So, as I was saying before Blogger went mental and ate my post [we hates it, we hates it! etc], it was the Anti War protests on Saturday and I hope you were all present and correct. We took lots of small children with us so spent a fun Friday night making our own placards out of cardboard boxes, brightly coloured paint, plaited wool and shoogly eyes. They were rather fantastic and the press kept taking photos of us. Sadly the interview Indymedia Scotland did with two of the kids isn’t on the website [interviewer: “why are you here?” kids: “umm” interviewer: “are you against the war?” kids: “YES!”] but there are lots of photos. The Glasgow demo was brilliant I thought, filling Glasgow Green at the beginning and the SECC car park at the end. Walking up St Vincent Street with people ahead and behind as far as we could see was exciting enough. Going off for chips halfway through and returning to just as many people was amazing. Also great to see so many ‘normal ordinary’ people instead of recognising 80% of the demonstrators. Tony Blair nipped in early to do his speech at the Labour Party conference and then wussed off home to hide so there was little to do once we arrived at the SECC except be continually amazed at how many people were there, try and find a space where you could be one of the twelve people able to hear the speeches and consider occupying the Tall Ship. Then the police closed the nearest bridge over the motorway so I had to walk some more miles to get home. Best anecdote of the day: when we were watching the march going past and looking for a handy gap to slide into, one of the kids with us asked, “is that the war?”. Aww.

Also on the Scottish front, some good news and some bad. The good news is that there is finally an official website for the Yummy Fur [only about five years late eh?] which has a long and very good interview with singer John McKeown and lots of other info. The bad news is that bis have confirmed that they’ve split up. But there will be a few farewell live dates and a final record before they go and they’re all involved in new projects. Crossover news of the day as John and Steven bis’ new band Dirty Hospital will be playing Stereo in Glasgow on the 24th of March [supporting the ace EU] followed by John McKeown’s new band The Mars Hotel the day after [and my birthday, yay!]. We just need a gig by Amanda’s band The Kitchen and we’ll have the full set.

Posted: 02|17|03 at 6:15 pm. Filed under: politics.
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