Masked and Anonymous

Of course I had my mask before it was cool.

In an earlier post on last Saturday's #OccupyDameStreet march I made a snarky remark or two about so many folks using the Guy Fawkes mask from V for Vendetta, and an anonymous comment (but probably not "Anonymous" anonymous) prompted me to go and do a bit of research on the internets.

My snarky remarks weren't about the nature or actions of Anonymous, more the adoption by so many people of a piece of movie merchandise that seemed to offer no benefit to 50% of its original creator team. I am a huge V for Vendetta fan (the comic, not the execrable film) and have met artist David Lloyd and he seemed happy enough about the film adaptation, but I never had a chance to talk to Alan Moore about it. I assumed that because of all the hulabaloo when the film came out that he would be equally unhappy about Time Warner making loads of money from his creation, as he told MTV:

When you're talking about things like "V for Vendetta" or "Watchmen," I don't have a choice. Those were works which DC Comics kind of tricked me out of, so they own all that stuff and it's up to them whether the film gets made or not. All I can do is say, "I want my name taken off of it and I don't want any of the money." I'd rather the money be distributed amongst the artists. But even though [the filmmakers] were aware that I'd asked that my name be taken off "V for Vendetta" and had already signed my money away to the artist, they issued a press release saying I was really excited about the film. Which was a lie. I asked for a retraction, but they weren't prepared to do that. So I announced I wouldn't be working with DC Comics anymore. I just couldn't bear to have any contact with DC Comics, Warner Bros. or any of this shark pool ever again...

...I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.

Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures — not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys — and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives — which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?

So you can see why I might have thought he would have a bee in his bonnet at the thought of DC/Time Warner making money from every single piece of merchandise sold from a film he publicly and vehemently disowned.

However a cursory online search turned up the following quote from him from an interview at ComicCon in 2008:

"I was also quite heartened the other day when watching the news to see that there were demonstrations outside the Scientology headquarters over here, and that they suddenly flashed to a clip showing all these demonstrators wearing V for Vendetta [Guy Fawkes] masks. That pleased me. That gave me a warm little glow."

So apparently Mr Moore is cool with whole appropriation thing.

I hereby withdraw my objection.

Also, this internets thing may have its uses after all.

#OccupyDameStreet - Late, Late Edition

Some very special guests drop by. Now I'm not sure, but Davis looks like she may have had a bit of photoshopping done.
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Sunday 30th October

I've been off alcohol now for just over seven months, and even if I still drank I think that after tonight I would quit. If you ever want to know why Ireland never amassed an overseas empire, placed a man on the moon, or managed to get an integrated ticketing system launched across all forms of public transportation in its capital city (remember back in June when Leo Varadkar said it would be launched in August? Apparently neither does he.), all you need to do is stand on Dame Street between midnight and four-thirty am on a Bank Holiday Sunday night/Monday morning and watch the drunken hordes stumble out from the bars, through the kebab shops and into the awaiting taxis in an oddly hypnotic and alcohol-sustained Brownian motion. At the best of times we are not a pretty race, we are not a graceful race, we are not a silent race, and 4:30am on a Bank Holiday weekend is certainly not the best of times.

Having been absent completely from the camp on Friday, and only there for a few hours yesterday, I felt compelled to volunteer for a security shift tonight. I haven't done a midnight-to-four shift at the weekend for a good few weeks, and getting home now at 5am I am left with nothing but respect for the lads who do this every weekend night. I'm off to bed now and hope to rid my thoughts of some of the sights that have seared themselves onto my mind's eye, for I have seen things, things you people wouldn't believe.

I may be scarred for life.

I am also reliably informed that tonight was a quiet night.

Note to self, never volunteer for anything ever again.

Ever.

...in pursuit of the best of ourselves

"The celebration of the power of the collective, in pursuit of the best of ourselves"

Now that is an acceptance speech. New rule, all political leaders must be poets.

That is all.

This is what (an approximation of) Democracy looks like

The people have spoken. Technically 56.1% of those eligible to speak have spoken.
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

So the events of the last forty-eight hours have shown that our nation is not completely off their collective rockers. A Fianna Fail bag-man has been sent packing back to the envelope-filled smoky back-rooms from whence he slithered and a jolly little gnome with a penchent for purple prose (nothing wrong with that, mind you) is being sent to the big house in the Park, to while away the silent hours of sullen retirement with the deer and cobwebs and the occasional visiting dignitary that just popped in to check he still had a heartbeat.

Also of interest is the defeat of one, but not both, of the Government's proposed Constitutional Amendments. While the citizenry seemed content to let the Oireachtas rifle through the wallets of the judiciary, they seem less inclined to let them also "borrow" the odd bit of legal inquisitive powers while they're at it. In a classic one-two punch over 79% of the electorate who were not members of the judiciary, the legal profession or their relatives happily gave the Dáil excessive power over somebody else's lives, and then 52% of them balked at the notion of the Dáil having excessive power over their own lives. Take that, judges, that will teach you to sit in judgement over us with your chairs and your legal knowledge and your keeping the streets safe and all that forcing of the Government to address matters of critical human rights importance! You'll think twice the next time you're considering ruling against the Attorney General, won't you now?

The results of the Presidential Election and both Referenda were of particular interest to me not because I am a judge, a stag in the Phoenix Park or a stag in the Phoenix Park whose conduct may prompt investigation by the Dáil which may determine, with due regard to the principles of fair procedures, the appropriate balance between the rights of persons and the public interest for the purposes of ensuring an effective inquiry into this matter. No, my friends, these results were of great interest because of where I spent most of Friday, in the Citywest convention centre at the Presidential and Dublin West By-Election count.

And if you don't know why that would excite me so much, then you are probably reading the wrong blog.

In the Really Real World I work with a number of early stage start-ups, advising them on business planning and online strategy. One of these is a film production company that has an innovative approach to filmmaking on a very tight budget, and some interesting ideas about online distribution. For the last eighteen months or so they have been following a, well, let's call him a "community organiser", around with a film crew and when he decided to run as an Independent candidate in the By-Election for the Dublin West Constituency, the crew went along to the election count to document it all, and I tagged along for the ride.

