Communique number something-or-other of the London batallion of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army: DSEi is coming to town!
Hello nice people of planet Earth
Recently the quiet fools and clumsy dreamers of the London battalion of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army have made a startling discovery - the "DSEi" arms fun fair is coming to our city!
At first we were overjoyed by this news: after all, we're clowns, so there's nothing we love more than a fun fair; and we're an army, so we're always looking out for shiny new arms (and legs fingers toes hands knees and whoops-a-daisy). A fun fair dishing out arms - who would have thought it was possible! We could really go to town; splash out on flat pack tanks, edible body armour, bullet proof bullets, lead parachutes, dissolvable submarines and all the other really cool gizmos we'd always wanted. And then we could spend the rest of the day going on all the rides and having a really really really good time.
With eager anticipation filling our happy clown hearts, we swiftly despatched the London CIRCA sideways intelligence team to find out more about the exciting event. Unfortunately the information these intrepid tricksters returned with was far from good. Beneath it's cheerful exterior, the DSEi fun fair hides dark and sinister secrets. Apparently the weapons there aren't like the tickle sticks, banana skins and custard pies we in the clown army are used to, they are nasty things like guns and shells and cluster bombs which just aren't funny. And which could really hurt someone. Furthermore, we have found out that money is involved, so if you've got more money than someone else you get to have more arms, which just isn't fair. That's right, this so-called "fun fair" isn't fun and isn't fair. Frankly, London CIRCA are shocked and disgusted.
To make matters worse, we have even heard whispers that old man Blair who runs the fun fair is really a horrible mass murderer wearing a fake plastic mask.
However, all is not lost. London circa have learned that our very own Metropolitan Police force have also been tipped off about the arms fun fair and are planning to be there in large numbers. We know from when we met them up in Scotland in July, when we all went to have a chat with the G8 leaders, that there is nothing the Metropolitan Police love better (apart of course from playfully shooting people in the head) than looking for dangerous weapons. When we were up in Scotland they kept on playing this game with us where they would pretend to think we had dangerous weapons and keep us in pens for ages before searching us for all the dangerous weapons which we didn't have. They loved playing that game – it seemed to be their favourite! We're sure they'll have a great time playing it with the nasty men from the (f)un fair - what a surprise it'll be when they really do find lots and lots and lots of really really dangerous weapons!
London CIRCA will be joined by many of our fellow clowns at the DSEi arms (f)un fair from the 10th to the 15th of September 2005. We will be helping keep the arms dealers with their dangerous weapons safely inside the ExCel building in London's Docklands until they can all be searched and their toys confiscated; and we will be distributing for free our own powerful though harmless (to the right people) weapons of love, life and laughter.
We will be running a basic training session for any budding idiots who want to join us in this and any future operations. This will take place in St George's Theatre, Tufnell Park Road, North London (nearest tubes Tufnell Park and Holloway Road) from 11am-5pm on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th September. Note that it is necessary to attend both days. If you would like to come, please email us at monkeyawareofvacuity(at)yahoo.co.uk to tell us you'll be coming; and please bring food to share.
in silly solidarity
lance corporal vomnot jammitt (incorporated)
temporary amateur anti-official publicity pierrot
CIRCA London battalion
Recently the quiet fools and clumsy dreamers of the London battalion of the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army have made a startling discovery - the "DSEi" arms fun fair is coming to our city!
At first we were overjoyed by this news: after all, we're clowns, so there's nothing we love more than a fun fair; and we're an army, so we're always looking out for shiny new arms (and legs fingers toes hands knees and whoops-a-daisy). A fun fair dishing out arms - who would have thought it was possible! We could really go to town; splash out on flat pack tanks, edible body armour, bullet proof bullets, lead parachutes, dissolvable submarines and all the other really cool gizmos we'd always wanted. And then we could spend the rest of the day going on all the rides and having a really really really good time.
