London, Anarchy in the UK: 10 days with the London Mob by Mitzi Waltz I have a habit of picking auspicious days to arrive in a place I've never been before. Either a tornado watch has got half the town hunkered down in the basement or a meteorite just fell on City Hall. So as I left the plane at London's Gatwick Airport, I wasn't surprised to see that a tunnel had just collapsed under Heathrow Airport, knocking out transportation and snarling traffic for miles around London.No, I was just glad that for once, I had also picked an auspicious place to be in a new city.And also a little nervous. One of my bags was stuffed with about 150 pounds of radical books and pamphlets, including a number of items that I wasn't sure would make it across the border. Not being a seasoned international smuggler, the best plan I had been able to come up with was to stuff everything in small boxes, wrap them, put fancy ribbons on them and attach cards with messages like "Here's that late birthday gift! Love, Mitzi."Turned out to be a pretty good idea. I breezed through Customs, whereas several other people en route to the same event didn't due to similar literature (foolishly enough, not wrapped in polka-dot paper). Anarchists from the U.S. and Israel were turned back at the border, which no doubt really sucked for them. Anarchy In the U.K., an international anarchist convention billed as "Ten Days the Shook the World," was a hell of a lot of fun.I know, I know - "anarchist convention." Contradiction in terms and all that, right? Actually, they happen all the time. Back in the old days, when Emma Goldman and Ben Reitman were getting tossed into the Portland pokey for advocating legal birth control and suchlike, they were rather formal affairs with a lot of speechifying and factional struggles. Not nearly as bad as a Communist Party convention but nothing like @UK, to be sure.North American anarchists got back in the habit of convening yearly in the '70s - the first was here in Portland, in fact, a 1978 gathering organized by the It alian anarchist artist Pietro Ferrua, then a professor at Lewis & Clark. The North American conventions since then weren't organized by any party or group, at the end of one folks just get together, and some group of people from one town or region volunteers to organize next year's. After the 1989 convention in San Francisco drew 3,000+ participants, the consensus was to go regional for manageability. (And saying "North American" is really a bit of a misnomer: there are always quite a few Europeans hanging around, and since the anarchist community in Mexico is pretty lively they'll usually send up a few folks. Brazil and Argentina have big yearly meets too, although they interface more with Europe than with either North or Central Americans.)Conventions are a lot of work. They usually consist of workshops on whatever subjects people are interested in at the moment, human rights in East Timor or self-organizing in the sex industry or anarchist education, for example. Workshops might facilitated by one or two people or pulled together by more-formal affinity groups. And there are generally lots of cultural events, gigs, picnics and demonstrations to go with the "educational" stuff.@UK promised to be "the biggest ever," bigger even than the 1983 Milan convention, which drew several thousand people from all over the world and deserves credit for revitalizing the European anarchist movement. Consisting mainly of members of Class War (about which there's more below), the group behind @UK expected 10,000 participants; I'd say there were about 7,000. They announced "500 events at 100 venues," I'd say it was more like 300 events at 50 venues. That's still a hell of a lot. @UK itself arranged for about 10 halls or buildings to be available for the 10 days, pulled together a night of speeches, handled the money and paperwork, produced thousands of programs, and encouraged other folks to do the rest, which they did.How could I miss this? I couldn't - and shere's my tour diary. Friday October 21 I made it!!! Took the train into London through miles of housing projects that looked like they were rotting from the inside. Ever seen the Clash movie "Rude Boy"? These high-rise hovels made the one that was featured in that look like a palace.Transferred to the tube at Victoria Station, where warnings about "suspect devices" (i.e., briefcases and bags left behind, which could conceivably hold a bomb) still blared every five minutes despite the IRA ceasefire. Thanks to Rod's impeccably bad directions, I got off at the wrong station and ended up dragging all those books plus my carry-on up Clapham High Street for about 20 blocks. Finally got to my friend's house, sweaty and miserable looking. He made tea and eventually I felt much better. Then