Good Idea: Colour coding the Presidential and Referenda ballot papers. Bad Idea: Putting them all in the same box
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

The count was held over two floors in the Citywest Convention centre, a sprawling complex and hotel at the very end of the new Luas Red Line extension, in what used to be the bucolic village of Saggart and is now just another jumbled point lost in the anarchic suburban sprawl of Dublin that made Los Angeles seem well-thought out in comparison and NAMA the bloated albatros that it is around our collective necks. The By-Election count was held upstairs, and downstairs saw the Presidential and both Referenda counts for three Dublin county councils (Fingal, South Dublin and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown), and as I arrived shortly after 9am the ballot boxes had all been opened and the tally was furiously underway.

For those of you outside of Ireland a short explanatory note might be in order here. When we vote, we use these things called 'pencils', and write on what we like to call 'paper'. We also use an equally mysterious system for our electoral process called 'Proportional Representation (Single Transferable Vote)', wherein voters rank their desired candidates in order of preference, with '1' for the candidate they would most like to win, '2' for the next, and so on. What happens next is only really of interest to Irish folks (or Maltese, Indians, Australians or Icelanders since last year), it is enough to say that counting the ballots is a lengthy, manual process and can take a couple of days in a close run General Election. When polling stations close the ballot boxes are transfered to the count centres and held under police supervision overnight, then opened in the morning and the real fun begins.

The tally gets underway.
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

Politics in Ireland is a patient process with no network TV calling the election as soon as the polls in California have closed and before a single vote has actually been counted, but thankfully we're not quite as bad as Belgium. We do, however, have our own indigenous Early Warning System; instead of a system of media-run 'Exit Polls', we borrowed liberally from the Central American banana trade (as befits our Banana Republic status) and developed a system of tallies. As the ballot boxes are publicly opened onto tables and sorted into nice neat piles for counting at a later stage, throngs of gentlemen and ladies with clipboards stand pressed against the barricades that protect the counting tables and record each ballot as it is added to the pile with a series of ticks on paper. These good men and women are, by and large, not independent members of the public but activists in assorted political parties, recording the results to bring back to their tabulators, the Tallymen (and they are almost all men) who try to build up an overall impression of how the election has gone in that ward.

A backroom filled with Tallymen. Smoke-free since 2004.
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

In Citywest there was a separate room where these Tallymen from all the major parties (at least according to the stickers on their backs) sat gathered around a single large table, laptops a blazing as runners brought up sheet after sheet from downstairs. Interestingly enough the parties seemed to share their tally information, agreeing on an "official" tally result which was then handed out to the assembled media well before a single vote was actually counted.

Throughout the day the media bemoaned the lack of accurate tallies from count centres across the country, due to the lack of an official Fianna Fail candidate in the Presidential election and the subsequent absence of the fabled Fianna Fail machine and its tallymen of doom. In Citywest we had no such hiccups, for Dublin West had been the home of the late Brian Lenihan and the machine was out in force to ensure the party retained its last toe-hold in Dublin. The backroom was littered with Ogra Fianna Fail pens and stickers and a brimstone-like smell of doomed determination and while their plotting and scheming proved ultimately a failure, at least their tallies were reasonably accurate.

Irish Presidential candidates are easily pigeonholed
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

Once the ballots have been placed into nice neat piles the process of sorting them into smaller piles based on first preference votes begins. This takes place away from the tables and around a series of pigeonhole bookcases, with each candidate having their own pigeonhole and further spaces for blank/spoiled votes and one for those voters whose penmanship creates the wood-and-lead equivalent of hanging chads. Once sorted these piles are then distributed back out to the counters who add up the total votes in each pile. As this is going on the Tallymen return and start peering over the hands of the counters at each ballot to record who got the second preference, so they have an indication of where those votes will go if the first preference candidate is eliminated (or elected in a multi-seat election) - again this bit probably isn't of interest to those of you with first-past-the-post systems, but believe me it is this second and third preference counting that makes our system the most wonderful and exciting in the world. The rest of you really don't know what you are missing, imagine if all of your Christmas presents were wrapped like a Russian matryoshka doll, the joy of unwrapping would go on, and on, and on until, at the very end, you arrived at the innermost layer and found to your delight a small but perfectly formed legislature.

Best. Christmas. Ever.

With the Ballot boxes open at 8am, the results of the first count of 35,702 votes in the Dublin West By-Election weren't actually announced until almost 4:30 in the afternoon, and the final results weren't announced until late the following day. All of this gave me plenty of time to wander around downstairs and watch the Presidential and Referenda counts, and draw a number of interesting conclusions.

My first preference went to Doubtful. It usually does.
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

Firstly, if you found my haphazard explanation of PR-STV of no use whatsoever, and are still completely in the dark about how it all works, don't worry, a sizable chunk of the Irish population are similarly confused. About 2% of the By-Election and 1% of the Presidential votes were spoiled, some deliberately left blank, others filled in with good intentions but appalling execution. The number of ballots I saw with several check marks used instead of numbers, or multiple numbers one, two and three, or simply several yeses and nos was alarming.

Secondly those who understand PR-STV really, really like it. Far more ballots than I ever imagined actually gave a preference to every single candidate, when the instructions said to list the candidates in order of preference, 1-13, people really did list all thirteen candidates in order of preference. In the February General Election out of sixteen candidates in a four seat constituency I listed (maybe) seven preferences. This was less to do with the fact that I only supported seven candidates and more to do with the fact there were nine that I really didn't want to vote for, which segues nicely into my third point, that voters aren't as factionalised as I thought.

Dublin West ballot papers
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

Growing up in a Blueshirt household, I knew that one must never, ever vote Fianna Fail or Sinn Fein. While my own politics are solidly on the left, this prohibition remains entrenched in my subconscious, and so without thinking I lapse into tactical voting to block the Soldiers of Destiny at every opportunity, and will admit to giving a Blueshirt my sixth or seventh preference, on occasion, if it hammers another nail in the coffin of Fianna Fail. Naturally I assumed that all voters were as tribal as this, but watching the counts on Friday I now realise that I was very, very mistaken.