With eager anticipation filling our happy clown hearts, we swiftly despatched the London CIRCA sideways intelligence team to find out more about the exciting event. Unfortunately the information these intrepid tricksters returned with was far from good. Beneath it's cheerful exterior, the DSEi fun fair hides dark and sinister secrets. Apparently the weapons there aren't like the tickle sticks, banana skins and custard pies we in the clown army are used to, they are nasty things like guns and shells and cluster bombs which just aren't funny. And which could really hurt someone. Furthermore, we have found out that money is involved, so if you've got more money than someone else you get to have more arms, which just isn't fair. That's right, this so-called "fun fair" isn't fun and isn't fair. Frankly, London CIRCA are shocked and disgusted.
To make matters worse, we have even heard whispers that old man Blair who runs the fun fair is really a horrible mass murderer wearing a fake plastic mask.
However, all is not lost. London circa have learned that our very own Metropolitan Police force have also been tipped off about the arms fun fair and are planning to be there in large numbers. We know from when we met them up in Scotland in July, when we all went to have a chat with the G8 leaders, that there is nothing the Metropolitan Police love better (apart of course from playfully shooting people in the head) than looking for dangerous weapons. When we were up in Scotland they kept on playing this game with us where they would pretend to think we had dangerous weapons and keep us in pens for ages before searching us for all the dangerous weapons which we didn't have. They loved playing that game – it seemed to be their favourite! We're sure they'll have a great time playing it with the nasty men from the (f)un fair - what a surprise it'll be when they really do find lots and lots and lots of really really dangerous weapons!
London CIRCA will be joined by many of our fellow clowns at the DSEi arms (f)un fair from the 10th to the 15th of September 2005. We will be helping keep the arms dealers with their dangerous weapons safely inside the ExCel building in London's Docklands until they can all be searched and their toys confiscated; and we will be distributing for free our own powerful though harmless (to the right people) weapons of love, life and laughter.
We will be running a basic training session for any budding idiots who want to join us in this and any future operations. This will take place in St George's Theatre, Tufnell Park Road, North London (nearest tubes Tufnell Park and Holloway Road) from 11am-5pm on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th September. Note that it is necessary to attend both days. If you would like to come, please email us at monkeyawareofvacuity(at)yahoo.co.uk to tell us you'll be coming; and please bring food to share.
in silly solidarity
lance corporal vomnot jammitt (incorporated)
temporary amateur anti-official publicity pierrot
CIRCA London battalion
Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
luthermofuking blisset
01.09.2005 19:45
Clever Clogs
Not to put social struggle up on a pedestal n all, but apart from providing something for people to laugh at and making the cops look stupid, what exactly are you middle class state funded (via the arts council)(with the 'key people´ recieving daily allowances for the recent G8 debacle) actually doing????
It looks to me that all your clever words have just led you into playing out Frank Kitsons work for him.
What better sponge tactic then some ironic clowns.
Are the kids on the estates or the victims of the global war on humanity really going to be inspired by a bunch of dorks who have merely renounced their privelege for clown costumes and whoring to every camera possible?
not the pseud situ one
yeah what's with the deletion?
02.09.2005 14:20
ok, clowns are not everyone's cup of tea but imho they are the most creative and exciting and just plain fun thing to happen to direct action in this country since samba, and maybe longer. and if some of the people who don't like it wanna bang on about purported history of one of the people involved, or the ways that politics and art can combine in diverse ways that don't always work, then they show their own limited perspective more than they say anything about circa - itself a work in progress.. and the sadness of the critique is exposed when they never propose a better way to challenge current injustices and policing tactics of those who wanna change them.
meanwhile the circa actions and trainings for DSEI are under preparation, lots of great people and ideas and potential is out there, check it out first hand not just through communiques and occasional bitter commentary on here.
then, when you've done training and met the people, if you like it, get involved, and if you don't, nay matter, just please remember that we need multiple tactics and slagging off others' hard work and creativity without suggesting - or better still providing - a better alternative, is simply destructive..
