Archive for February, 2024

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Hull – More Than The Deep: 2017

Monday, February 19th, 2024

Hull – More Than The Deep: I haven’t often posted about Hull on here, but it was the city where I first carried out a serious photographic project which was shown at the city’s art gallery in 1983, and one I have continued to photograph over the years, though rather less regularly since 2000.

Hull - More Than The Deep

I didn’t really choose to photograph Hull, but I did chose to marry a woman who had grown up in the city and whose family home was still there, and it was a place where I found myself with time on my hands when visiting her parents usually for a couple of weeks most summers and often for shorter periods at Christmas or Easter.

Hull - More Than The Deep

We still have a few friends in the city, although most have now died, and our visits are less frequent. Back in 2017 Hull was enjoying its year as UK City of Culture and we were visiting partly to enjoy some of that but also to meet a few friends. I was also trying to generate some interest in my pictures of the city from the 1970s and 1980s, but plans for a show fell through.

Hull - More Than The Deep

Sunday 19th February 2017 was also a day when we met with some of our family who had come to Hull both to meet us and to visit Hull’s major tourist attraction, The Deep and we met them for lunch there and I took a few pictures from its viewing platform.

Hull - More Than The Deep

I’d gone out immediately after breakfast for a long walk around some of my favourite areas of the city which I had photographed in earlier years. Then I had been working mainly with black and white film, interested in the changes taking place in the city and surprised at the way it seemed to be disregarding much of its heritage, and recording aspects that seemed unlikely to survive. I’d also taken some colour pictures and had included some in my show there, but they perhaps more reflected my interest in colour than my interest in the city.

But in 2017 I was working only on digital, so everything was colour and I was also making some panoramic colour images – again digital.

It was late afternoon by the time we said goodbye to our family, and Linda decided she would like to go for a walk around Beverley, a town seven miles away. The bus service to there is slow and infrequent, but as I wrote “it has the advantage of setting you down at the bus station immediately next door to Nellie’s.”

Beverley is an old market town, well known for its Minster and full of old buildings. It was too late for us to visit the Minster, but not for a visit to one of its Grade II* listed buildings, The White Horse Inn, generally known as Nellies, taken over by Samuel Smith’s brewery in 1976. And although they have modernised the pub in some ways, much remains as it was – and my pictures were taken using its rather dim gas lighting. It’s a place people come from around the world to see, though fortunately not in such large numbers to swamp it.

Afterwards we still had some time before the last bus back to Hull left and went for a walk around the town including Beverley Bar, the Minster and the Monk’s Walk and I made a few pictures, all hand-held.

Back in Hull we had a walk through the town, mainly deserted at night to the house where we were staying in Victoria Dock Village, and there was time for a few more pictures.

There are many more pictures from the day on My London Diary, and many have captions too:
Beverley and Nellie’s
Around the Town
The Deep
More Hull Panoramic
Wincolmlee and Lime St

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Global Civility and Stratford Marsh – 2006

Sunday, February 18th, 2024

Global Civility and Stratford Marsh – On Saturday February 18th 2006 I photographed one of the continuing protests around the world which followed the publication by a Danish magazine of cartoons featuring images of the Prophet Mohammad in Trafalgar Square, then took the underground and DLR to Pudding Mill Lane station on Stratford Marsh to take more pictures of the area which was to be demolished for the London Olympics.

Proclamation for Global Civility – Trafalgar Square

Global Civility and Stratford Marsh

Muslim protesters packed Trafalgar Square for a protest by the Muslim Action Committee over the publication of the cartoons which they regard as blasphemous, but also to publicise a ‘proclamation of global civility‘. The key points of this were the recognition of human dignity as a fundamental right, the need to good manners and etiquette in serious debate, a desire to avoid irresponsible behaviour and to underline the significance of mutual respect for a harmonious co-existence.

Global Civility and Stratford Marsh

The protest in London was kept in good order by stewards who remonstrated with some of the demonstrators who were in some way not behaving as they thought they should, and also moved photographers away from them and some other groups. But other protests around the world were much less restrained and news agencies that same day reported rioting outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi, Libya in which at least 10 people were killed as well as the storming and burning of Christian churches in northern Nigeria with at least 16 deaths.

Global Civility and Stratford Marsh

“As I pointed out in my report in 2006, human dignity was recognised as vital in “the preamble to the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, adopted and proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 217 of 10 December 1948. That declaration also contains a number of important safeguards such as ‘the right to freedom of opinion and expression‘ and states ‘in the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.'”

Global Civility and Stratford Marsh

There are still many countries around the world where the principles of human rights in that declaration are not observed, including in many in the Muslim world.