I was startled to see the number of voters who went 1,2 for Mitchell and Gallagher, or Mitchell and McGuinness, or Norris and McGuinness, or even Gallagher and Michael D. I even saw someone vote for Dana, which is just plain crazy. Maybe it was just because it was a Presidential election with a pretty poor field of candidates, but voters genuinely seemed to have made their selection on the basis of the individual, and not the Party.

All ready to go back in storage. Or sold in a clumsy attempt to introduce electronic voting.
And then bought back at a substantial mark-up when e-voting proves to be a failure.
Citywest, Dublin, Friday 28th October

This gives me hope, because it suggests that the nation is not wedded to the Party Political system, that the electorate might actually be prepared to pay attention to The Issues^TM and not simply trot out every five years to vote for the lad whose father their father voted for, and whose grandfather their grandfather voted for. The Irish voter could actually be a far more sophisticated creature than I have ever given them credit for.

They even managed not to elect Sean Gallagher.

Consensus decision making and 'jazz hands' may indeed be a far superior form of real, participatory Democracy, but damn do I love the elegant majesty of paper, pencil and a voting system too complex for 68% of the UK electorate to understand.

Oh, and how did our "community organiser" fair? Well you'll just have to wait for the film to come out to see...

An agrarian people, we choose our leaders by a single transferable gourd.
Fallon & Byrne, Dublin, Friday 28th October

#OccupyDameStreet - Marches and Neighbours

Blue skies over O'Connell Street
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 29th October

The clouds vanished from the sky this afternoon to see a much more subdued march than last week's jubilant two thousand pass once again down O'Connell Street from the Garden of Remembrance and on to the site of Occupied Dame Street. I worried when this week's event was called that the good people of Dublin might start to exhibit the signs of march fatigue, and while those who did attend were no less committed than in previous weeks, it canot be denied that they were significantly fewer in number.

Passing the GPO. That masked fella sure does get around a fair bit.
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 29th October

One challenge that #OccupyDameStreet will need to address very soon now that it has entered its fourth week of existence is (somewhat ironically given my earlier castigation of journalists for demanding an answer to this very same question) the "what" of the Movement. For three weeks now we have been looking for a conversation to start amongst the people of Ireland, and it is clear from the interactions we have had with the members of the wider public and from the results in the two Referenda held on Thursday that the people are talking (even if it is not necessarily because of us). The time is fast approaching when #OccupyDameStreet can no longer simply ask that a conversation happens, it needs to start looking at where that conversation is going, and what happens when, and if, it starts to reach some conclusions.

It may be that today's smaller march numbers are an indication that #OccupyDameStreet is transitioning from Protest to Process, that people are more focused on what happens next and this, perhaps, is a good thing, a sign of the maturation of the Movement and its transition from reaction to action.

The March passes by the Spire
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 29th October

There was also a bit of a cerfuffle over the Socialist Workers' Party and their "Enough" Campaign. Apparently throughout the week talks had been going on with them about the possibility of inviting them to join in today's march in a show of Left Unity. At last night's General Assembly (which unfortunately I was not at, for reasons that I will elaborate on in a later post) a sizable number of people were deeply unhappy with this suggestion, and so consensus on the issue was not reached. The SWP were asked to respect this and while they were invited to take part in the march as individuals, they were asked to leave their political banners behind and refrain from fundraising, leafleting and recruiting. Unfortunately as the march gathered at the Garden of Remembrance this afternoon, the SWP arrived with their "Enough" banners, and during the open mic session at the start they actively publicised their campaign, much to the annoyance of many in the crowd. This may have contributed to the subdued mood on the march, with folks concerned that an attempt was being made to hijack it all. The tension boiled over at the post-march Assembly, with the SWP being criticized by many for basically being bad neighbours and not respecting the decisions taken at previous Assemblies.

No other issue provokes so many heated conversations in General Assemblies, and the actions of the SWP today will not have won over any converts to their side of the argument.

Under the clock at Clery's
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 29th October

Now, I love me a good march, so I do, but I also think that marches are one of the tools of the old political order, an order that has failed to connect directly with the people. I hope that #OccupyDameStreet avoids the mistakes of so many groups before them, falling into the trap of marching for marching's sake and running out of steam as each week fewer and fewer people rally to the cry. The jigs and reels at last week's march show how a spark of imagination can lift a crowd away from the bricks and mortar upon which they stand, and such moments of joy are what need to be seized upon to engage with a wider audience beyond the slick wet asphalt of Dame Street.

The revolution will be bought on Amazon for £5.99 plus shipping. One size fits all.
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 29th October

Also, people really, really like that mask from V for Vendetta. I'm sure its great and all to be Anonymous, but it really messes things up when I go up to someone and carry on a conversation with them for five minutes before I realise that they're not the person I was looking for. To be honest the height, hair colour and possibly gender should have been a giveaway, but I was having a bit of a slow day.

Alan Moore must be so happy to see his work everywhere, and know that every mask sold gives DC Comics and Time Warner a little more money and him not a single penny.

Hooray for Anonymous!

Illuminations and Observations - Dublin Contemporary Edition

David Zink Yi and Monica Bonvicini at Dublin Contemporary 2011

And so on to the (I Can't Believe its Not The) Biennale...

Taking a break from Democracy both Real and Imagined I wandered down this afternoon to Dublin Contemporary 2011, to spend a few hours walking through its ramshackle corridors before it closes forever in four days time. I had been down to a few events there and visited exhibitions at other locations beyond Earlsfort Terrace, but hadn't made it down to the main exhibition for a proper walk around. I had intended to go a few days after getting back from the Biennale, but I was all Art-ed out and needed to refresh my critical batteries - I have a low tolerance for Cool-tcha at the best of times and my heckles had been significantly raised by some of the self-indulgences on display in Venice, to give this all a fair viewing I thought some distance would be best.

I did not, however, expect to get sidetracked for nearly three weeks by a popular people's protest movement and end up spending most of my days and nights shuffling around the gates of the Central Bank like a moody teenager with a sullen skateboard and a demanding haircut who has just dropped their bags of chips in a non-ironic way.