it was lecturefest time at historic Conway Hall. This place has been a hotbed of radical politics for at least 100 years, and tonight it was packed to the rafters for a series of speeches about the Criminal Justice Bill. One of my jobs here was to cover this controversial piece of legislation for Mother Jones magazine. It's hard to say what the worst thing about it is - it abolishes the right to silence at arrest, sets up a new prison system for 12-to-14-year-olds, revives the "sus laws" (which let cops stop and arrest anyone anytime based on undefined "suspicious behavior"), lets the cops take "intimate samples" from all arrestees to build a national database of criminal DNAI I could go on for half an hour. The law itself goes on for an entire book.For a lot of the people taking the stage in this hall, the effects are likely to be very personal. Squatters and anyone behind in their rent can be given 24-hour notices of eviction. Travellers, these new-agey types who live in caravans and other vehicles and roam the countryside selling handmade goods (and occasionally dope), have basically had their lifestyle made illegal. Raves will be illegal, ditto any political gathering or party that doesn't have a government permit. And guess what! : the government isn't going to be issuing any, unless you're backed by Virgin Records or rallying to support the Tories.Put simply, this law is fucked. Ian Bone, organizer of the conference and infamous rabble-rouser from those wannabe political street thugs Class War, opens the roadshow with the most incredible display of apoplectic raving I've witnessed in years. He's a good warm-up act. Hell, he oughta be a stand-up comedian.And he makes some very valid points.The crowd is pumped up and ready for an endless stream of speakers representing ravers, travellers, the local Black community, the animal rights movement, blah de blah blah blah. One of my favorites is "Mr. Social Control," a hilarious comedian who delivers some well-thought-out political commentary in doggeral. One piece includes Tory leader Michael Howard's home phone number, repeated several times. Howard is the point man on the CJB. I see a lot of people writing it down. Mr. SC ends his poem with "if we've no right to silence, then he's no right to sleep." I bet Howard's gonna be hating life tonight - or checking into the nearest hotel. Saturday October 22 Today's the famous Anarchist Bookfair, where publishers and booksellers from all over the UK and a few from overseas come to hawk their wares. I'm happy to see a familiar face, Russell from Seattle's excellent Left Bank Books, has managed to get his stuff in as well. And I get to meet Fabian of the London Psychogeographical Society, which is extremely nice. He's a grinning, curly-haired fellow who does very strange research linking Masonic conspiracies, royal inbreeding and ancient ley lines, among other stuff. He also leads group tours pointing out connections between and weird history behind places around London and sometimes further afield.The best part of the Bookfair is that I sell almost everything, so I don't have to tote the 150-pound medicine ball of a bag back that night. This is a good thing, since after the ookfair everybody heads for The Sun, an excellent pub with several dozen microbrew-style beers. It's all very matey, I keep drinking something really strong and spicy from Young's Brewery, some drunken pal of my new friend Becky keeps trying to chat me up, and I'm treated to some terrific singing by a bunch of drunken Welshmen who get booted out. Sunday, October 23 It's lovely, sunny day - perfect for a picnic at Jubilee Gardens, or for a levitation.That's right - posters all over town and our handy little @UK guidebook say that we'll be levitating the House of Commons today. My friend and I get together with a bunch of people for lunch in the park, then it's off to Parliament Square where a crew of tie-dyed and be- dreadlocked hippies, punks, travellers and Revolutionary Tourists have gathered.There does not appear to be a plan for concentrating mental energy on the building, which is rapidly surrounded by cop vans. A row of bobbies back the crowd off the sidewalk and into the park. This bunch seems to be pretty "fluffy," to use a derive term that I'd learned the night before. "Fluffies" want to keep demonstrations non-violent, enter dialogues with the police, create a "positive space," and even identify any riotous troublemakers in their midst by spraying them with paint. In other words, they're a slightly hippie-dippier version of what we Yanks call the "Peace Police." Bor-ing. Looks like I will not be treated to a proper riot as promised.So I decide to make like a reporter and see what I can learn. One thing I discover is that the police vans are full of