Manners and etiquette are clearly very different in different societies and different religions certainly have very different views, particularly over blasphemy and apostasy. In the west we now prioritise freedom of speech and look back in horror at the Spanish Inquisition and trails for heresy and blasphemy, although in England and Wales, the ‘blasphemy’ and ‘blasphemous libel’ laws were only abolished in 2008, and in Scotland in 2021, while they are still in force in Northern Ireland.

The last conviction for blasphemy in England and Wales was in 1977 when the editor of Gay News received a suspended prison sentence after publishing the poem ‘The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name’ by James Kirkup, and in Scotland it was more than a century earlier when a bookseller was jailed for 15 months in 1843, though until 1825 it had been punishable by death.

While we may find some of the cartoons that were published offensive, it clearly does not justify the irresponsible behaviour and criminal actions of some Muslim mobs protesting against them.

Away from the stewards as I wandered through the crowd I was generally welcomed by the protesters, with many urging me to take their pictures. I left as the speeches, most of which I could not understand as few spoke in English, were finishing and people were getting ready to march,

Scroll down the February 2006 web page for more.

Stratford Marsh – River Lea, Stratford

I’d first photographed Stratford Marsh back in the early 1980s as part of a wider project on the River Lea, once a large and important industrial area in London, but like most of British industry falling into decline, accelerated by the policies of the Thatcher government determined to transform Britain away from manufacturing and into services.

Stratford Marsh was then full of largely small businesses employing local people and many still remained in 2006, though already blighted both by government policies and the tax breaks given to the nearby Docklands area. Now Olympic blight had set in with the whole area to be remodelled, and there were also areas which would be demolished for Crossrail.

As I wrote back then and I think my pictures show:

It is still an intriguing area, where a few yards can take you from wilderness to industrial wasteland, from dereliction to busy workshops (though most were closed on a Saturday afternoon.) Parts are visibly closing down, with compulsory purchase orders hanging on lamposts, some footpaths closed and factories demolished.

There was one small sign of a kind of regeneration. the unusual lock between the Bow Back Rivers and Waterworks River at Baker Road, for many years derelict, at last seems to have been replaced.

My London Diary – Feb 2006

There are many more pictures from this walk – and others – on these pages on my River Lea site.

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Council flats, Piles of Bricks, A House Hospital and Brasserie

Saturday, February 17th, 2024

My walk on Friday 4th August 1989 began at a bus stop on Battersea Bridge Road more or less opposite where I had caught a bus at the end of my previous walk

Shuttleworth Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-14
Shuttleworth Rd, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-14

McCarthy Court is set just a few yards back from the road and I think this picture of it was possibly taken in Bridge Lane. Its two long blocks, one 4-storey and the other 2-storey were built for Wandsworth Council in 1978 with an inner garden between them and they contain 42 one bedroom flats and 36 two bedroom flats. The estate, now with a mix of council tenants, leaseholders and private tenants since 2005 has been managed by the McCarthy Court Co-operative whose board consists of estate residents with one council nominee. I assume McCarthy was the name of some local councillor or officer but perhaps someone in the area can tell me.

It had been planned, as the Survey of London recounted in 2013 as a part of a much larger development by the then Conservative government, but permission for much of this was denied by the Ministry of Housing and Wandsworth was told the houses over much of the site were sound and could be renovated. Writing about these pictures now I often wish that this survey had been available when I was photographing the area, as there were few published sources then.

Bridge Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-15
Bridge Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-15

The first Battersea Bridge was a toll bridge which replaced a ferry across the River Thames to Chelsea and was opened to pedestrians in 1771 and to horses and carts the following year. Designer Henry Holland had been forced to cut costs and the bridge was narrow and dangerous both to users and river traffic, but with some reinforcement it lasted until 1885, the last wooden bridge over the Thames. This bridge was painted by almost every significant British painter of the age including Turner and Whistler.

Presumably Bridge Lane used to lead to the bridge, though it now stops short, and may in earlier times have led the the ferry. These houses on Bridge Lane are presumably Victorian and may have been among those saved from demolition by the Minstry of Housing in 1968, though I think these are what is now number 1 and 2 on the north side of the road, despite the number 9 in my picture and 15 on one of the doors.

Bridge Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-16
Bridge Lane, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-7o-16

An interesting use of piles of bricks on top of both rectangular and cylindrical columns on the gate and steps to this house. I don’t think these have survived.

Back in the 1960s the Tate Gallery had paid Carl Andre a little over £2,000 for a pile of bricks, causing huge controversy over what many considered a waste of money. These seemed to me rather more interesting.

Fence, Orbel St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-64
Fence, Orbel St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-64

Bridge Lane ends at Surrey Lane and I turned west down it and then down Orbel Street. The estate here was built in the 1870s and 80s, and the northern side of Orbel Street is lined by semi-detached two storey houses with only vestigial front gardens.