So Dublin Contemporary patiently waited for me and in return I feel like I have given it the fair viewing it deserves. As an International Art Exhibition its scale is adventurous and impressive. Housed in the former home of UCD in the East Wing of the National Concert Hall building in Earlsfort Terrace the setting itself sets a tone that some pieces find impossible to escape. The central stairwell rising up through three floors has been painted an almost electric Easy-Jet orange that shocks you into attentiveness the moment you enter, and yet the corridors beyond remain as they were when the University moved out, fixtures and fittings stripped from bare rooms and the ghost marks of lost shelves and desks tracing forgotten history along the walls. The institutional whites and greens call to mind a B-movie asylum with hidden horrors behind each door, the effect multiplied by the dazed shuffling of patrons down soporific walkways, Romero shadows cast by the clinical glare of old florescence.

Most artists have been given their own room, while some have harnessed the haunted absence of the space other works are overwhelmed by it, lost and alone in the centre of bleakness, an infant crying for their separated parent. While the Arsenale of the Biennale magnifies even the smallest piece by the sheer scale of the building, the claustrophobic roughness of some rooms here focuses the eyes down like a disapproving microscope on what little they contain.

Some of the larger pieces really work, Maser's parallel Emancipate Yourself pieces with a "Why Go Bald?" flashing Daniel O'Connell successfully dominate a swathe of corridor on the ground floor, Richard Mosse's oversize false-colour photos of Congolese soldiers brings a welcome burst of pigments to an otherwise stark room, and I couldn't help but smile at David Zink Yi's giant ceramic desiccated squid lying in its own faux-ink like slowly-deflating sports equipment in an abandoned gym. Nevan Lahart's cardboard landscape took advantage of its cramped confines to play with perspective and dwarf the viewer with rising hills and onrushing rockets, all topped off by arial acrobatics with discarded beer cans.

Other pieces left me flat though, including curator Jota Castro's massive mirrored sculpture that ran over two floors in the former University Library, though this may have been less to do with the piece itself than for my decreasing tolerance for what I have come to call 'Lazy Art Mechanically Reproduced', of which there are five basic types - 1) giant versions of everyday objects, 2) miniature versions of everyday objects, 3) replicas of everyday objects made from odd materials, 4) multiple identical copies of objects and 5) giant abstract stuff built just to show that you can make Very Large Things. 'Lazy Art Mechanically Reproduced' seems vulgar to me, it takes a lot of money to produce and appears to be more an exercise in broadcasting the cleverness of the artist than an attempt to say anything meaningful with the art itself.

Overall I found Dublin Contemporary to be a very mixed bag indeed. Some pieces were genuinely amazing, most were OK, and a few made me wonder if I couldn't do better by throwing random crap from my desk into a pot of marmalade and blowing it all onto a wall with a hairdryer and calling it silent blue 32 on my sunken grave in spring. a circle, writing a description that talked about a dialectic with post-Lacanian neo-brutalism, and see if there was Arts Council funding to be had for this (probably not, unless I did it all as gaeilge).

But the fact that it happened at all is the most wonderful thing about it - art isn't supposed to appeal to everyone, for every piece you like two more should challenge you, provoke a reaction even if negative and force you to think, to confront your own understandings and misconceptions, and even if most pieces did nothing for me that fact that there were so many is something to celebrate in and of itself. It was also good to see so many foreign artists being chosen to exhibit here in Dublin, while we neither have the money nor the cultural clout to mount such an international exhibition on a regular basis, the ambition of Dublin Contemporary in the midst of such an economically and socially stagnant period brought to mind Oscar Wilde's quote, "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".

Contemporary Irish Art is alive and well (though living in New York and London judging by the artist bios), and if you haven't been yet there are still four days left to get yourself down to Earlsfort Terrace.

Stefana McClure at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Teresa Margolles at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Kathryn Maguire and Alberto Borea at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Maarten Vanden Eynde at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Beware the work of David Godbold at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Maser at Dublin Contemporary 2011

Notes
Portrait Images - Top: Jean Susplugas, Middle: Liam O'Callaghan, Bottom: Kendell Geers

Links
Dublin Contemporary 2011 website
Dublin Contemporary 2011 - yes, there's an app for that

Stop your Whinging - Presidential Special

Polls have been open since 7am today and close at 10pm. While the current system has many, many flaws and needs a radical overhaul to instill any semblance of true participatory Democracy, you really should exercise what little options you have to have your voice heard. Actively choosing not to participate is a valid choice, not voting because you just couldn't be bothered isn't.

You know what to do, you know where to do it. Just go.

#OccupyDameStreet - #MasterchefDameStreet

A veritable cornucopia arrives at #OccupyDameStreet
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Wednesday 26th October

This evening I was mostly... chopping cauliflower.

Life on Occupied Dame Street takes more than the occasional strange turn, so tonight in the midst of media meetings and General Assemblies I found myself on kitchen duty helping to feed the five thousand (note actual numbers may very, past performance is not an indicator of future success, closed course, professional driver). The loaves and fishes out of which today's bountiful miracle was produced were kindly sourced and provided by the amazing Natasha of Natasha's Living Food, producer of some of the tastiest raw sprouted houmous and raw chocolate cake (sperate items, I must stress) I have ever had.

In addition to sourcing all today's food, and properly organizing the kitchen and food prep area, Natasha came back this evening to oversee the food prep, and by oversee I mean "essentially do all the work aided by two very clumsy assistants, one of whom wouldn't be trusted with a knife and the other who was, and shouldn't". I was the one without the knife, and coincidently enough I am the one still in possession of all my finger tips tonight. Natasha was very patient with us, and I learned more about Raw/Living Food from her in an hour than in all my previous trips to Saf in London. Encountering a Raw Foody made me understand what it must be like for a meat eater encountering a Vegetarian for the first time, it just seems all sorts of wrong and I'm still not sure I completely get it, but it has to be said the end results were delicious.

I may, however, never be able to rid the smell of cauliflower from my hands.

