“If you’re around at quarter past five tomorrow, drop me a line. It’s the Lord Mayor’s Banquet and we have a little stunt planned. I might get arrested in a pig mask and white tie,” he muttered. “Let’s keep this on the lowdown. I need one, maybe two more cameras.”

It was about how the 99% weren’t allowed in to feed at the trough of the 1%. Considering David Cameron, his wife and men in ermine and wigs were going to feasting on expensive dead things, I had a little idea.

We met at a wine bar. I then went on ahead. Some men in pig masks walked down the road and I made this:

OccupyLSX attempt to disrupt the Lord Mayor’s Banquet as it feeds the 1%. In white tie. Dressed as pigs.

We all had Priest to thank for this – Paul Bettany’s latest dystopian cinematic appearance where he stars as an exiled Vampire-killing warrior cleric searching for his kidnapped niece. Based on Min-Woo Hyung’s comic book series, Priest is a CGI-fest that asks you to suspend your sense of reality and spend a couple of hours looking at cool things. Things like Maggie Q’s fight sequences and Alien-based vampire creatures. The tropes are familiar – societies ghettoed behind walled cities ruled by an unforgiving church, a few exceptional characters who are rather good at fighting, half-baked romantic scenes and personal relationships. It even leaves itself open to a multi-million-pound sequel. You’re not being sold a film for a film’s sake, but an entire Priest franchise.

Dave – obviously uneasy at having to kit up in a monk’s robe with a fake cross tattooed across his face – eyed us up. He could’ve killed us all with the swish of a blunt blade.

Getting down to business, we started to learn the basic wards, or positions, of fighting with a sword and buckler. A buckler is a small shield around the size of a vinyl 7-inch. A sword is that pointy thing used to stab at people.

The text we used was the I.33 – also known as the Tower Manuscript. It’s the earliest known European fight manual that graphically illustrates defensive and offensive swordfighting positions. Interestingly, the book features a female priest kicking some unholy arse. It’s important to stress our medieval predecessors seemed not to have an issue with men and women doing the same things with the same tools. Later scribblings on the text said that neither priests nor women should be allowed to learn these fighting skills.

I’m no priest, but I am a woman. And I leaped in to learning the seven fighting wards with manic gusto. Then went on to learn a few defensive ones. In martial arts tradition, we learned them as one fluid motion so you felt awesome even if you occasionally stabbed your own leg (thankfully the practise swords were weighted plastic).

Progressing to light sparring came next. By this stage, we were more confident with what to do with our swords and bucklers and made actual bodily contact with a bit of force. If I ever need to fend off vampires with a blunt sword, I’m sure I’d die. But I’d look convincing.

Fencing at the ruined chapel of a park most noted for clichéd student photography assignments and gay cruising filled me with mischievous glee. I embraced my inner geek and gave it a go wearing a monk’s robe with a cross daubed between my eyes. Being left-handed, I was paired with a rather fetching television presenter whose jeans rivalled the tightness of my own. We duelled cheating to camera while checking our hair. Post-modern post-ironic flirting as we choreographed fight sequences avoiding broken bottles and smack needles. I can’t wait until medieval swordfighting takes over as the hipster sport of choice.

===

This article was originally published in Bleeding Cool, 29 August 2011.

We never got kettled. Cramming thousands of kids on the streets of London could only lead to burning bus shelters and bad PR. Somebody in the polices thought that would be a stupid thing to do. Mebbe.

But Jonnie and I became companjeros. My camera and I were invited along to various guerilla stunts. This gig in Soho Square happened during the largest trade union march in recent memory.

Forgive the shaky cam action. This is a rough cut meant to form part of a larger piece of that event.

Twenty-year-old Anastasiya Vinnikova sings the praises of her homeland with a Stalinist disco swagger. The audience nods with sycophantic gusto.

“You’re my passion, do it old-fashioned / When I was wearing a star, back in the USSR / Belorussia! Crazy and so fine….” Et cetera.

There’s a brilliant bit at the end where an all-male chorus chest-thumps in with the chutzpah of a military parade. You’d think Belarus was an isolationist throwback of a country that holds wistful memories of gulags and forced imprisonment. Oh. Wait….

As our friends at an otter-obsessed popular culture mailout have written: “how they are going to perform that bit with just a maximum of five backing people allowed on stage, we haven’t quite worked out. Then again, the Belarussian government enjoys locking up artists so much that there might only be this many English-speaking performers left in Minsk.”