You can stil see the short section of fencing between the two doorways of 70 and 72 on the street, unusually ornate for these houses, but the gate and the section fronting the pavement has gone. With the leaves from the shrub behind I felt I could almost be in the Palm House at Kew.

The House Hospital, 64 Battersea High St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-52
The House Hospital, 64, Battersea High St, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-52

Not a medical establishment, The House Hospital at 64 Battersea High Street was for me symbol of the rapid and considerable gentrification of the area taking place as the industries were moving out. It offered replacement doors, at a price unspecified, fire places, baths, basins, taps etc. The site at 64-66 had built in 1975 for the factory of Allen and Ernest Lambert, who called themselves the Allen Brothers and made cigars. It later became a pipe factory for Imperial Tobacco until around 1930. According to the Survey of London “in the late 1950s they were occupied by the Ductube Company Ltd, makers of inflatable tubing for laying ducts in concrete.”

The building at right and the factory site behind has since been redeveloped as ‘Restoration Square‘. Number 64 and therather dull block at left, Powrie House, remain.

Bennett's Brasserie, London House, Battersea Square, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-55
Bennett’s Brasserie, London House, Battersea Square, Battersea, Wandsworth, 1989 89-8a-55

James Bennett was a linen draper, who named his business premises very visibly ‘London House’. Originally in a Georgian building on the right of this picture he added to this in a matching fashion across the middle and left of my picture in 1866. I think the ground-floor addition of Bennett’s Brasserie is rather later. The builidng is locally listed. I think ‘London’ was perhaps a suggestion that he sold fine fabrics, not the coarser ‘Manchester’ cloth, as Battersea was clearly back then not in London.

Gordon Ramsey took over the Brasserie in 2014 as a restaurant, but this closed in 2022.

Battersea Square had more or less disappeared off the maps by the 1970s, but the name was restored and considerable work carried out on the area after it was designated as a Conservation Area – the work was more or less complete when I made these pictures in 1989.

More from Battersea in a later post about this walk.

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Photographing Police & Policing Protest – 2009

Friday, February 16th, 2024

Photographing Police & Policing Protest: On Monday 16th February 2009 I photographed two protests, one against a new law on photographing police and the second which made me question how the police were policing protests. Fifteen years later we have seen a number of laws which severely restrict the right to protest and draconian new proposals to outlaw many more of the activities which help bring protests to public attention.

Media Protest at Terror Law – New Scotland Yard

Photographing Police & Policing Protest

Around 400 people, mainly photographers, had turned up to protest outside New Scotland Yard, then still on Victoria Street, Westminster, on the day that Section 76 of the Counter-Terrorism Act came into force.

This makes it an offence to photograph members of the police, armed forces or security services, or at least to do so if the photographs are “likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism“.

Photographing Police & Policing Protest

The vagueness of this statement is a a symptom of the failure of our parliament over recent years to properly scrutinise new legislation, and journalists and others have protested that it could seriously inhibit the freedom of the press as well as the normal liberties of all citizens. The Metropolitan Police Federation agreed, believing the law is unworkable and could well inhibit the freedom of the press.

Photographing Police & Policing Protest

Photographers saw it as yet another law which increases the climate of fear felt by anyone using a camera on the public streets. Many of us have experienced questioning by the police when working; photographers have already been detained and searched under existing anti-terrorist laws and other acts when covering demonstrations, travelling close to airports or even photographing weddings.

Photographing Police & Policing Protest
Mark Thomas speaking

Many of London’s leading press photographers turned up to this ‘media event’ organised to highlight the dangers to our freedom of expression and action this new law presents. Most of them wore badges or stickers proclaiming “I’m a photographer… not a terrrorist“, the name of the campaign group set up by photographers.

PHNAT’s founding description was “Photography is under attack. Across the country anyone with a camera is targeted as a potential terrorist. This campaign is for everyone who values visual imagery press freedom.” It was set up by a small group of London-based photographers and videographers who covered political protest including myself and colleagues in the NUJ and grew rapidly.

For once this was a protest which gained wide publicity even on the BBC and newspapers which generally ignore UK protests. It was of course covered in the photographic press too, though at the time I found the quality of the photographs of the event in some of them rather lacking.

More pictures on My London Diary – Media Protest at Terror Law.

Protest at Silence over Congo Genocide – Westminster

Police at the photographers’ protest had been friendly and for once I think they didn’t even bother to photograph us, though doubtless the whole area was covered by a number of CCTV cameras. But there was a very different atmosphere around the policing of this second event I photographed.

It was a fairly small protest, with perhaps 50 people in a march organised by International Congolese Rights against the continuing violence in the DRC, marching slowly down Victoria Street to Parliament Square.

They marched slowly, at a funereal pace in memory of those killed in Congo in the fighting since 1996. The marchers were continually harassed by police to go faster, but refused to do so. There were probably more police than marchers and the march was accompanied by five police vehicles, one in front of the marchers a surveillance vehicle with loudspeakers and continually filming the march.