The new kitchen area in mid-transformation
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Wednesday 26th October

Patrick Bond takes questions from the audience during his workshop on the IMF
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Wednesday 26th October

#OccupyDameStreet - Presidential Interlude

Once again I feel compelled to say to those of you new to this blog that I am writing purely as an individual, and never on behalf of #OccupyDameStreet or any other group, movement or jamboree.

So tomorrow we go to the polls for the second time this year, to elect an almost entirely powerless figurehead whose sole responsibilities seem to be smiling, waving, leaving fire-hazards burning in the window and, based on historical precedent, avoiding late night phone calls from Charles J. Haughey and his chums (admittedly easier now that he is no longer with us). As a bonus prize we also get to decide via Referenda on the transferral of more power to members of Dáil Éireann, though sadly neither the 'Won't Somebody Please Think of the Children (Except Catholic Clergy)' nor the 'Seanad Abolition/Reform/Change/erm-maybe-we'll-just-get-new-carpets-in' proposals seem to have been ready in time (I'm sure all the legislators had a marvelous summer holiday though instead).

I will freely admit that I have never felt less informed about a Referendum than with either of these two, my inclination is to vote "No" on both, my reasoning being that a) a Judiciary independent of the Dail is a cornerstone of our admittedly flawed Constitution, and a separate pay-review body drawn from those outside of the Irish legal profession could carry out such a review function instead of TDs and b) while I do believe in the right of Parliaments to carry out reviews of matters of public importance and the current Tribunal system benefits no-one save the legal profession, The Irish Council of Civil Liberties have raised what seem to be valid concerns over the hurried nature of this legislation and the scale and scope of the envisioned committees. However the presence of Peter Sutherland, Michael McDowel and Mary O'Rourke all calling for a 'No' vote on this proposed 30th Amendment make me feel very uneasy doing so, possessing as I do an almost pathological distrust of anything said by any one member of this unholy trinity as an individual, and when their powers are combined I find myself checking over my shoulder for trumpets, lads on horseback and a lady on a funny-looking animal wearing altogether not enough clothing for this kind of weather.

No doubt this will all end up in the polling station with a coin toss, what used to be Ireland's favorite method of electoral decision making before the EU forced us to move to penalty shoot-outs.

On the subject of the Presidential election, however, I am much more informed and came to a decision many, many weeks ago. Happy and secure in this knowledge I allowed myself to take a few days off to man the barricades at #OccupyDameStreet, only to wake up on Sunday and discover that the nation had taken leave of their senses, and I was seriously considering phoning up a doctor friend to see how I could have up to 40% of the electorate (with a margin of error of +/- 2%) committed. It was akin to walking out from your hospital bed after a long illness/coma/slap-in-the-face-by-an-angry-plant to finding the streets inexplicably deserted and then suddenly being chased for your life once dusk fell by hordes of squat, balding zombies.

Seriously folks, are you all stark raving bonkers insane? Is this all part of a very cunning plan to escape the clutches of the IMF by sticking two pencils up our collective nostrils and cry "wibble wibble"? If so you forgot to send me the memo, I am really not amused.

Let's look at the facts - 1) Fianna Fail destroyed this country for the benefit of a small group of financiers and property developers. 2) Sean Gallagher made his money in the property sector, and as recently as 2008 was fundraising for Fianna Fail, soliciting donations of up to €5,000 which would secure a private meeting with then Taoiseach Brian Cowen. Even if he was not part of the cosy cabal of business interests that directly financed Fianna Fail and on whose behalf this country was run, he certainly directly enabled this highly undemocratic cash-for-access environment. The fact that he solicited donations on behalf of Brian Cowen from a convicted criminal is almost irrelevant, the main concern should be that he was actively soliciting donations in return for parliamentary access in the first place. 3) In 2009 he took a director's loan of €82,829 from his company Beach House Training and Consulting Ltd which breached Company Law and when challenged about this he has used the "that money was only resting in my account" defense and refused to be drawn further, leaving the electorate to guess whether his actions were criminal or simply incompetent.

This is the man that 40% of the electorate when asked in successive representative sample polls believe is the symbolic embodiment of the Irish nation? Well he certainly is the embodiment of that Irish nation of the last fourteen years, but I thought that everything that we had gone through as a people over the last two years was all about changing that - an end to crony capitalism, an end to back-room deals and Fianna Fail skulduggery with brown envelopes and paper bags exchanged at petrol stations, and end to dig-outs, whip-arounds and rounds of golf that resulted in legislation that favoured a few and crippled a generation. An end to the Billy Brennan politics of the wink-and-elbow language of delight.

If you want to know why #OccupyDameStreet exists and why I am down there freezing my backside off while you all are reading this on your laptops warm and cozy with X-Factor on in the background, it is because 40% of you seriously need a good kick up the arse. A serious kick up the arse.

It doesn't matter if you vote for the looney Christian, Ms Photoshoppy McQuango, the forgettable boring guy, the pompous guy or the chatty little gnome with the mad hair, just please come to your senses and do not vote for Sean Gallagher!!!

Oh, or the convicted terrorist. Don't vote for the convicted terrorist, that would be pretty bad too.

Photo: Not actually Sean Gallagher, but a Sontaran, a fictional squat and potato-shaped humanoid from the British TV show, Dr Who. An easy mistake to make, though.

#OccupyDameStreet - Rocky Road to Dublin

So if anyone has been wondering what it is exactly that sets #OccupyDameStreet apart from any other protest or activist movement that has happened in recent years here in Ireland, take a look at how we march.

Video taken by Nigel Hanlon on Saturday, October 22nd.

#OccupyDameStreet - Now with 100% more Yurt.

And the Lord said, let there be Yurt!
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Tuesday 25th October

Just how wet was it yesterday? Well, at Casement Aerodrome on the outskirts of Dublin three inches (82mms) of rain fell throughout the day, a once in 80 year event, with an inch of that falling in a single hour between 4pm and 5pm (the most rainfall at Casement Aerodrome in an hour since records began), right about when I was standing on Occupied Dame Street waiting for a Yurt to arrive. Despite being adequately kitted out for normal rainfall ('a grand soft day' in Hiberno-English) I was a little unprepared for the deluge that we experienced yesterday afternoon, my shoes came close to peeling away and may never see the light of day again, my gloves smell like damp sheep and Dame Street has done its very best to tie-die my trousers.