riot gear, and the cops are extremely nervous. Seems that a demo the week before had turned violent and a bunch of their brethren got whacked (I've seen the leftover Class War posters for this one around town too - "Leave your juggling balls at home - it's time for some class justice!") A unit on horseback is hidden just around the corner, as are two groups of soldiers.Juggling balls, and fire-eating, circle dancing, rainbow banners and goofy costumes, appear to be prevailing over the balaclava-and-bricks crowd here. I guess the cops, horses and soldiers will have to be satisfied with a little free entertainment and some time-and-a-half. After spending a few hours snapping pictures of colorful, fresh-faced kids with posters and explaining the demo to several groups of passing American tourists, I take off, as does most of the crowd.[Postscript: there may have been something to this levitation crap after all. London newspapers report a few days later that Big Ben, which is attached to Parliament, has inexplicably moved a couple of centimeters. No shit.]Later, I manage to get into an overcrowded showing of "Siege of Sydney Street," a black-and-white gangster melodrama about a gang of Russian anarchists at war with the police, based on a true story. Although I have to watch it hidden in the corner with a couple cans of ale, it's lots of fun. Next is "The Stuart Christie File," a BBC documentary about the English anarchist who tried (and failed) to shoot Franco, was imprisoned in Spain, became a publisher in London after his release, and was later swept up on suspicion of being part of The Angry Brigade, a anarchist/situationist-inspired "terrorist" group. Several news shorts and documentary-ettes about The Angry Brigade were also included. Some of the alleged members and their friends were in the audience, and it was fun to hear their sotto-voice commentary bout inaccuracies and gossipy asides. The documentaries were uniformly cheesy, attempting to paint Christie as some sort of evil mastermind even though at the time he was living in self-imposed exile on the far-away Orkney Islands and doing nothing but writing. Very funny. Monday, October 24 Today promises to be very interesting. Along with some guys I've met only online, I'm doing a workshop on computer networking for anarchists. Or something like that. We meet up at a place called Culross Hall and on entering the second-floor meeting space discover that the interior decorating scheme is, well, eye-catching. We're sharing the room with an ongoing exhibit by Homocult, a radical gay art collective that specializes in shockingly graphic posters and t-shirts decrying the counterculture and middle-class gay culture. Lots of S/M imagery, dirty words, offensive images. We like it a lot, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that after four hours in here I was experiencing anger overload.The workshop goes great. There's a huge number of interested people here, so many that we set up separate sessions for publishers interested in distributing stuff online, people who want to network about computer communications projects already in progress, and a second basic how-to class. Ian from Spunk Press (an archive of anarchist texts maintained on the Internet); Matt from Fast Breeder, a cool London BBS; various participants with experience and myself keep things running amazingly smoothly. Everybody's questions get answered, handouts are much appreciated, those who want to have a chance for a hands-on look at the Internet and BBSing, and we soon retire to a nearby pub for more. Tuesday, October 25 I start off the day with a walk around the area near Culross Hall, a strange combination of interesting old architecture cheek-by-jowl with more of London's trademark concrete-block public housing. I also make the mistake of stopping in a "caff" for a traditional modern English breakfast - crisps and a scrambled egg-toast-and-ketchup sandwich. The crisps are OK.I've come to the conclusion that the only thing edible that's English is Cadbury's chocolate (infinitely better than the crap they sell in the U.S.), chips (i.e., french fries), crisps (i.e., potato chips) and food cooked by immigrants from just about anyplace else. Today there are more computer workshops, and I finally get over to see the exhibit brought in by some Spanish anarchists who've been attending all the computer sessions. It's a retrospective of what's been going on in Spain since 1970, very educational and good practice for my rusty Spanish skills.Also went to see "The Death of Imagination," a strange, three-part dramatic event featuring Penny Rimbaud and Eve Libertine of Crass plus another actor and some musicians. I'm still not sure what I thought about this. It was veryI heavy. From the program: "Pt 1) An introduction