When the march reached Parliament Square, the marchers were ushered into a pen of barriers on the side of the square facing Westminster Abbey and St Margarets, although clearly they intended to demonstrate to Parliament rather than the Church of England and surely should have been allowed to protest at the front of the square. One of their representatives was still arguing with police about this when I left.

Here is what I wrote in 2009 about the Congo and the reasons behind this protest:

Capitalism at its rawest is fighting for the mineral wealth of the country – particularly coltan, an ore containing niobium and tantalum, essential for mobile phones and other electronic devices, of which the Congo has 80% of known world reserves and cobalt – of which it is the world’s largest producer – but also diamonds, copper, and gold.

Competing interests trying to grab these riches have led to over 6 million people being killed in the Congo, and unimaginable atrocities against the people there – some of which were shown in the pictures that some of the demonstrators carried.

The Congo is a corrupt police state ruled by Laurent Kabila, with large areas occupied by forces backed by neighbouring states and criminal syndicates, including the Rwandan army. Rwanda, under President Paul Kagame has supported the National Council for the Defense of the People loyal to former General Laurent Nkunda. The UK government is accused of supporting Rwanda.

Protest at Silence over Congo Genocide

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Saturday 10th February 2024 – Gaza & Iran

Thursday, February 15th, 2024

Saturday 10th February 2024 – Gaza & Iran – Saturday 10th February was another day of local actions around the country calling for and end to the horrific genocide now taking place in Gaza. I went to two of the local events in London as well as photographing an annual event on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution in Iran, calling for democracy there.

Ceasefire Now – Stop The Genocide In Gaza, Southwark

Saturday 10th February 2024 - Gaza & Iran
London, UK. 10 Feb 2024. Camberwell Green

Southwark and Lambeth 4 Palestine had organised another march from Camberwell Green to BAE Systems offices on Southwark Street against the terrible genocide now being carried out by Israeli forces in Gaza. It turned out to be rather smaller than previous local marches, perhaps because many people in the area had demonstrated in workplace-based protests earlier in the week.

Saturday 10th February 2024 - Gaza & Iran
London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

The event started with a few short speeches on Camberwell Green, including one from a student activist from the UAL at the Elephant where they had had a large protest. She talked about how she had been inspired by the example of Brian Haw’s protest over many years in Parliament Square who had carried on calling for peace and an ending to the killing of children until shortly before his death in June 2011, almost ten years after his protest there had begun.

Saturday 10th February 2024 - Gaza & Iran
Brian Haw: Find Your Courage; Share Your Vision; Change Your World.
(T-shirt from Dan Wilkins, The Nth Degree.)March 2007, Peter Marshall

I got to know Brian well, going to speak with him every time I went to photograph in Westminster and often photographing him, as you can see on-line at My London Diary. He suffered regular harassment from police, council officials and thugs encouraged by the authorities, some of whom were I think plain clothes officers or military. An Act of Parliament was passed largely to try to end his peace camp there, though it also severely restricted other protests within a kilometre of Parliament.

Saturday 10th February 2024 - Gaza & Iran
London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

Later, after his ill-health took him to hospital, his protest there was continued by Barbara Tucker who had joined his campaign there in 2005. She was subjected to even more severe police harassment, was arrested at least 47 times and served two periods in prison, of two weeks and nine weeks. In January 2012 police removed her protection against the elements – tent, blankets and sleeping bag and later they came back for her chair. She continued to protest there despite needing hospital treatment for exposure until May 2013.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

The march set off with around a hundred people marching behind the banner though more joined the later at the end. There was considerable support from people on the roadside, particularly when it went past the busy section of Walworth Road close to East Street Market, and many drivers going in the opposite direction beeped their horns in support. Although the UK government continues its support of the Israeli genocide clearly the majority of the British people do not.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

I found it a rather long march – well over two and a half miles – and was wishing I’ve brought my bicycle by the time we got to the Bluefin Building on Southwark Street. The march stopped for a few minutes in front of the building where BAE Systems have offices on an upper floor.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

BAE Systems is the world’s seventh-largest military contractor, and the largest in Europe and supplies Israel with a wide range of weapons which for years have been used against Palestinian citizens and civilian infrastructure “including hospitals, schools, and water and electric systems.” There is much more about their activities in arming Israel on the American Friends Service Committee web site.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

When we arrived at Bluefin, we saw that others had been there before us, and a large area of the frontage had been sprayed with red paint. A team of contractors were busy cleaning it off. I took a few pictures of them as the marchers moved off down the side of the building for another rally, but I walked back to Southwark Station to catch the Elizabeth line to Westminster.

More pictures online and available for use on Alamy.

