london

I came back from London feeling very glad I don't live there. Some people were wonderful - people on the CAAT demonstration - Oh including a beautiful unassuming fellow with his painting of a mountain and a molehill who I walked back to the station with. He put up with school kids jeering at him and was very concerned about our safety when crossing roads. Policetoo were on the whole happy to be engaged in talk which surprised me. I asked one what he thought about the arms fair - he said he had no idea what happened in there either. I asked him what he thought about the protest and he said he felt it had gone well so far. He said demonstrating peacefully like we were meant there was no need for it to be difficult (hmm). I asked him if he had enjoyed the speeches and he said yes. I asked him if policemen are allowed to choose which demonstrations they policed, and if they could ask not to police one if they sympathised with the demonstrators (purposely naive) - he said no, they couldn't do that, he said their job wasn't to ask questions but to go where they were told to. We also talked about the weather, and how uncomfortable his clothes must be (4 or 5 layers including bullet proof jacket) in this heat and he said it was awful! I wonder if he would have found it harder to hit me with a batton later if it had all got rowdy, i mean - does talkoiing to someone a bit make it harder to be pushy with them later? I bet it does. We actually realise we are all human.

Oh - yes - disappointing people - racist taxi driver - apparently I shouldn't ask black people anything because they always lie. Disgraceful!

Another man who completely ignored me when i asked a polite question. I was shocked. Not even a grunt in response. Who are these people? In Sheffield people respond with lots of extra words on top of the expected ones.

I enjoyed the march though - there was a feeling of victory about it. Mark Thomas was with oomph.