to the naked flesh through the pictures of Auschwitz and the garishly painted Christ of the local cathedral who, despite Nietzsche's claims to the contrary, still lies at the very root of our cultural consciousness."Actually, it wasn't as dire as that excerpt makes it sound. It was very personal, obviously painful stuff derived from Penny's life, I think putting it together and performing it was a cathartic act for him, and an interesting thing to see in person. The set was nifty too. Wednesday, October 26 The second beginner's Internet/BBS session comes off OK, although we don't have our demos up since the computer went back to Scotland with Ian. Since everything's done early I set out for Camden Town, where I check out an art exhibit by well-known anarchist illustrator Clifford Harper and "G," the guy who used to do collages and illustrations for the band Crass. It's good art, but there's hardly enough of it to call an exhibit. I've been trying to reach Fabian and his friend, the infamous Stewart Home. Home is the skinhead author of several novels ("Red London," "No Pity," "Defiant Pose," etc.) that revolve around themes of bloody street fighting, down-and-dirty sex and in-joke portraits of his friends and enemies. Written as much like the pulp-fiction masterpieces of his literary idol, Richard Allen, as possible, they're a literal laugh riot. When we can't connect, I take off for the evening's entertainment on my own.The event is Smut Fest 94 emceed by an old friend from SF, Jennifer Blowdryer. Ms Blowdryer left the punk-rock world some years back for a more lucrative career as a sex worker in New York, and had put together one hell of a line-up for this.The idea is to present a politicized porn cabaret, and featured performers included stripper/dominatrix/porn star Danielle Willis (who I vaguely remember from her days as a Mitchell Brothers girl); necrophile poet Karen Greenlea of "Apocalypse Culture" fame; an insane and very tall drag queen named Burnel; Tuppy Owens, who's England's answer to Susie Bright; and a really gorgeous babe who did what was definitely the anti-CJB speech that got the closest attention of the entire festival. There seems to be something about talking politics while falling out of a black-leather bikini that makes people shut up and listen.Much attention was given to the Spanner case, in which a group of gay men practicing consensual S/M sex were busted and jailed recently. The only really boring parts of the show were an overly-long gothic "execution ritual" by some guy called Phil Adams and a few pieces of mildly filthy but ultimately sleep-inducing poetry from William Levy, former editor of a "Screw"-style magazine. Thursday, October 27 Except for turning in that Mother Jones story, I blew off most of the day doing some touristy things like getting presents for the kids. My friend had company over for dinner and we all had a good time eating lasagna and drinking wine. And I finally got ahold of Stewart, and made plans to meet up. I did meet up with my Spanish anarchist friends and we went off to ind the elusive Unity Hall, a "Labor pub" somewhere in a neighborhood that I don't think I could find ever again. The reason? It was the site of "anarchist quiz night," a political variation on the popular Brit pastime of competing to answer the most Trivial Pursuit type questions correctly whilst hoisting pints. Needless to say, when faced with questions like "what was Louise Michel's nickname?" I folded pretty rapidly.Simultaneous multi-language translation made for lots of hilarity. My Spanish pals were also failing miserably, and none of us really cared. The bar had good, cheap beer (a rarity in London, let me tell you) and weird-tasting chips flavored like turkey and stuffing.I got an embarrassing 23 out of 100. But, hey, I bet YOU don't know which cemetery Durruti's buried in either, do you? Friday October 28 Went in search of a workshop with some Yugoslavian anarchists but missed it. So decided to go down Portobello Road, check the world-famous flea market for some cool new shoes and rouse Tom Vague (of Vague magazine). Didn't find shoes, did find Tom, somewhat the worse for wear after a night of drinking. At 2 p.m. he was still "not himself," so while he tried to pry his eyelids apart I chatted with a slightly unhinged Indian/English girl who had been handing around in German terrorist circles for the past several years. She was looking for a place in Tom's neighborhood, and I don't think he was real thrilled with the prospect.Got some copies of "The Great British Mistake," a Vague best-of that I had done some copy-editing on, and left with my new acquaintance in tow. I finally lost her at Stockwell tube station, thank god.And then it was off to find Stew and Fabian on the Isle of Dogs. I