Iranians Call For Freedom and Democracy in Iran

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

45 years after the Shah of Iran was forced into exile by a popular revolution following repression under the Pahvlavi regime, the Anglo-Iranian community and the National Council of Resistance of Iran call for a new revolution to end the oppressive theocratic regime with democracy and for the UK to declare the Islamic Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group.

They say Khomeini who had been invited back by the acting government after the revolution stole the leadership of the country revolution in a rigged vote, imposing the current oppressive theocratic regime.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has put forward a ten point plan for a future democratic republic in Iran, with secular government, democratic elections, freedom of expression, equal rights for women and human rights and an independent judiciary and legal system.

The NCRI is a coalition with representation from five bodies, the major of which is the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which currently has its headquarters in Albania. It was largely disarmed after the US/UK invasion of Iraq and its camp in Iraq was attacked after US forces withdrew.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

On Feb 1st this year, the House of Commons agreed to a motion in support of freedom and democracy in Iran. The motion condemns the violent state crackdown on the protests and urgest the government to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

As I left the protest, two men came to try and disrupt the protest and there were brief scuffles as security and others tried to move them away. After a few minutes police came and held one of them, talking to him and suggesting he leave – the other was already a few yard down the road.

More pictures online and available from Alamy.

Ceasefire Now – Stop The Genocide In Gaza, Ealing, London, UK

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

I was on my way to Ealing, fortunately a much faster journey now the Elizabeth Line goes to Ealing Broadway, although I still arrived well after the rally outside the town hall there had started. There was a large crowd around the steps on the main road in front of Ealing Town Hall, another of the many local protests around the country calling for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza which has now killed 28,000 mainly women and children and severely injured around 68,000.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024

The entire population of Gaza is now living in desperate conditions with constant threat of bombing, shelling, famine and disease. Speakers condemned the failure to respond to the ICJ ruling to prevent acts of genocide and for the continued killing taking place there with precision targeted attacks on ambulances, aid workers, schools, hospitals, refugee camps, medical staff, journalists and others.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024. Grenfell campaigner Moyra Samuels.

I think most of the speakers were from Ealing and Southall, but Grenfell campaigner Moyra Samuels had also come to speak both about the shameful attack on Gaza and also share some experiences of campaigning over the Grenfell fire, where continued protests had helped to keep the fight for justice alive – though there is little sign of justice so far.

London, UK. 10 Feb 2024.

I left as the rally was coming to a close, taking my final pictures of it from the top deck of the bus which was taking me to Brentford and a train home from there.

More pictures online and available from Alamy.

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St Valentine’s Day – Reclaim Love 6, 2009

Wednesday, February 14th, 2024

St Valentine’s Day – Reclaim Love: St Valentine was a Roman Christian, possibly a bishop, who was known for his ministry to Christians who were under persecution by the Roman Empire and was martyred and buried near Rome possibly on February 14th 269 AD. Wikipedia has a lengthy entry which goes into the various other St Valentines and the legends associated with him.

St Valentine's Day - Reclaim Love

The 14th February was established as the Feast of St Valentine of Rome by the then Pope in AD 496 and much later the celebration was also taken up by both Lutheran and Anglican churches. The day was dropped from the official Roman Catholic list in 1969.

St Valentine's Day - Reclaim Love

The legends which associate St Valentine with romantic love came much later, probably beginning in the age of Chaucer in the late 14th century and invented by him and others around him. With many variations he was said to have fallen in love with the blind daughter of his jailer and shortly before he was executed to have cured her blindness and to have sent her a note. Like in the later traditions of Valentines cards this one was signed simply: “from your Valentine.”

St Valentine's Day - Reclaim Love

St Valentine as well as being associated with lovers is also the patron saint of epileptics and beekeepers and those suffering mental illnesses and doubtless there are or were legends associated with these too. Parts allegedly of him are kept as relics in churches in Rome, Madrid, Dublin and around a dozen other places around Europe, including in the Gorbals in Glasgow and Birmingham Oratory.

St Valentine's Day - Reclaim Love

The Reclaim Love Valentine street parties around the statue we wrongly call Eros at Piccadilly Circus were started by the remarkable Irish poet and activist Venus CuMara. They took place on the Saturday closest to the 14th and in 2009 it was actually on the 14th. In this post are a few of the pictures I took on 14th Feb 2009 at the party, and the text I wrote about the event.

This was the sixth annual Valentine Party at Piccadilly Circus, around the statue of Eros, organised by Venus to celebrate “to celebrate the Greatest thing on Earth and the Greatest thing we have inside…Yes, Love!!!” and it was the largest yet, filling the area around with people.

