the Wave

Steve from the Southwell group and I, ably assisted by  Oli from the Southwell group, hired and filled a coach that went from Nottingham to London for the Wave on Saturday 5th December.  As well as people from the Nottingham and Southwell Greenpeace groups there were people from the Transition Nottingham network, FoE, trade unions and students.  Some people had never been on a demo in their lives before.  It was a great day.  People from all over the country coming together to give Gordon and Ed the message that they must secure a great deal not just for the UK but for the world at Copenhagen.  We arrived at Grosvenor Square just as the rally started and listened to some speeches and music then it was time to get moving, but there were so many people there it was about an hour after the first people set off that we actually started to march.  That meant that we didn't get to the Houses of Parliament by 3.00pm when we were supposed to surround Parliament but we were sort of outside Downing Street at that time so that was just as good.  When we went through Trafalgar Square there were about 5 or 6 'climategate' people with a banner on Nelson's Column.   We just boo-ed them.  What a pathetically small demo.  It just goes to show that the media were making far too much of the leaked emails.  They just like a good controversy.  Then it sort of petered out - no-one gave us instructions for what happened afterwards so we sort of just wandered off.  Then it started to rain.  Finally we found our coach and tired and happy we made our way back to Nottingham.  it was interesting watching the news when we got home.  According to the BBC there were 20,000 of us and they went on about the leaked emails (my thoughts on this - if they have the technology to hack in to UEA they have the technology to change the words) while ITN said there were 50,000 of us and didn't mention the emails.  I know what number my money is on.  The picture is of Matt newly arrived back in the UK from Brazil and keen to get back with the Nottingham group and Bob from the Southwell group cunningly disguised as a smurf.