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julietMany things occurring yesterday.
Went to the anti-war demo, of course. Pete & I met up with my friend Dave at Charing Cross at 12, anticipating that we'd be able to go down Villiers St to Embankment, but no. So by the time we'd decided that noone else was showing up there & headed march-wards, it took us 3/4 hr to get down the Strand & onto the Embankment at Temple. There were a *lot* of people. By the time we were halfway along the Embankment, the first people at the front were arriving at Hyde Park - and we were nowhere near the end of the march, either. And it was a lot of people who weren't the Usual Suspects, either. There's all this going on about apathy & politics, and how people don't care any more - *1 million* (possibly more) people came to London yesterday and spent 4 hours marching through the centre to show that they care. People *do* care about politics, they just don't care about party politics because they see it as irrelevant to the issues that concern them, and they see politicians as not interested in, or responsive to, the views of the public. For the record, I think they're wrong about the relevance of party politics, but at least this sort of thing surely gives some indication of what it is that's needed to increase the general level of public interest in politics.
Anyway. Bloody good demo - nice atmosphere, lots of cool placards (lots of people making their own placards & banners & such, which is always good). I was particularly fond of the "Make Tea Not War!" placards, with a picture of Blair in a tea-cup helmet. And the woman who'd written on the back of her placard "Even my mum & dad think it's wrong!". We finally reached Hyde Park around 4.30, having picked up![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wintrmute en route at Westminster as he'd lost the folk he was supposed to be with. And then we went to the PUB (my local, the Victoria on Strathearn Place, near the park) to warm up & have BEER & sit down. Thus missing the rally, but you can never hear a damn thing on these occasions anyway, and they always say much the same things. And my feet hurt.
Then went to a party in the evening. It was a friend's birthday, & I had been looking forward to it. But maybe I was too knackered or something; anyway, it wound up being not enormously fun. The trouble was, though there were some people I knew, there were plenty more that I didn't. And some of the people that I did know knew the ones that I didn't, so wanted to go off and talk to them. Sometimes I can cope with the meeting new people & being social thing fine; this was not one of those occasions. So I started feeling more & more useless and anti-social & left-out, until by about 10 I was no longer convinced even of my ability to talk to my friends without being crap & boring. So I mostly gave up altogether & thus felt steadily even worse. By the time we left at closing-time, turning down Seamus' invitation to go to Collide-a-scope (club, which I do like, but *so* wasn't in the mood, which is kind of a shame cos I've not been clubbing in ages), I was entirely convinced that I was the most enormously dull & anti-social person ever & everyone hated me. *sigh*. Although I was cheered up on my way out by Dan asking if I'm coming to poker on Tuesday, & telling me that I should.
We won against Holland, though. Hurrah.
Went to the anti-war demo, of course. Pete & I met up with my friend Dave at Charing Cross at 12, anticipating that we'd be able to go down Villiers St to Embankment, but no. So by the time we'd decided that noone else was showing up there & headed march-wards, it took us 3/4 hr to get down the Strand & onto the Embankment at Temple. There were a *lot* of people. By the time we were halfway along the Embankment, the first people at the front were arriving at Hyde Park - and we were nowhere near the end of the march, either. And it was a lot of people who weren't the Usual Suspects, either. There's all this going on about apathy & politics, and how people don't care any more - *1 million* (possibly more) people came to London yesterday and spent 4 hours marching through the centre to show that they care. People *do* care about politics, they just don't care about party politics because they see it as irrelevant to the issues that concern them, and they see politicians as not interested in, or responsive to, the views of the public. For the record, I think they're wrong about the relevance of party politics, but at least this sort of thing surely gives some indication of what it is that's needed to increase the general level of public interest in politics.
Anyway. Bloody good demo - nice atmosphere, lots of cool placards (lots of people making their own placards & banners & such, which is always good). I was particularly fond of the "Make Tea Not War!" placards, with a picture of Blair in a tea-cup helmet. And the woman who'd written on the back of her placard "Even my mum & dad think it's wrong!". We finally reached Hyde Park around 4.30, having picked up
wintrmute en route at Westminster as he'd lost the folk he was supposed to be with. And then we went to the PUB (my local, the Victoria on Strathearn Place, near the park) to warm up & have BEER & sit down. Thus missing the rally, but you can never hear a damn thing on these occasions anyway, and they always say much the same things. And my feet hurt. Then went to a party in the evening. It was a friend's birthday, & I had been looking forward to it. But maybe I was too knackered or something; anyway, it wound up being not enormously fun. The trouble was, though there were some people I knew, there were plenty more that I didn't. And some of the people that I did know knew the ones that I didn't, so wanted to go off and talk to them. Sometimes I can cope with the meeting new people & being social thing fine; this was not one of those occasions. So I started feeling more & more useless and anti-social & left-out, until by about 10 I was no longer convinced even of my ability to talk to my friends without being crap & boring. So I mostly gave up altogether & thus felt steadily even worse. By the time we left at closing-time, turning down Seamus' invitation to go to Collide-a-scope (club, which I do like, but *so* wasn't in the mood, which is kind of a shame cos I've not been clubbing in ages), I was entirely convinced that I was the most enormously dull & anti-social person ever & everyone hated me. *sigh*. Although I was cheered up on my way out by Dan asking if I'm coming to poker on Tuesday, & telling me that I should.
We won against Holland, though. Hurrah.
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$stamina{juliet}++;
Date: 2003-02-16 09:58 am (UTC)I'm quite amazed you managed to go out at all! I was floating quite nicely in the land of snooze all evening. I briefly got up at around eleven to consider catching the last train into town, but all I could think about was me falling asleep at the club in the cold, and then on the bus home, and then walking thru the cold, etc etc.. So i just stayed in bed and had quite amusing dreams.