If your network was a rock band...

Which local Greenpeace networks are like which bands?

As it is a new year, many of us may find ourselves recruiting lovely new activists over the next few weeks.

But what can those activists expect? If a new person needed to know in advance what each network is like – how would they find out? This blog will seek to enlighten them by answering the most important question there is: if your network was a band, which band would it be?

The following is based on observations, downright bias and sheer nonsense.

Who’s who?

Islington: The Beatles, still the big cheeses. Pretty much everything of note (in London anyway) started here.

Merseyside: The Rolling Stones, still plugging away in an old-school fashion. The numbers they bring in are simply jaw-dropping.

Telford: The Flaming Lips, surely the most fun to be in. Once you’ve seen them at Glastonbury, you’ll never forget it.

Canterbury: REM, everyone secretly wants to be in the group with the bald gentleman with the amazing voice.

Camden: Radiohead. Multi-talented. Multi-lingual. Multi-everything. Annoyingly excellent at pretty much everything they try.

Edinburgh: The Polyphonic Spree, have you seen how many people turn up at their meetings? [Note:1]

Glasgow: Biffy Clyro, these west of Scotland types like to prove their hardness by doing all their public-facing work while stripped to the waist. [Note:2]

Bethnal Green: Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, a talented and very active bunch with an unassailable track-record of getting stuff done.  

Waltham Forest: Pearl Jam, of course. We try to avoid the limelight at all times but constantly find ourselves thrust into it due to all the awesome stuff we do. Like this, and this, and this, and this, and this.

All that is left to ask is, which band are you?

[Note: 1 – I haven't been to a meeting in Edinburgh since 2009]

[Note:2 – this is a complete lie]