Brighton May Day Smash EDO protest

*Public Service Announcement* This blog has been temporarily hijacked to bring you an anonymous political/social missive from the front line! Do not adjust your television set, normal service will resume shortly...

I used to be someone who thought of protesters as 'those people' - that they brought trouble (with the police) upon themselves and if only they could do it quietly and peacefully people would take them more seriously. Recently I became reacquainted with some friends who are involved with demonstrations and the radical social scene, and for one reason or another (I had previously eyed their activities and enthusiasm with suspicion, as some kind of dubious zealotry) I am now at a point where I am far more open to hearing about such things. The more I heard (and saw, via the miracle of YouTube) about what goes on at demos with the police, from several unrelated sources, the more horrified I was - and the more interested in seeing it for myself. This was prior to the G20 debacle.

I agreed to go to the Smash EDO May Day street party with someone who as it happens backed out before the event, but, knowing some other attendees, decided I'd go anyway. Though I can't deny being slightly apprehensive, not really knowing what to expect. The meeting location was kept top secret until half an hour before the event, so already it felt exciting and slightly illicit. The organisers had been criticised in the local press for not co-operating with the police about their plans, but considering their previous experience it's very understandable that refused to talk to them. It's not a legal requirement that the 'authorities' are informed, in any case! I believe the organisers of the G20 talked to the police beforehand - something about the proof in the pudding.

Sussex's finest were quite an ominous presence throughout the day - there were police horses at the front of the crowd, unprecedented and really quite intimidating. The route was at least easily discernible for any stragglers by the trail of horse shit lining the streets... Perhaps it was some kind of practical joke for the frontrunners, shielded behind large placards held up from head to foot, to be the first to have to trample through it. Later when trouble began to look imminent, flares were set off (causing protesters and those not involved in the march to fear it might be tear gas) and riot police appeared, elbowing through the crowd. Lines of officers and police vans appeared all over the city. They may have been told to take a 'hands off' approach, but the paranoia and tension created by such an overwhelming, and frankly disproportionate, show of force, was never going to make for a good atmosphere. The change in the atmosphere during the half hour period in which the police were not present (there was a barricade on Ditchling Road, forcing us back down through a residential side street towards Preston Park - the police elected to regroup at the park ahead of us rather than try to follow us down the road) was really amazing, suddenly everyone was far more relaxed, a few face masks came off for a while, people came out of their houses to watch - curious rather than alarmed!

I'm just adding a paragraph in here to explain in more basic terms what actually goes on at a demonstration. It can be quite hard to work out when all you hear is reaction and spin. We gathered, mostly dressed in red, and then we walked, slowly, in a procession around the city. There was music - sound systems and a samba band - some chanting, some dancing, and some banners and placards professing the cause. Every now and then the police stopped us and tried to move us back for some reason. Then we carried on. The aim is not to break windows, throw stones, blow things up or direct aggression at bystanders. Though sometimes leaflets are handed out, explaining what's going on. Banks and other businesses such as McDonalds and the Army recruitment office were the subject of ridicule - a water balloon filled with red paint was thrown at the metal shutters on one premises; ribbons and a banner were tied on the scaffolding outside another. These are not threatening or aggressive activities. I wonder whether people get the idea that a demo is just a melee of angry people rampaging through the streets, scaring children and brandishing sticks at police officers, looking for capitalist drones to take hostage and force-feed lentils until they agree to stop shopping in Tesco.

Somehow I was roped into being interviewed for a local station the next day, as an eyewitness, which I'm fairly sure I made a pretty bad job of (I did warn them!). That sort of thing makes me unnecessarily nervous, but I agreed to do it because of my feeling about the way the demo had been reported in the local press - at least a vague attempt to provide actual evidence-based opinion has to be helpful, right? The feeling I got from the questions I was asked, though, was that they were trying to pass me off as some naive young person who'd gone along because I liked the idea of it, swept along by media hype and peer pressure rather than for any belief in the cause. But even if this was the case, and it may have been for some (and may be partly why I was there), it's easy to see why - there's a sense of community in uniting over a common cause that's hard to find in society these days. I've always hated the word 'solidarity', but it really does feel like that. No wonder people just want to go for the experience. And what if they do, anyway? You're giving credence and strength to something positive just by adding to the numbers.