As well as the party at Picadilly Circus, at least 15 similar events were taking place around the world, in Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Iceland, Finland, Italy, Spain, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand …

The climax to the event was when all of those present formed a giant circle linking hands in the “Historic Annual Earth Healing Circle.” But for several hours we all enjoyed ourselves, dancing to the samba rhythms of resistance and other music, and enjoying the company of other people and remembering what is really important, not just on Valentine’s day but the whole of the year.

Eros may be dominated by those huge neon advertising hoardings the other 354 days of the year, but for one day at least it was surrounded by people dedicated to showing that the best things in life really are free

There are many more pictures on My London Diary at Reclaim Love 6

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Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party – 2010

Tuesday, February 13th, 2024

Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party – Three very different events on Saturday February 13th 2013 on the streets of London. First an Olympic-themed protest against one of the dirtiest fossil fuel projects, then a protest by Iranians 31 years after the revolution that brought the Islamic regime to power and finally a Valentine’s Day street party against the commercialisation of the annual event and celebrating the power of love.

Canadian Tar Sands Oily-Olympics – Trafalgar Square

Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party

February 13th 2010 was the opening day of the Winter Olympics in Canada, and protesters took advantage of this to stage their own ‘Oily Olympics’, with teams representing BP, Shell and RBS, competing in a ‘Race For the Tar Sands’, complete with a medal ceremony next to Canada House in Trafalgar Square.

Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party

The square was in use for an event celebrating the official Olympics complete with giant screens showing ski jumping and an ice sculpture of the Olympic rings. But the protesters set up on the side closest to Canada House for their tug-of-war, a curling event and a relay race for oil.

Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party

Getting oil from the tar sands in what is oddly called ‘The Sunrise Project’ uses a process called Steam-Assisted Gravity Drainage which produces from 3-5 times the carbon dioxide of traditional oil extraction. Until recently BP considered it to be too economically and environmentally unpleasant, but high oil prices and new management had changed their mind.

Tar Sands, Iran & Valentine Party

As well as their huge carbon impact the UK Tar Sands Network say that extracting oil from the tar sands involves “mass deforestation, water pollution, risks to human health, a major threat to wildlife and the trampling of indigenous rights.”

The heritage wardens who patrol the square for the Mayor of London told the protesters they were not allowed to protest in the square, and called the police when they continued. Police came and talked to them but did not stop the event as it was obviously not causing any obstruction or public order problem. Some of the officers were clearly amused.

It was a fun event with a serious purpose, and most of those taking part were surprisingly competitive. I wrote: “It wasn’t at all clear on what basis the medals were awarded. For those that care about such things, BP got bronze, RBS the silver and Shell struck gold. And none of us were quite sure why there were two penguins present.”

More pictures on My London Diary: Canadian Tar Sands Oily-Olympics.

Iran Opposition Rally in London – Parliament Square

The previous Thursday had been the 31st anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran and had been marked there by both a large pro-government rally and also a ferocious clampdown on opposition groups by riot police, undercover security agents and hard-line militiamen.

The protest in London was by supporters of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI). The NCRI is a coalition of Iranian dissident groups but is dominated by the PMOI, which was proscribed in the UK at the request of the Iranian Mullahs in 2001; the ban was lifted against the UK government’s wishes after they lost an EU court appeal in 2009.

The PMOI were shabbily treated by the US after they signed a ceasefire agreement with them in 2003 for which they gave up most of their weapons and were confined to their camp in Iraq, leaving them at the doubtful mercy of the Iraq government when the US troops left.

In 1995 the NCRI announced their Charter of Fundamental Freedoms for Iran, which would uphold all international agreements on human rights such as “freedom of association, freedom of thought and expression, media, political parties, trade unions, councils, religions and denominations, freedom of profession, and prevention of any violation of individual and social rights and freedoms.”

They call for a republic based on popular vote, the abolition of the death penalty, gender equality, a modern legal system without cruel and degrading punishments, the recognition of private property, private investment and the market economy and a foreign policy of peaceful coexistence without nuclear weapons.

As well as many speeches the rally had a display of photograph of some of the 120,000 Iranians killed by the Iranian regime and pictures of people being attacked at demonstrations in Iraq, with a street theatre piece in which protesters were attacked by a bearded cleric and a militia man and dragged to a waiting hangman’s nooses.

More on My London Dairy at Iran Opposition Rally in London.

Reclaim Love Valentine Party – Piccadilly Circus

Reclaim Love’s free Valentine Party around the statue of Eros in Piccadilly Circus was started by Irish poet and love activist Venus CuMara to reclaim St Valentine’s day from commercialism and to try to harness the power of love to save the world.

The event in 2010 was one of the largest, with people coming together not just around Eros where the event had begun six years earlier but there were events on this day at a total of 40 locations around the world – elsewhere in England, in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Pakistan, India, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Iceland, France, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, the USA, Canada and Australia – including surfers who were celebrating in the ocean off Perth, Australia.

