Magpie 28 What larks
What Larks by Daphne Laureola
Remember the monstrous dimpled storage containers which appeared on Albert Square in September? You’ve read the inside story, now check out the outsider events. First of all the gallant Walk for the Earth trekkers completed the half way stage of their tour of the region’s DoT disaster zones. Then John Selwyn Gummer was obliged to get out of his celebrity Metro tram and walk! to the Conference, escorted by the enterprising women and their Government Whitewash banner, who had brought his tram to a well publicised halt. Rumours that a “not inconsiderably important” welcome address video had gone missing, just before the opening ceremony, were apparently true. Earth First! looked enigmatic but smug. March Hare and McMouse were there with alarm clocks primed for midday and the Big Noise. The giant clock, its works and assorted noises made a loud, if not large, impression on sour bemused delegates and a lot of press people in search of a diversion from the predictable platitudes inside the Containers. Paul made a fine speech. If this had been Berlin there would have been more people in the square than in the boxes. However, all sorts of groups were able to make their point and entertain the many police persons guarding the entrances. There appeared to be more press than delegates. The latter ventured out to gaze in awe at the Olympic rings or were whisked about to admire symbolic lamp posts held together with large (and expensive) swags of willow at Hough End.
John Gummer betrayed the petulance for which he was renowned at Cambridge (fellow undergraduates would track down the CICCU lunches at which our would-be politician honed his evangelical oratory and jump in unison in the room above), when interviewed by Radio 4’s Alex Kirby on the Day’s events. I bet he wished J. Major had kept his great ideas to himself. If it weren’t for the 0 word..where would we be: not throwing good money after bad at the Global Forum I’ll be bound? //
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