Still, the rain cleared and the Yurt finally arrived, and by midnight last night was ready for occupation. The plan at the moment is to use it as a meeting area rather than letting folks sleep there, and hopefully this is the first of a few more permanent-ish structures to protect folks from the misery that will be the Irish Winter.

It also has a back
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Tuesday 25th October

Alas as I was busy Yurt-watching I failed to consider what effects the weather may have had on my own home (living well above ground level the prospect of flooding is rarely considered. I was thus somewhat shocked to return home and discover our own kitchen looking considerably the worse for wear, with pools of water collecting on the countertops and floor and our ceiling resembling a hydrological Rorschach test. Tt would appear that our extractor fan ducting channeled rainwater directly from the roof into our kitchen, something of a design flaw some might say. The smell of soggy damp plaster should have been a give away as we walked in last night, but sadly it was difficult to discern over the ambient levels of soggy damp people smell that we ourselves were emitting.

Therefore in the spirit of attending to your own house before looking after others, it might be a day or two before I make it back to the Camp. The irony of a Yurt on Occupied Dame Street being more weatherproof than my own home is not lost on me.

#OccupyDameStreet - #AquifyDameStreet? #OccupyDampStreet? #OccupyDameLake?

And the heavens opened...
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Monday 24th October

It is impossible to convey exactly how miserable it is on Occupied Dame Street tonight. With much of the country undergoing what can only be described as An Extreme Weather Event, with flooding reported from all quarters, a brave group of souls bunkered down for the evening last night and remain (just about) in one pice today, ready to go through this all again tonight. There is talk of a yurt arriving soon, and I hope this materialises because the misery swept in by a monsooning October sky quickly seeps into the bones like an unshakable chill and once lodged there no amount of tea, coffee or public goodwill will chase it away.

Spare a thought tonight for the Overnighters, they are made of stronger stuff than you or I.

...and never closed.
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Monday 24th October

#OccupyDameStreet - The Whys and Wherefores

The Revolution will not be Televised
ADW, Pricks and Mortar, South Street Studios, Dublin, Sunday 23rd October

For the last two weeks on Occupied Dame Street I have stood and answered the questions of passers-by, supporters, detractors and, on more occasions than I ever imagined, the media. I have existed in something of a bubble, largely unaware of the reactions to the Camp in the wider public or to the portrayal of the #Occupy Movement, both local and global, in the mainstream press, but judging by the repetitive nature of particular questions from journalists I had my suspicions that the media just weren't getting it, that they couldn't wrap their heads around the reasons why a small group of women and men would give up everything and plant themselves firmly down at the gates of the Central Bank, enduring all the misery and hardship that the Irish weather could throw at them.

The media seemed only to ask the 'whats', "What are your demands?", "What are you looking for?", "What will bring this to an end?", looking for nice and simple, easily digested soundbites, and never questioning the 'whys'. For me the words "Why do you want?" are a much more potent question than "What do you want?", and this short phrase embodies everything that #OccupyDameStreet means to me.

The answer that I give to many of the 'whats' is the same, "To start a conversation'. I and my fellow Occupiers do not claim to have all the answers to our nation's ills, though we do think that we have highlighted four of the gravest (the transfer of private debt to the public sphere, the surrender of fiscal autonomy to the IMF and ECB, the loss of control over our natural resources and the lack of true participatory Democracy in the State) that need urgent attention. The conversation that is envisioned is not between the government and the Occupiers (though that may be a part of it), but between the people and the people, directly and without the need for mediators or intermediaries. When I offer this to the press, they stare blankly and move on to the rest of the 'whats', "what will this accomplish?", "what do you hope to achieve with this?", "what do you want the Government to do?", they never pause to reflect and follow up with what to my mind is the obvious response, "why do we need to start a conversation?".

Answering that question is the key to understanding everything about #OccupyDameStreet.

In 2010 the Greeks took to the streets to protest at the draconian cuts being introduced by their Government in a failed attempt to forestal external financial intervention, and once again when that intervention was accepted. Across our screens we saw the ordinary citizenry of the birthplace of Democracy exercise their rights in a way as old as Democracy itself, en masse, on the streets and with a hundred thousand voices calling to those who style themselves the economic and political leadership, demanding that their voices be heard. More than once these ordinary women and men fueled by indignation and outrage bore placards that simple stated, "We are not the Irish".

The message was clear, they were not going to accept indignity upon indignity being heaped atop their shoulders to be borne with quiet humility while the originators of the crisis walked away unchecked, they were going to start their own conversation, and it would be loud, and robust and chaotic but it would be a Real conversation, and it would take however long it would take. They would not be silenced, their voices would be heard.

Celtic Tiger Cement Mixer and Monopoly Blocks
ADW, Pricks and Mortar, South Street Studios, Dublin, Sunday 23rd October

In Ireland we wanted no conversation, content to let others wring their hands on our behalf. The politicians and the media told us that there were no alternatives, and we rolled our eyes and shrugged and said, "ah, sure what can ye do?", and turned our heads back to the match and raised the pint to our lips one more time. Only three marches, in February of 2009 (100,000 people) and two in November of 2010 (the student march of 25,000 and the second Union march with 80,000), approached anything like the levels of disquiet seen in other countries, even though our own deprivations were much, much worse. On the day of the last Fianna Fail budget debate in December of last year, only a handful of people turned up outside the Dail to bang their pots and pans in protest over the decisions being taken inside. The rest of the country sat on their stools and drank their pints and said "ah, sure what can ye do?".

In February of this year we finally got our chance to go to the polls, Fianna Fail and the Greens were wiped off the political map and that nation celebrated as a new era of accountable government was ushered in. But once the dust had settled and the deals had been done, the first visits with the IMF and ECB had been held and the new faces introduced to Brussels, 'Labour's Way' quickly became 'Frankfurt's Way' and the new Government sat back in their Dail seats and shrugged, saying "ah, sure what can ye do?".