The party began with the powerful drumming of Rhythms of Resistance which attracted a great deal of attention, including many tourists in the area who stopped to watch and some danced and took part.

A large supply of free ‘Reclaim Love’ t-shirts were handed out by Venus as an expression of the “more fearless-generous-sharing-Love-centred way of thinking” behind the event and others handed out free cakes and sweets and offered free hugs.

The climax of the event, celebrated around the world at 15.30 GMT was when people joined hands in a large circle around the area in an ‘Earth Healing Circle‘ and together repeated an ancient Indian prayer for peace in their own language. The English version “MAY ALL THE BEINGS IN ALL THE WORLDS BE HAPPY AND AT PEACE” people repeated here was also on the free t-shirts.

This year there were so many people at the event that in places around Piccadilly Circus the circle was two or three deep.

Venus hoped to keep building the ‘Reclaim Love’ movement and felt it would really have a tangible effect if there were 1.5 million or more people taking part, a number she hoped it would reach worldwide by 2015. Unfortunately for various reasons it never managed to reach that critical mass. The 16th ‘Reclaim Love’ free Valentine’s Day street party which took place in 2019 was I think the last, though I could be wrong. There is still a Facebook group, but this year there is only a single post on it, “Hi lovers are we doing anything this year on the 17th is it?” which has got no reply so far.

Many more pictures at Reclaim Love Valentine Party.

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Shrove Tuesday Pancake Races – 2013

Monday, February 12th, 2024

Shrove Tuesday Pancake Races – Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday, but in 2013 it fell on Tuesday 12th February and was celebrated in several places across London with Pancake races.

Shrove Tuesday is the final day of the Christian Shrovetide or Carnival, observed in different ways around the world as Wikipedia relates. It is the day before Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent. We are perhaps rather short-changed here in the UK with pancakes, while in Venice and Rio Janeiro they have real carnivals to celebrate Mardi Gras.

Some other countries also have rather more interesting foods than our traditional pancakes. All are ways to eat up richer foods before Lent when Christians ‘fasted’ or rather ate more simply for 40 days before Easter. It was also a day when people went to priests for confession to have their sins absolved – shriven – before getting down to serious service of repentance the following day, Ash Wednesday, and some churches still ring their bells to call in worshippers.

People in the UK have been eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday since the 16th century, and even in families which did not observe the ecclesiastical calendar almost everyone ate them on that day in my youth, even if in homes like mine they came after the standard meat and two veg. I’ve never been keen on them, and perhaps the best you can say about them is that British pancakes are rather better than crêpes.

In many towns and cities in Britain the day used to be a half-holiday and work ended before noon to be followed by some kind of riotous mob football games with hundreds taking part in the streets. But most of these ended with the passage of the 1835 Highways Act which banned playing football on public highways, though the tradition continues in a slightly more organised form in a few towns.

Pancake races are said to have begun in 1445 in Olney, Buckinghamshir when a woman making pancakes was surprised by the sound of the shriving bells and ran to church hot pan in hand, tossing the pancake on her way to stop it sticking. Whatever. But they soon became a fairly common tradition, along with various forms of begging and trick and treating now more associated with Halloween. But apart from a few particular instances – such as at Olney – these races and other practices had more or less died out by the twentieth century.

This century has seen a revival in pancake races, often raising funds for charities, including in London the Parliamentary Pancake Race between parliamentarians and press raising funds for Rehab and the City of London pancake races begun in 2004 by the Worshipful Company of Poulters to support the annual Lord Mayor’s Appeal.

I’ve photographed both these, and in 2013 made another visit to the City of London race in Guildhall Yard, then rushed from there to the Great Spitalfields Pancake Race at the Old Truman Brewery just off Brick Lane which was supporting the Air Ambulance and is a fancy dress team relay event. Races I’ve been to in other years have included those in Leadenhall Market and outside Southwark Cathedral as well as the Parliamentary race.

You can read more about both events and see many more pictures of them on My London Diary, where there are also pictures from the races in other years – put ‘pancake’ in the search box at the top of the My London Diary page to find more. Links to the 2013 races below:

Great Spitalfields Pancake Race
Poulters Pancake Race

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‘Anonymous’ Protest Church of Scientology

Sunday, February 11th, 2024

‘Anonymous’ Protest Church of Scientology – This protest on Sunday 10th February 2008 was I am fairly sure the first protest where I had come across people wearing the ‘Anonymous’ Guy Fawkes masks that later became popular and are still seen occasionally at protests. Some wore other masks, perhaps preferring not to contribute royalties to Warner Brothers and these made the protest more interesting visually.

'Anonymous' Protest Church of Scientology

The masks were based on the illustrations by David Lloyd for the 1980s graphic novel ‘V for Vendetta’ written by Alan Moore, but had become well-known in 2006 with the release of the film version where it was worn by the anarchist freedom fighter ‘V’.