Protesting has become so stigmatised in the last 20 years that it's not only viewed with suspicion and disdain, but as a criminal activity. And you would (as I did) make that assumption, too, if you saw the police horses, the riot gear, the vans and officers creating barricades wherever possible. When people see the demo, they don't see what it's about, they just see this, the long, eager arm of the law 'protecting' them from the menace of the parade/angry mob. It's a moderately clever tactic, too, in the subtle influence on 'normal' people, that we are the 'other', not like them, we must be contained. The police wouldn't be there if something bad wasn't going to happen, right?

The coverage in the local rag was astounding. 'Shameful' was their headline - with a full page colour photograph on the cover, as is normally used to depict disasters of epic proportions such as terrorist attacks and tsunamis. I suppose I shouldn't have been so shocked; the more hardened activists I spoke to said it was pretty standard, and some of them even said they weren't that bothered because the people who read it (average Daily Mail readers) had such short memories, re-written each day by the next tabloid headline, that they'd have forgotten about it in a week anyway. It wasn't just in that paper though. Media spin always has worried me, and I've always known it went on, but I've never experienced it so directly before. I know that a lot of what I'm writing here is old news to a lot of people, and I don't profess to know all about it - but I do know what I saw and I want to add to actual constructive comment/discourse on the subject if I can. For weeks the paper had been making a fuss about the march, speculating on what would happen in the wake of G20; how the irresponsible the organisers were for not co-operating with the police in discussing their plans; fear-mongering that the whole city would be shut down. After this hype they couldn't really back down and concede that it had been a largely peaceful and successful demo. It felt sinister to me, though - like they were trying to show what 'chaos' erupts when the police aren't allowed to employ their usual methods.

The implications of the negative stigma really are far reaching though. At what point will people overcome their institutional prejudice and retaliate? How bad will it have to get? No one seems to associate protests over current issues with historical successful, or at least benevolently viewed, campaigns - the peasant's revolt, the suffragettes, the miners' strikes. Demonstrating is either passed off as pointless, laughed at, or attacked in some ignorant way. But isn't it a tool of social change, and what happens if no one takes advantage of it anymore? People may argue that we do not live in a society in which radical change is necessary, but it's amazing how much you can justify to yourself in order to avoid having to take any action. How else did Hitler get into power?

I'm digressing now and this post is quite long enough without idealistic political ranting about which I really know very little. There's lots I have to say on the subject but at the risk of sounding like a teenager who's just discovered George Orwell, I will stop now.

Thank you for bearing with me... We will now return to our scheduled programming.

Serendipitousness

An odd thing happened today. I was called to process a refund on a book that a man had purchased, not 10 minutes previously - it was a Rita Hayworth biography, priced at £2. He said, quite aggressively, that the thing was falling apart and that he didn't want it. I politely explained that we did not refund books but in this case I'd be happy for him to choose another book. No, he didn't want another one, he just wanted his money back. He shoved the book under my nose and told me that it was falling apart and I had to refund the money. Examining it, I found that the edges of the book had not been cut properly, but I pointed out to him that none of the pages were in fact falling out as he had said. Any attempts to assure him that the book was perfectly fine only resulted in him getting angrier and angrier - he showed me a loose section at the back that he claimed had fallen out, but on closer inspection it was a separate pamphlet. I tried to explain this by pointing out that the pages were unnumbered, there were no torn edges and the paper was smaller than that of the rest of the book, but I may as well have been trying to sponge bath an irate rhino. To avoid a scene I agreed to refund the money in order to get him out of the shop as quickly as possible, during which time one of my volunteers became involved and the 'conversation' rapidly degenerated into the familiar refrain of 'you get this all for free, you should be giving me the money, I'm charity, ra ra ra'. Fortunately he left swiftly as soon as the £2 was back in his sweaty little palm.

Now for the serendipitous part. I put the book back on the shelf, then spotted a sticker on the front that I had not previously noticed - 'signed copy'. Sure enough, when I opened the front cover, it had in fact been signed by the author. In the light of this it seems quite likely that it was the first copy off the presses, hence the ragged edges! The book had been woefully underpriced and I pretty pleased he had returned it after all that. I restickered it at £6 (probably still too little but hey, it's a charity shop and no one is willing to pay the full value) and put it in the window display. Hehehe.