For fourteen years this country has been run for the benefit of a small group of property developers and financiers. We have been led to worship at the altar of Mammon, been told that greed is good and businessmen (and it is men, for according to the Irish Times less than 7.5% of Board Members of the top 25 ISEQ-listed companies are women) have been lionised as the new Fianna, running through the forest without breaking a single twig or leaving a single print in the forests of the Exchequer. As the bubble burst and the Government rushed to save these Lions of Capital, bailing them out with our own mortgaged futures, not one but two Taoisigh gathered together the great and the good of Ireland's tax exiles, or 'international business elite' as they prefere to be known, to bend knee and doff cap and ask to be saved by their wisdom and grace, only to walk away with nothing more substantial than a call for more Riverdance, a second Paddy's Day and offers to serve on State quangos (but only if this doesn't jeopardise their non-resident tax statuses), as they cried "ah, sure what can ye do?" all the way back to Bermuda.

And after fourteen years of political malfeasance and economic mismanagement at the hands of what can only be called a Fianna Fail oligarchy, we wake up this morning to discover that the person most likely to be selected by the citizenry to be the living embodiment of the nation is, drum roll please, a Fianna Fail oligarch, a self-stiled 'Dragon' who sits on a State-funded throne, whose licence fee salary criminalises anyone who refuses to materially contribute to his upkeep, as he dispenses financial largess to bended supplicants like a nobleman tossing trenchers to the peasantry after feasts as a magnanimous manifestation of the Divine Right of Kings, and the citizenry turn back to their pints with a shake of the newspaper and a shrug and say, "ah, sure what can ye do?".

Fintan O'Toole has a thesis that the release valve for tension in Ireland has always been emigration. That the best and the brightest, the most active and rebellious or simply those most oppressed have traditionally left our shores rather than stay behind to press for change. We have thus become a nation of people bred for docility and acquiescence, the herd thinned of agitators and organisers in each and every generation. This is why we sit meekly and quietly by while all of Europe erupts in anger around us, this is why we relinquish our autonomy to the same political dynasties election after election, this is why we let back-room deals silence us on the streets and this is why after fourteen years of Neoliberal oligarchy we look set to come back on Thursday and ask for more.

We have become a nation of sheep that delegate our conversations to others; the politicians talk to the businessmen and the businessmen talk to the politicians, and the media report back their decisions and deliberations for us to shrug our shoulders at and declare "ah, sure what can ye do?".

And in relinquishing the 'what', no-one ever stops to ask "why?".

That is the 'why' of #OccupyDameStreet. To show that the national conversation that we have avoided can, and must happen. Not with the Government, not in the pages of the Press, and not just in the pubs. It must happen in the streets and in the schools, in the shops and offices and in the homes of every man, woman and child in this nation, and it must happen between the people, citizen to citizen with no intermediary or third party in between. Do not ask #OccupyDameStreet for answers or solutions, ask instead your friends, your family, your neighbours and, above all else, yourself.

Ask, and then do.

That is the "why" of #OccupyDameStreet.

Links
Images are from the Pricks and Mortar solo exhibition by ADW, a Dublin-based street artist, held in the South Street Studios this weekend.

#OccupyDameStreet - The Internationale Unites the Human Race

The Internationale Unites the Human Race
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

Well, what can we say after that? RTE are reporting that two thousand people joined in today's march from The Garden of Remembrance, down O'Connell Street and on to Occupied Dame Street. Two thousand! Let me say that one more time, two thousand people! All inspired by a small group of folks that started this all off by tying down a few tents outside the gates of the Central Bank two weeks ago today.

The main draw, apart from the chance to march shoulder to shoulder with one's fellow citizens on a freezing October afternoon, was undoubtedly the presence of one Mr Billy Bragg, who brought his best pair of marching trousers and a guitar to sing a few songs along to. As the crowd arrived on Dame Street he climbed atop a truck and greeted the crowd in solidarity with #Occupy Movements around the world, then dove into a few songs including There is Power in a Union, before laying down his guitar and singing, unaccompanied, The Internationale, fist raised high in the air, an action mirrored across the plinths and plaza of Occupied Dame Street.

Two weeks ago a score of voices cried out for the 99%, today two thousand fists raised high proclaimed, "We are the 99%!"

Another World is Possible on Dame Street
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

#OccupyCollegeGreen
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

This lad just wanted to get home with his shopping
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

#OccupyDameStreet arrives at #OccupiedDameStreet
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr Billy Bragg
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

The World in Motion at Occupied Dame Street
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

Mr Billy Bragg tells us there is power in a Union
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

So comrades, come rally, for this is the time and place! The Internationale Unites the Human Race.
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Saturday 22nd October

Links
@poshknacker has uploaded a video of Billy Bragg singing The Internationale at #OccupyDameStreet today here. Magical.

#OccupyDameStreet - Time to get your marching shoes on

Join us on Saturday at 2pm at The Garden of Remembrance
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Thursday 20th October

A slow day, was under the weather (metaphorically) for most of it, no doubt as a result of spending much of the last two weeks under the weather (literally), and only spent a short time in the Camp today. The big news of the day is, of course, that it is now fourteen days since #OccupyDameStreet began, and tomorrow sees another march from The Garden of Remembrance at 2pm down to the Camp on Dame Street, accompanied by the indefatigable Mr Billy Bragg. I last saw Mr Bragg in Trafalgar Square last year, the day after the UK General Election, calling for the introduction of Proportional Representation, not the sexiest subject to sing a protest song about but, fair play, he had a go. Say what you like about NAMA, at least its a pretty easy word to rhyme with.

Jinx Lennon in fine form
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Thursday 20th October

Occupied Dame Street has become the place for musicians with a conscience to be in Dublin, last night we were joined by the ever-rousing Jinx Lennon on his way to a gig at The Working Men's Club, and he performed an altogether unique megaphone set, which somewhat surprisingly, was the most audibly comprehensible gig of his that I have been to. He was pretty hoarse by the end of his set, so apologies to anyone in The Working Men's club if his gig was poo, you can always come along to Dame Street tomorrow and hear Billy Bragg try and find a rhyme for 'Special Purpose Vehicle'.

