Home | Friday 11th December 2009 | Issue 703
NOT WAVING BUT FROWNING
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This year’s national climate march. tagged the 'Wave', started at Hyde Park as more of a ripple. The usual sorry bunch of mealy-mouthed MPs held forth - Michael ‘six houses’ Meacher, Simon Hughes – and so it fell to a Bolivian speaker and merry pranksters Seize the Day to try to add some urgency to proceedings. Not that you’d have noticed, this looked more like a mass Unison meeting – the rumoured black bloc having packed up and gone home if they’d bothered to turn up at all.
Numbers were down on last year’s opening when the US embassy was given some stick. This time it all went multi-media on our ass when we arrived in Grosvenor Sq, although at least by then crowds had built (to around 50,000). Two or three giant screens set up at various points were a complete and utter waste. No one stopped to look at them, in fact more interest was generated by the Hare Krishnas, who turned out with free hot grub, and a four-piece band which included a long-haired fat bloke on drums being drawn along on a bicycle-towed stage. SchNEWS can exclusively reveal that Jim Morrison is in fact alive and well and living in a squat in Tooting from which he exits now and then to spread some loving kindness.
As the march veered into Whitehall anyone hoping for a bit of argy-bargy outside Downing Street would have been sorely disappointed. Decibel counts may have risen as we came into Parliament Square - but they needed to in order to drown out the chanting of young Labour Party bucks shouting inane support for Brown. Who he? Yes the same greedy twat who for the past decade has lorded it over some of the most conspicuous consumption known to man. How the climate march has changed in the space of just four or five years.
This SchNEWSer turned in despair to the weather-beaten figure of Brian Haw and slipped him a copy of last week’s issue, as others donated tenners – well, come on we are skint. At this point some kind of blue Chinese dragon thing was being waved around up by Big Ben.
Fortunately just then “The Cop Out Come Down” text from Climate Camp came through. We legged it up to the Trafalgar Sq set up – but instead of the battering handed out at Bishopsgate last April by the Met the only hindrance this time came from the driving rain.
The camp was up and running by early evening with all-new-friendly-face of the Met Julia Pendry in smiley attendance. Keep up to date with camp actions – originally the plan was to stay for 48 hrs but now the campers are pushing to stay for the full length of the climate talks in Copenhagen.
So far a group of sulky Santas have disrupted the departures lounge at London City Airport and the entrance to the European Climate Exchange in Bishopsgate has been blockaded. A farewell meal was also organised for COP15-ers heading off to Denmark in the hope of more demonstrative demos in the week to come...
* For more about those out there still surfin that wave, see www.climatecamp.org.uk/actions/copenhagen-2009/cop15-out