was really disconcerted when a bunch of scruffy brats grabbed me as I left the train and insisted that I give them "money for their guy." Being culturally illiterate over here, I didn't know that Guy Fawkes day was coming up, when people blow off fireworks and burn effigies. Kids collect cash to make the "Guys" to burn. (Gay Fawkes was a fellow who tried to blow up Parliament, often cited on t-shirts as "the only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions.")I got lost wandering around this depressing former swamp full of, yes, more housing projects. Finally found Fabian's place, one of the ugliest and most run-down buildings. The kind of place where every floor has a security door, and all of them have been permanantly jimmied by the residents or thieves. We had a terrific evening, probably the most fun I had in the UK. Good food, several bottles of wine, and we all talked ourselves stupid.Saturday October 29The day of the big Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament rally at Trafalgar Square,a and yet another let-down for the London police. According to news articles that came out later, the police had been expecting a phalanx of several thousand hard-core anarchist militants to disrupt the rally and riot in nearby Soho. So they surrounded the square with every available officer, police lorry and even rented buses full of what may have been rent-a- cops. The square, however, was instead filled with peacenik college kids and do-gooders listening to blisteringly boring speeches by the kind of liberals that make you want to grab the nearest shotgun.There were a few anarcho-types hanging around, but it was obvious that this was not the place to play "Fuck Tha Police" and do some cut-rate window-shopping today.The cops had also put the kibosh on a punk gig planned for that night at the nearby Astoria. Instead, those of us who wanted to get our ears assaulted had to call the club, which sent you to another phone number. Your call was answered by the terse message "go to King's Cross Station, you'll be directed from there," where you eventually found the right guy who gave you directions to where someone else was waiting, who gave you directions toward a street, where we (by now a bunch of us were walking together) were in turn moved along to the warehouse space by other people skulking in doorways. It was like some bizarre scavenger hunt.The illegal gig was overly full, I sure was glad to have bought three beers right away because the organizers ran out before the first band, Kochise from France, was done playing. Kochise had brought a large coterie of extremely annoying, very drunk French punks with them. They called out the titles of their songs and what they were about in amusingly broken English: "thees ees song about zee Zapatistas een Mexico! Eet ees called, 'Viva Zapataaaaaa'! "Oh yeah, they got everybody to do a singalong to that old Crass chestnut, "Do They Owe Us a Living" (chorus: "of course they fucking do!"). It was silly and, I admit, I was singing too. Next up was Schwartzenegger, with ex-Crass guy Steve Ignorant and a really awesome female vocalist who sounded like a hardcore version of Poly Styrene. Her vocals were girly and high-pitched but very powerful nonetheless, and from what I could catch of the lyrics from my precarious perch on top of a speaker there was some intelligence happening here as well. Conflict, the headliners, was actually quite good. This was their first gig in a long time but it didn't show. Very tight and muscular, but not as strong as they were when I saw them eight years or so ago. But hey, neither am I.The state of anarchopunk in the UK? Looked alright from this standpoint.Sunday October 30Went to an "anarchi- tecture" lecture at the Calthorpe Project, a self-built community center in Camden. This was an appropriate location for a session on self-building, complete with slides and personal tales. The folks in attendance were mostly older anarchists of the hippie-ish persuasion, including a couple of architects and some travelers, who exhibited their nifty caravan creations outside.Hit a whole bunch of bookstores later this afternoon and got stuff for my partner. Can't come home from overseas emptyhanded, you know.And I went to Smut Fest again, not having anything better to do (yea h, right).Monday October 31Went home. What a let-down.I heard rumors that this is going to be an annual event, although I'm not sure that some of the other organizers will want to work with Ian Bone again, since he apparently did a lousy job of getting the money for halls and stuff where it was supposed to go. I know I had a fun time, I figure it was the best way to see London, from the bottom up and with a bunch of people actively doing to their best to accelerate its destruction.