Belarus is the last dictatorship in Europe. It ranks below Iran for press freedom and below Zimbabwe on human rights. The Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe called last December’s elections “seriously flawed”. On 19 December in Independence Square in Minsk, over 600 people were arrested in a post-election opposition rally. Over 30 prisoners are still kept in custody, denied access to legal representation and face up to 15 years in prison for “orchestrating mass disorder”.

So. Here are the lyrics to Belarus’s Eurovision Song Contest entry for 2011. Under the EBU rules, the winning country hosts the Song Contest the following year. Should Belarus win, all of Europe could be flocking to Minsk with “dangerous ideas”.

[For more information on Europe's last dictatorship, visit http://zoneofsilence.org/]

Belorussia!
Bay-bay-bay-baby [x3]

Baby I want you to know,
Soon we’ll be starting the show
Back in the history we’ll go.
Belorussia!

When I was wearing a star,
Back in the USSR,
I was as good as mama
Feel my passion.
CHORUS

Round and round we go
Born in
Belorussia!
USSR time!
Belorussia!
Crazy and so fine
Time is rushing
Everything’s crashing,
passing by.
Born in
Belorussia!

Belorussia!
USSR time!
Belorussia!
Got you on my mind!
You’re my passion, do it old-fashioned.
You and I!

Diamonds and treats of the West
Come check it out, be my guest.
You’re still remaining the best
Belorussia.

When everything will be gone,
Your name will shine like the sun.
You’re still remaining the one,
Good old-fashioned.

CHORUS

David Spameron?

The Coalition government is now spamming Britons for their credit card details.
Presumably the shortfall really is that bad….
Nice one, David Spameron.
[The following is from a mail found in my SPAM folder].

Rt Hon David Cameron MP 5 December 2010 20:50
Reply-To: fcaffairs@2g.cc

PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE
TREASURY AND MINISTER FOR THE CIVIL SERVICE,
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.

Our ref: ATM/13470/IDR
Your ref:…Date: 06/12/2010

IMMEDIATE PAYMENT NOTIFICATION

I am The Rt Hon David Cameron MP,Prime Minister, First Lord of the Treasury
and Minister for the Civil Service British Government. This letter is to
officially inform you that (ATM Card Number 7302 7168 0041 0640) has been
accredited with your favor. Your Personal Identification Number is 1090.The
VISA Card Value is £2,000,000.00(Two Million, Great British Pounds
Sterling).

This office will send to you an Visa/ATM CARD that you will use to withdraw
your funds in any ATM MACHINE CENTER or Visa card outlet in the world with a
maximum of £5000 GBP daily.Further more,You will be required to
re-confirm the
following information to enable;The Rt Hon William Hague MP First
Secretary of
State for British Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. begin in processing of
your VISA CARD.

(1)Full names: (2)Address: (3)Country: (4)Nationality: (5)Phone #: (6)Age:
(7)Occupation: (8) Post Codes

Rt Hon William Hague MP.
First Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs
Email; fcaffairs@2g.cc
Tel: +447407165696

TAKE NOTICE: That you are warned to stop further communications with any
other
person(s) or office(s) different from the staff of the State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs to avoid hitches in receiving your payment.

Regards,

Rt Hon David Cameron MP
Prime Minister

Cheers to The Tech Eye for the mention.

Disgruntled students with a deep sense of betrayal and a deeper sense of entitlement are taking over lecture theatres, meeting halls, cloisters, university wings….

At demonstrations, their ducks, dives, feints and Parthian shots at confused lines of police are as much spectacle as much as a revelation that the kids aren’t all right. They’re fucked off and are doing their damndest to tell us.

However, a gaggle of students at Rugby School in the 18th century had their own take at student revolt.

Not long after, before the 18th century was out, the School saw its Great Rebellion. Across the Close from School House stands a Bronze Age burial mound formerly known as the Island, surrounded until 1847 by a six-metre wide moat. It was here in 1797 that certain pupils, having blown the door off the Head Master’s classroom and burned their books and desks on the Close, retreated and drew up the drawbridge behind them. Only when the local militia closed in with pikes and muskets did they yield. The Riot Act was read and some boys were expelled – some later to become renowned military leaders.