Have sink, will wash-up (at #OccupyQualityStreet)
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Thursday 20th October

Alas, as the crowds stomped their chills away to the sound of an angrily strummed guitar, I did the washing up. #OccupyGalway might be all toasty and warm with their fancy-pants gazebo, but do they have a semi-working al fresco kitchen sink? I think not. It is pretty damn inspiring to see the folks in Galway, #OccupyCork and elsewhere bringing this Movement to life across the country. The 99% are everywhere!

See you all tomorrow at 2pm at The Garden of Remembrance.

#OccupyDameStreet - Everything and the kitchen sink

And they thought their woodworking skills would never be used again after school
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Thursday 20th October

This is a bit of a kitchen sink post, a few ideas mulling around in my head that haven't quite gelled together yet, but its a start.

I've taken a few hours off this afternoon, back at home now and nestled in the warmth of my own chair, at my own desk with a comfortable silence wrapped warm and tight around me. The physical strain of life on Occupied Dame Street, the labourious exertions, the cold and rain, the hours of standing and facing into the elements while sleep seems a distant shore long since vanished over the horizon, all the harm of these can be undone when finally head meets pillow, eyes close and the natural cycle of the body is allowed once more to take hold. Far less easy to escape is the toll this all takes on the head.

This morning was tough, juggling roving German camera crews running from tent to tent without once asking their occupants for permission to film and intrude (a common issue with the media, and with some members of the public for whom Occupied Dame Street has surely become Dublin's biggest tourist attraction, judging by the numbers of passers-by who stop to have their pictures taken with the hippies before wandering off in search of Riverdance or a bar with a flat screen telly showing the match), with those more belligerent and violent who attacked members of the Camp and threatened to come back later with a shotgun. Excuses can be made for both the former (who view us all objectively as but a story to be framed) and the latter (as one of the many troubled people society has failed, yet another reason why #OccupyDameStreet is), but the dehumanising effects of a German lens or a junkie's spit takes its toll on one's soul nonetheless.

Beyond the drain of individual and unique events there is the simple challenge of spending so much time around other people in such an extreme environment. There are those in this life who are personable people, who love company and crave lengthy interactions with their fellow human beings, for whom a day without conversation and a chance word spoken with a stranger are to be mourned and avoided. I am not one of these people. A stranger may indeed be a friend you have yet to meet, but I am quite comfortable keeping it that way. I remember reading an anthropologist suggest that a hundred and fifty people is about the maximum you can really maintain friendships with at any one time, with a core group of fifteen close friends and family members, and I'm talking about Real friends here, not FriendFace ones. In the space of thirteen days I have easily tripled the number of people I interact with on a daily basis, and under a level of intensity that forges tight bonds very quickly. This shared experience has brought us all together in common purpose, but the underlying reality is that none of us know anything more about each other than what we have experienced together on Dame Street, that we have no more in common with each other than a shared outrage at the levels of social injustice we witness and a belief that #OccupyDameStreet can effect positive change.

Believe it or not talk of politics is very rare in the Camp. Conversations are most often focused on the simple practicalities of Camp life, who needs to be doing what, and where, what needs to be done for the evening's events and who's turn it is to sweep up. While we may all engage in political debate with visitors to the Camp curious as to why we all are here, amongst ourselves there is almost a tacit agreement not to delve too deep into our own motivations beyond those that we wear on our sleeve. I know that there are those with whom I now stand shoulder to shoulder whose other convictions are anathema to me and when these come to the fore, particularly under the harsh glare of the media lens, I reel and ask myself, why am I doing this, how can I stand here and be associated with this person?

There is a disconnect between #OccupyDameStreet the Idea, and #OccupyDameStreet the Reality. They are intertwined and inseparable, but held together by quantum locking and only the occasional physical bond. The Idea brought the first Overnighters to Dame Street just shy of two weeks ago, the Reality of their Camp gave rise to a new Idea, bigger and grander than the simple Reality of twenty tents on the hard stone paving. Inspired by this grander Idea, more people joined the Reality of the Camp and it too began to grow, and its situational intransigence now fuels an even greater Idea. This Idea is what the general public beyond the tents and pallets engage with, but it is on the physical tents and pallets of the Reality that the ongoing Idea is built.

I am caught between the Reality and the Idea. I spend many hours engaged with the physical actuality of the Camp, I helped build it, shaped its walls and secured its structures, I stand watch over it on four-hour shifts welcoming in those who want to learn more and warding off those who seek to do harm. I have diffused arguments and (sadly) instigated them, facilitated General Assemblies and lamented the tortuous nature of their decision making processes. I have built walls and barricades and made tea for passing strangers and though I have yet to spend a single night, for fourteen hours a day my heart beats within that Camp.

And yet my soul lies firmly within the Idea. The concept of #OccupyDameStreet, of the workers and the unemployed, the students and the teachers, the old and the young, the women and the men, all the citizenry of Ireland excluded from the decisions and rewards of a system that benefits the minority at the expense of the majority, standing together shoulder to shoulder in solidarity, this is where my soul lies. As I sit at the feet of academics and writers hosting open air workshops in the icy cold on the politics of economics and the economics of politics, the acrid smell of the soiled streets of Dublin melts away and I am transported to the Anarres of Le Guin's The Dispossessed by way of les rues de Mai '68. For over a decade I have been hearing that another world is possible, and here on Occupied Dame Street I am witnessing that possibility made manifest.

That is why I can stand shoulder to shoulder with those whose wider beliefs may upset me, because in the Reality of Occupied Dame Street they can put aside those beliefs as I can put aside mine, and we can work together on something that we all care passionately about. The Idea of #OccupyDameStreet may exist in parallel to the Reality, but for now it very much needs this Reality to survive. For the ideals of the Idea to be, all the intrusive noise of the Other that this Reality entails must also be.

And on that note its time to head back and spend the evening sweeping up soggy cardboard, cigarette butts and all the other accidentally discarded detritus that any congregation of humanity accumulates. In years to come when I tell my imaginary grandchildren what I did in the Revolution, I'm going to make this all sound so much more glamourous.