Shit, I guess now I’m going to have to do work. I had it all figured out. I’m on the train, with the laptop and thought I’d watch the last two episodes of The Sopranos and then I’d be halfway through my journey. But the two episodes I put on my key don’t work and stupid me didn’t test them before I left.
I also thought I’d do my knitting, but I’ve brought the pattern but not wool. Oh, and there’s that book I’m reading. Yes, you’ve guessed it, I’ve left it by my bed.
So I have nothing to do for four and a half hours other than write or stare into space. Write? Stare into space? Write? Stare into space? Okay, so the staring is tempting. But I’m also terrified that I’ve only got two months and I have to hand in fifteen thousand words. This is coupled with the fact I have totally change the way I am now doing my book which basically means I’m starting from scratch.
The new name for my book is Fifty four arrests and counting although I’m worried it might be fifty five after the weekend. I’ll be surprised if it’s not.
The previous incident recounted here about being thrown into a tree has resulted in police statements that accuse me of pushing through police lines to get to a photographer and obstructing the police taking photographs. Given this is what two people are already being done for, I’ d be surprised if they didn’t try and do me for it as well.
Not only this, but we have called for public resistance to the FIT team outside Saturday’s DISARM DSEi meeting. It’ll be interesting. I have no idea how many of us or them will turn up. One optimistic friend of mine keeps saying perhaps they won’t turn up. However I’d be amazed with this result as it would effectively mean we’d won by putting out a call against them. It is far more likely they’ll turn out in force.
Back to my writing. I’m now writing my own story. I feel slightly strange about this as I’ve listened to people for years telling me I should take myself out of my writing. I am also still dubious over whether people want to hear my story - I’ve always regarded it as an irrelevancy but enough people have told me it’s interesting to make me want to write it. Besides it means I can say more what I want to say in my book. One of the problems I was wresting with before was being objective and giving all actions the same treatment. This way I can still give advice and tips for people who want to do these actions, but I’m in a stronger place to say why I believe or don’t believe in a particular tactic. And yes, the biggest freedom is I’m allowed to say the clowns are shit!
My main problem with this writing is I have too much information. I thought about writing the story of each of the arrests but not only would this be very tedious after a while (not all actions are exciting – and there’s only a number of times you can describe sitting in a road, locking onto something, occupying things – before it gets boring – not to mention all the times spent in cells), but, more importantly, it perpetrates the myth that you have to get arrested in order to take direct action. My arrests are a small percentage of the number of actions I have done over the years and the focus should be on the actions and not the arrests. Also I believe more people should do covert actions when they don’t get nicked and are free to keep fighting rather than being bogged down with months of court cases and worry over possible penalties.
There was a time when I was going to three or four protests a week. I went back through my arrest record and my main thought was I was surprised I didn’t burn out earlier. In June 2001, I was arrested five times and went to Genoa. In June 2002, I was arrested four times including two very traumatic ones and three in one day in France (this, by the way, is still the record. I have yet to beat anyone who has beaten our record of three arrests in one day).
And then I keep getting sidetracked. One of the notes in my book is what was my first office occupation? And I have no idea. It may have been when we dressed as Father Christmas’ and took a load of cheap toys to the Foreign Office and told them they were for the Iraqi children suffering as a result of sanctions and refused to leave. I can’t think what else it might have been. But I can’t remember which one came after this, so I’m still left confused. If I didn’t get nicked for it, it isn’t on the list and therefore not easily accessible. I could go back through my old diaries – this is something I need to do in the course of writing this book. However at the moment this seems like procrastination. As does writing this blog. How I love a good procrastination.
My battery’s getting low – it probably wouldn’t have lasted the two episodes anyway. I always have laptops with shit battery life. Maybe it’s like my mobile phone paranoia. Every time I get a new mobile, it works brilliantly. I have loads of signal and crisp clean calls. Then, after anywhere between two weeks and a few months, the cops seem to catch up with it. Suddenly my phone goes in and out of signal and develops an echo whereby I can hear everything I’m saying repeated back to me. This gets more intense the nearer we get to major actions until it gets to the point where if you’re trying to hold a conversation with another bugged phone, there is too much interference on the line to make this possible.
Now I’ve lost the plot completely – yes (oh and Jen – I’m blaming you for all these hyphens/dashes – whatever the fuck they’re supposed to be called!) – some may say I never had much a grasp of plot in the first place, but now everything seems to be collapsing. Random words appear on the computer screen (just typed scream which seems more apt really) only to be subsumed by more random words all more meaningless than the last random words.
Shit, I really better stop now. Really better try and do some real work.
