ProtestR

What a bizarre Sunday. I woke up to the BBC’s live coverage of the Olympic torch marathon. Images of Konnie Huq being accosted coupled with her own disembodied commentary of what was happening.


I had intended to go down and protest somewhere along the route but feeling ridiculously comfy in bed, I was warming, both in body and mind, to the idea of pouring my outrage, joy, hunger and cat attack updates via Twitter.

I felt capable of doing as good a job as the current BBC reporter who was essentially mouthing what appeared on their auto-cue. I was moved to attend.


From seeing the Spartan-esque formation of torchbearer, the blue circle of torch supervisors, ring of yellow police and larger ring of black ninja suited police on my TV screen, I found them suddenly in front of me.


The protests from the South Bank onwards turned into a game of ‘bulldog’ (a game played across UK schools). The game cycle would go: multi-coloured group of torch protectors run for a bit, a shout comes for them to form up. The protestors then encircle them. The police would push back and breakthrough, run for it and the whole thing would start over.


It’s a strange sensation to see something that feels distant and almost unreal via a screen and then be in the thick of it.

If I’d been cooler and had a web capable phone I might have been able to provide my own, running commentary, uploading pics, videos and messages to Flickr, YouTube and Twitter respectively. My significant udder got some really nice pics though.