest body part and walking seemed to stop them from going numb. It also allowed me to do 'rounds' and keep informed as to many things - like the (mis)information from the cops and what was going on in different areas.

Lots of folks made impromptu fires using placards and sticks, some even scaling the tree branches. Considering how cold it was, a lot of people were severely under-dressed. You could catch snippets of conversations with folks starting to complain of cold, hunger and thirst, saying that hadn't eaten or had a drink all day. Some folks decided to burn more caustic materials, perhaps for fun or maybe because there wasn't so much wood around - things chucked into the fire include plastic banners, bits of the bus stop (there goes the nice decoration!) and even two bus ticket machines (which let off terrible fumes and explode and pop in surprising ways).

At one stage I came across a copper authoritatively telling a group of relatively young folks that "cordons are the only way to police protest" to which I could not contain my frustration and yelled back "What the hell are you talking about?!" - the surprised copper turned to look at me and asked me "What, don't you know what happened two weeks ago?" I replied, "What, you mean when people smashed some windows at Millbank?" He laughed mockingly and turned his back on me, waving his hand about in a dismissive manner, saying over his shoulder that I'd "lost my argument right then and there". I yelled back at him telling him to come back and finish what he'd started, that I wasn't making an argument and that he had yet to justify his ludicrous statement to our group. I turned to see the faces of some surprised onlookers. Perhaps they hadn't seen someone talk back forcefully to a copper before. But then again, the coppers love it.

I should mention that at several different police cordons, folks were told that they were being held because a couple people had done criminal things. Like that's justification?!? Punish everyone for the doings of one or two people? It was a blatant attempt to turn people against and demonise anyone doing or intending to do property damage.

I stumbled upon a group of about 40 people that had gathered at the Parliament Square end of the cordon around a man and his guitar, who was having the time of his life singing some crazy rhyming nonsense songs. Two youngsters were particularly into it, screaming "SING IT AGAIN! AGAIN!" to which he obliged. And during the next song, these two broke into an impromptu satirical MC session, ranting cleverly about "this is what democracy looks like".

On my rounds, I realise that many folks were caught in a game of 'protestor ping pong' - with cops on one side of the cordon stating definitively that we'd be let out in 45 minutes at the other end - only to catch the same group of people 45 minutes later on the opposite side of the cordon asking the other line of cops why they weren't being let out. People become increasingly frustrated as time wore on and started accusing coppers of lying. Coppers caught on and started being a bit more cautious when issuing statements in regards when we'd finally be freed.

My friends were getting dangerously cold and hungry. I was getting achy and tired myself. My numb feet were being to burn with lack of sensation. A bit worrying. At about 7:30pm we received word that they were going to slowly release people on the Whitehall end of the cordon. We all rushed over there, bikes and all, and stood in a claustrophobic queue for 45 minutes. We edged forward one foot at a time and eventually I found myself in front of a smiling, jolly copper, who admitted to the protestor to my left that he sometimes used his shield as a snow-sled. To which I couldn't help but laugh and asked him if he ever got in trouble for it. I suppose that's one thing to look for you youtube!

The police cordon would open up for a couple seconds and would let through 4-5 people at a time. It was finally my turn! Once released though I still had another 40-50 cops to walk past all actively staring at the newly released in what I can only deem is an attempt to ID the so-called "trouble-makers". I put down my face and shuffled along.

Once told I was free to go, I walked for a couple seconds and then cycled and remembered all my friends behind me still in the cordon and all my friends who were eagerly awaiting to hear of my release. I decided to stop at an island in the middle of the round and make a call to one of these friends and also to take a look at the grand police operation that was in place. In the middle of my conversation, a copper interrupted me and asked me to keep moving. I moved a bit further up the road and picked up a telephone call and stopped. I was told by another cop, more aggressively, to evacuate the area immediately. Apparently they were adamant that no one hang about the Whitehall area. Eventually I passed to the other side of the tape and was out of the jurisdication of "you can't stand here even though it's public property" and found one of my friends.

We popped into one of the pubs nearby for a shot of rum and a pint of beer, and to let the warmth come back to our limbs. We parted ways after our drinks and I went on to meet some other friends who wanted to congradulate me, give me some hot food! As well as hear a first hand recount of the days demonstration. We looked at online coverage of the days events in London as well as the other student demonstrations that happened that day. I got wind of the occupations in places like Bristol, Cambridge, Leeds, Manchester...  by the time I finally got home and crawled into my warm bed, I could barely have a though before I drifter off to sleep.