Mammary Fluid

In a (possibly vain, given this blog’s readership – or lack thereof) attempt to improve the visibility of the site, I’m following Mia’s advice and linking to an excellent site about London’s Mayor. He’s the worst thing to happen to my city for years, and I’m really rather worried about the next four years. Mia puts it far better than I could.

Well it’s being reported on Indymedia (and unsurprisingly nowhere else in the UK media) that thousands of G8 protestors have broken through the first wire-cordon and breached security measures to reach the main perimeter fence (albeit still 6km from the centre).
So while the TV shows propaganda shots of leaders meeting and pointing into the middle distance, it’s heartening to know that some folks out there are at least managing to express the collective roar of discontent which seems so necessary right now. And apart from anything there are a striking set of images of protest and determined resistance being produced.

I hope to goodness some of this news gets out, and that the agenda of the protest groups is intelligently articulated but experience suggests that this will just get hushed up or, if trouble occurs, demonised.

Some excellent photos on IndyMedia this month (including one shot of the cricket moment), as well as some interesting comments on the behaviour of the massers. Respect for pedestrians and intelligent corking is a massive part of what makes CM good, and fluid. Personally, I go for a ride, not for a “stand around and wait” and things that enhance the former and reduce the latter are fine by me.

Another Month, another Mass. The Met winning their appeal against the high court judgement meant some midweek publicity before the ride and guaranteed a large number of riders, as well as legal observers, press and quite a lot of cycle cops too (although little change there). Bumping into a couple of mates at the start made this a less solitary ride than it could have been. It did seem to be full of aggro this month though. Angry cabbies are par for the course, but we had limo drivers, diplomatic police, all sorts.

High spot of the ride was an impromptu over of cricket which took place on Charing Cross Road outside the NPG while we waited for the mass to reassemble after a pretty chaotic attempt to cross Trafalgar Square.

With many more cycle police on the ride than usual, they made a pretty ineffective job of policing intersections from what I could see – although being in the front phalanx for most of the ride means I got no impression of how the rear end were progressing. I often wish riders were more pro-active when riding in corking the intersections in the body of the mass and not corking unnecessarily near the front. Having said that there were only a couple of instances of vehicles in the mass this month which was encouraging(apart from the messiness at Trafalgar which is kind of unavoidable given the state of that junction). They also did their bit in diffusing a couple of flashpoints I saw, so its nice to see that despite the appeal win, the same good-natured police presence is continuing for the moment (although I did see a couple of stressed newbie coppers who could have done with a nice cup of tea and a sit down rather than deal with 3-500 happy cyclists hehe). Meeting Steve at Buckingham Palace was also a bonus, and he rode with us all for quite a while on his lovely home-built fixie, until we both peeled off the mass at Tottenham Court Road and headed eastward and home.

I do love a CM in the Summer.