Monday morning

This morning (first 'customer' of the day) a drunk man told me I have a 'gaping hole in my heart' because I do not love dogs. Personally I've always thought it worked the other way around, but I suppose I would say that due to the hole... The hole full of seething misanthropy!

Swift weekly run-down

This week has been preternaturally calm! My assistant manager was off Wednesday and Thursday, and called in sick on Tuesday, so I didn't see her til Saturday (my day off on Friday). I shouldn't be mean, but it is so lovely and peaceful when she's not around... She's an Essex girl through and through! You can hear her dulcet tones at pretty much any given time, in any given location within about a half mile radius of the shop. Mostly I am thankful for her gregariousness, being that it's a quality I lack myself. All the volunteers would get bored and leave if it was just me.

Her absence aside, this week there have been no fraudsters, no angry refund-seekers, no imminent violence, only one small incident with the stalker (he popped in Wednesday afternoon when I was on my own on the till, but eventually left after I studiously ignored him in favour of numerous pointless bits of merchandising) - I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself...

Back to work

Picked up the keys from the other shop this morning and with them the lead weights that attach to my soul...

The minute I walked through the door the familiar 'why do I bother' feeling sank back in. First job was to remove the shite from the bric a brac shelves (as always when I've not been here) - a single blank VHS tape for 50p, a cuddly toy, a bag of golf tees originally priced at 75p...

The will to love ebbing slowly, I discovered three carrier bags full of change under the desk. Thank god! A timewasting activity. I've spent a good portion of the day bagging it up - total £93.80, mostly consisting of coppers.

But now it's nearly 3pm and the donations are piling up (each one feeling like it's being dropped on my shoulders as Peter sets them down in the office). I'd better go and do some real work!

*edit* Someone just made a donation of £473. And I was worried about making my target...

And so it begins again

Back to work tomorrow after 8 glorious days off.

Watch this space.

Who throws a shoe?!

Another tale of woe and misguided interests from the archives.

Before Christmas, a pair of trainers was sold to an Eastern European lady, by Daphne, for the sum of £14.99. Lovely new DCs, bargain. I am called to the till in a dispute over the change. Daphne tells me the customer gave her a £10 note and a £5 note; the customer insists she gave her two £10 notes. So I say ok, the only way I can settle this is to cash up the till, would you mind coming back in half an hour. Duly I cash up (it's only around 11am, so not too lengthy a task), and we are down by £1. Plus Daphne has been working at the shop three times a week for the past six years, so I trust her word anyway.

When the lady comes back, I apologetically explain that I'm sorry but the money isn't there - she must have given a ten and a five. That isn't good enough though. The woman swears blind that she got two £10 notes out of the cash machine across the road (suggesting that I check the bank's security tapes!), and came straight in here to buy the shoes. She is evidently quite distressed, clearly she really believes we have short changed her, I have no suspicion that she's trying to pull a fast one (happens more frequently than you'd think) - but there literally is nothing else I can do! She also implies that perhaps my volunteer is too old and that she has made a mistake, asks if she has made mistakes before - but as I've already explained, this is not the case and I get a little irritated when people accuse my staff of wrongdoing despite all evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, the customer wants to speak to my superior, so I give her the number for head office, and my name, and off she goes. As she leaves the shop, she turns around, takes the shoes out of the bag and shies them in my direction, one at a time, and shouts 'there is my donation - £20!' I sigh and smile weakly, say thank you very much and go to retrieve the shoes that have narrowly missed my head. (Just call me Dubya.)

Immediately I call my manager to tell him what has transpired, so that he's prepared for a phone call. He rings back a little while later and tells me she is a total nutjob (his usual politically correct and professional persona). She was on the phone to him for half an hour, telling him that I was a 'vindictive and horrible person' and that I had 'robbed her and raped her' (slight language barrier methinks). My boss explained that she had two options - she could come back and pick up the shoes, or she could come back and get a full refund. She wanted her shoes, and her £5. Eventually he got her to agree to come and collect them, and told me that she would be in later or tomorrow.

I was off the next day, but apparently she was rather sheepish - I'd warned Katie that there may be an irate Eastern European dropping by! - but thankfully that was the end of it. One suspects she found the money elsewhere since the previous afternoon (or that my boss threatened her with deportation - shhh! you didn't hear it from me...).