'Anonymous' Protest Church of Scientology

The protest was also one of the earliest physical protests in the UK at least to be organised and carried out by an Internet-based organisation, Project Chanology, set up the previous month to oppose attempts by the Church of Scientology to remove one of their videos from the web.

'Anonymous' Protest Church of Scientology
Some wore L Ron Hubbard Masks

This video, part of the Scientology training material featured leading Hollywood actor Tom Cruise, then alleged to be the second in command of the organisation. Since then Cruise appears to have distanced himself at least to some extent from Scientology, which had been at the root of his two divorces from Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes, and to have concentrated on his movie career.

'Anonymous' Protest Church of Scientology

There have been more and more revelations published about Scientology and allegations of the harm it has caused to those who either leave the organisation or publish material about it, who are regarded as ‘fair game’ for harassment campaigns.

As I wrote in 2008, it was because of this that Project Chanology called “themselves ‘Anonymous’ and the London demonstration was one of over 50 protests in cities around the world in which those taking part hide their identity behind masks.“

Various reports published over the years have comprehensively exposed some of the practices of the Church of Scientology and the number of its adherents is said to have dropped although the organisation has grown richer and acquired more real estate.

The London centre on Queen Victoria St was opened in 2006 and “20 City of London police officers between them accepted more than £11,000 in gifts and entertainment from the Church of Scientology” according to the London Evening Standard, perhaps why they arrested and charged a teenager in May 2008 for holding a placard “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.” The case was dropped after advice from the CPS.

So far as I was aware there were no arrests at the protest on 10th February at Queen Victoria Street or later when the protesters moved to the Dianetics & Scientology Life Improvement Centre in Tottenham Court Road.

More pictures at ‘Anonymous’Protest – Church of Scientology on My London Diary.

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Gaza March in London 3rd Feb 2024

Friday, February 9th, 2024

Gaza March in London – Another huge march through central London called for an immediate ceasefire and for an end to the Israeli genocide against Palestinians.

Gaza March in London
London, UK. 3 Feb 2024

I didn’t hear any news reports of the march, and over the past few days other events have largely pushed reporting over the continuing genocide to the edges of coverage.

Gaza March in London
London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

If anything the deliberate targeting of civilians in Gaza appears to have increased since the ICJ ruling calling on Israel to do all it can to prevent genocide in the area.

Gaza March in London
London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

Israel is still keeping international journalists out of Gaza and feeding the world’s press with misleading information. The BBC have some good reporters but they cannot work in Gaza. They have had interviews with some families and doctors in Gaza – some now killed. Papers such as The Guardian also carry reports from people in Gaza – such as Mondays Gaza diary part 44: ‘The angel of death is roaming the skies, nonstop’. But to get real information about what is actually happening on the ground you need to also go to alternative news sources.

Gaza March in London
London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

One of those is Double Down News, who say “Far too many Journalists sit comfortably trapped in their own bubble of privilege and power, talking to each other and the so-called political class, rather than serving the people they’re meant to inform.” They aim to “prioritise people, ideas, evidence and community above all.” DDN carries no advertising but is supported by over fourteen thousand of subscribers who give what they can afford rather than being owned by governments or billionaires. And you can be one and become a part of the community equally with the others.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

One of their latest videos is ‘Israel’s AI Killing Machine‘ by Palestinian-American lawyer and activist Lara Elborno which exposes by how Israel is using modern technology to target civilians across Gaza. Like other videos on the platform it provides a chilling insight missing in the mass media.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

Before writing this a few days ago I read Al Jazeera’s Israel War on Gaza coverage, with its list of key events on day 123 published on Tuesday 6th February. Under the Humanitarian crisis in Gaza it begins its report with “At least 27,478 people have been killed and 66,835 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

It goes on to give other significant news on the humanitarian crisis, before news on Regional tensions and diplomacy and on what is happening in the Occupied West Bank. Al Jazeera was the first independent news channel in the Arab world and is funded by the Qatari state.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024.

All pictures here are from the march in London on Saturday 3rd February 2024 which was I think uneventful. It was certainly large and several streets around the BBC were densely crowded before the start. I photographed the start and then slowly went down Regent Street with the marchers, stopping a number of times to photograph them as they walked past me.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024. ‘Sunak’ and dead babies.

At Piccadilly Circus I decide to wait until the end of the march arrived there, and it was a long wait. It was almost two hours after the start of the march before the end arrived, and most of that time the streets were crowded across both carriageways with slowly moving people.

London, UK. 3 Feb 2024. London Mothers and Children Say Stop Killing Babies.

It was too late to be worth trying to get to the rally on Whitehall and so I began my journey home. I uploaded 35 images to Alamy but later put these and around 35 more into an online album Ceasefire Now – Stop The Genocide In Gaza.

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