or are the critics being paid? how else would they find so much time to diss good people on imc?
wondering
and another thing
02.09.2005 15:38
1. the underlying aim of protest/action should be to awake the slumbering youth on housing estates
2. that people from housing estates don't enjoy a laugh and relate to people who use humour to make political points and
3. that everyone in circa is a middle class dork
is patronising guff that says much more about the poster than about reality.
again, all I can say is get yourself out there, hear the tales, watch the movies, meet the circa crew, try out a training, get on the streets in whatever way floats your boat and makes the best change you can to this poor old upside down world.
with love
wondering about assumptions
Frank Kitsons Clowns
02.09.2005 20:03
If you think yous are the most exciting thing....
well I d have to say the school kids anti war stuff, the movement against deaths in police custody, the free party scene and various refugee struggles amongst others are far more exciting elements of direct action then your boring destractionist bullshit.
I agree that we need a variety of tactics methods senses of humour and what not, so go for it, but accept some criticism heh.
As for my underlining assumptions about estate kids senses of humour, well the neds in scotland deid nt seem to think youse were very funny, anyway.
Im off to buy more drink n drugs with my benefit money
Ahor!
Kalea Borokka MoFo Bliss
ok but
02.09.2005 21:34
neds? hmm. not sure who they are - circa and the lab of ii met all sorts of people in scotland most of whom were right into it. and most of them also 'got it' and the relevance to them and the stuff they care about more than they did people dressed up differently and *perceived to be* smashing the place up. many liked it so much they joined.
nobody from circa was paid to be at G8. the trainers and others putting together the tour in the lead up to G8 got a minimal wage for exceedingly hard work over many months preparing for and creating an eco-powered touring free show providing information, inspiration, free chips and trainings scross the country.
personally I think it's a lot better use of arts council money than most of the shit that counts as 'art'.
and in this context of public funding, for sure criticism is needed, and welcomed where offered in the same spirit of love and experimentation that inspires this tactic. are there things circa shoold be doing but isn't? things it is doing and shouldn't?
above all it is not a group but a tactic, one that can be used by any movement for love not money wherever appropriate - whether by kids (most kids at G8 LOVED circa and many trained) or by grown ups or whoever. and there will always be people who don't like it. so it goes. worse things happen in iraq and new orleans etc
I don't know who Frank Kitson is.
xx
still...
Direct Action ' not!
04.09.2005 12:36
> custody, the free party scene and various refugee struggles amongst others are far more
> exciting elements of direct action then your boring destractionist bullshit.
The free party scene and a few kids bunking off school? fucking hell, no wonder direct action in this country is almost non-existant since the days of the anti-roads camps and gm crop trashing.
CICRA and street mobilisations hardly consitute direct action in the currently climate of over policing and their new powers.
I´m not criticising the clowns as a tactic - nor am I that impressed by it. I for one don't think that samba was one of the most exciting things to happen in direct action (direct action? how?) but I recognise that samba (at some stage) provided a very valuable tool for mobilising crowds when sound systems on trucks became increasingly hard to achieve. Likewise I believe the clowns can an do achieve useful stuff within the context of street protests, especially in terms of 'clashes' with the police, but I certainly don't see it has a major step forward or anything that will pay great dividends in the long term just like pink and silver fluffyness didn't offer long terms advances after Prague.
But all this is irrelvent. If people want to be clowns then that is up to them and if other people thing it's stupid, pointless or a waste of effort then they can go ahead and offer something else and get on with it. Criticism is counterproductive itself if it is not offered construtivly.
And finally. Indymedia IS being targetted by apparently full time paid professional trolls whos role is to attack and sow distrust and miss information so when people attack without offering positive alternatives in the spirit of making us stronger then it is reasonable to suspect the motives of the poster as far as I am concerned.
n
cool
05.09.2005 11:53
Otherwise rambling thread. Like the original 'communique', and the initial 'clever clogs' of reply no1.
not a clown.
white lunar