Sick Of Hearing Otherwise :: SOHO

“Pound a bowl, pound a bowl”, they snarl. All nicey nicey on the face of it, until you drop a pear or query the price or you don’t cough up for the doctor’s orders.



Berwick street market, its bullies armed only with a Cockney accent to scare off the prevailing gentrification. Not that this is to be unexpected.

Overhead willowy women sag their hair and limbs from the windows and holla down for some mackeral.



The traders hurl one up along with that peach which has been dropped on the floor. Romance isn’t dead, as we’re told, it’s just a little less appealing to the desperados who write the script.

Hailing requests gives the girls something more fun to do than wait for the group of Asian boys cajole a member of their clan to jump up to jannah.
Onlookers think they’re getting a glimpse of an underbelly with scenes like this but it’s literally only the tits of the fuck. Titilations to underpin soho’s reputation.
Soho. Where cash is king. An island of idiocy. With its various industries and its pissed-on’s firing us on all cylinders into a soggyfuture. Soho. A vestige of unscrupulous selfishness.


‘Pound a bowl, pound a bowl of 12 avocados that anywhere else in the world cost 50p each, we can sell you 12 for a pound.’ What’s that? ‘Sample Our Hass Oranges.’ That shit doesn’t even exist, but they might as well since the business you see in front of you is just a set of smoke screens as well.

But what’s there instead? Contrabanding. It first became clear to me when I asked one trader how he was doing on the market, since I was looking to set up a stall of my own. ‘Oh I’m losing 4 grand a week since them road works have been going on.’ He said, pointing down the street to the builders.

4 grand a week? I thought this couldn’t be possible. That’s about 48 thousand less avocados being sold each week. How is he still living let alone having the time to chat to me speculatively? Speculate all he might but them avos wont sell themselves.




Westminster Council have been promising to develop Berwick street – home to London’s oldest market - for a decade now. As we chat I sense Tracey the woman at the council whose job it is to develop markets in the borough peering down from her paper tower. Maybe she’s heard us chatting and is as alarmed as I am.

But no, she’s just checking to see that noones upsetting da piss. She sits atop her mountain of adminitration and sips tea all day long. That’s when she’s not holidaying in Jamaica. Large as life and formal as ever she’ll talk to you in a language of professionalism and distanced promise. She’s also developed a knack for leafing through the application forms that her very existence is built on in a way that allows her to stay as far removed as possible from the realities of life on the ground.

Lest us not forget, that if she were to do any of said paper admin she’d have less of a tower to perch on. Hell, to do that she might as well set fire to it at the bottom.

So she sips her tea and chews buttered toast. And when she gets that weird butt ache resultant of sitting down for too long she gets up and takes a champagne shower.

She stands there, transixed and admiring her feet. The champagne is being spilt from the jowls of the major above her. He and his business buddies float in a cloud of hot air above their admin towers and admire the view.



What if he knew about all the under the counter crap that goes on in Soho? Who we kidding, he already does, and sleeps at night chanting the Tory mantra of “No intervention, no intervention”, a populist gambit that might as well be illustrated with a sketch of 100 big businessmen huddled over him playing soggy biscuit where he plays the hobnob himself. (As opposed to the realities of its misdirection and malfunction.)

The irony of it all is that the Berwick street traders –who aren’t to blame and actually serve a great product on all fronts – are likely the richest members of the Soho society. And it’s beautiful. They’re working-their bollocks off in the cold street-class and serve the working class people who enhabit the towers blocks dotted about the place.

Meanwhile, this satisfies the middle-class adgame sweetcorn children and the old sunbed prunes who like a ‘bit of rough’.

But to make us believe they’re skint whilst sitting on heaps of cash would be a lie. Their toothless ugliness is deceiving.

Nope, Soho is a weird one. The real poor sods of soho are those very sweetcorns themselves. Working for a green giant maybe but he doesn’t pass the peas onto them.

Wander up onto Broadwick street and be placed in the epicentre of this giant superficiality. It looks busy for sure, and Christ there must be about 231 vans pumps padding around the place (the extra 1 accounts for that guy whose wearing it as a necklace).

(NB: the uniform varies, if it aint Vans it's Nike hightops or white tees for real Gs. Thug life it aint. Tug life or even mug life maybe and all the Big L you listen to wont change it.)



The only synonymous fact about Soho and hiphop is that the average tourist could be forgiven for thinking these guys are doing well for themselves. In reality, this tawdry glitter allows the world here to subsist how it does - unchanged and merciless.

Ha, little do these onlookers know that it’s actually mummy and daddy sweetcorn keeping the wolf from the door. In actual fact the working class of today are now the only earning class around. To be middle class and cutesy with a pair of skinny jeans and a bellend to show through them means working unpaid and for less dignity.



But then again they can afford to do it and even better they don’t have to really lift a finger to earn a notch on their cv either (just stuff envelopes and buy the bigger bastards pump polish and canalin).

These guys have been sold a con by the very conartists they slave for. You’ll catch a glimpse of this tribe whilst they’re taking a break from their Shit Office Hanging Out to buy a latte frap-pot from the Kiwi’s who set up coffee shop on every corner of london.



(In fact there’s so many of said cafes now it’s a wonder why people still need to queue for 20 minutes to labour over one espresso. It’s all part of the LIEstyle.)

And afterwards they totter back through the streets of hallowed old soho, it’s skin tattooed by the pricks who walk across the surface.

Carving canyons in the concrete, or so they believe, is another lifeform here. The couriers. Bike messengers are in abundance and add another layer of - mainly mindlessness – but also attraction to Soho’s arena.

I once worked as one and did as long as stint on the ‘circuit’ – as they call it – as financially possible. Or perhaps it was my frame of mind that made me quit?

This frantic clan have their own uniform. Usually dressed in black, for practical reason’s we’d have led you to believe, with a giant shoulder bag to carry a even bigger chip in it.

The chip gets heavier the longer you’re in the job but whilst it remains bareable will afford couriers a greater access to the inner sanctum of soho than any other job.

Swooping in and out of offices all day on a bamboo shoot of deluded grandeur, messengers enact childish fantasies as tarzan, spinderman, batman or some sort of street pirate, delivering their goods with maverick intent.

But the dream is short lived since most of the day will be spent waiting for the next job – especially these days since unpaid work experience people in offices deliver any W1 W1 drop offs. You’ll be able to admire this flock of messengers in their aviary towers at number of local locatrions:

The corner of poland st and broadwick
Opposite the end of carnaby street on great marlborough
The gardens on whitfield st

And sometimes soho square (but these will usually be new guys)
Here they perch sanctimoniouly, discussing a variety of revolution-urgh(?)-ry stuff: From houses to squat, the news, the results of some courier sporting event the weekend before and most likely their state of impoverishment and why it’s the fault of the bourgeouisie.

As much as they love to hate the environment they work in the job of the courier is pretty much the same as that of any company they deliver for. Passing on messages that are packaged in a way that makes gthe recipient feel they’re important.
Still it’s worth adding that the work was hard and rewarding. The educated portion of courier litter quite enjoy the drudgery for its Orwellian nature and it makes them feel quite working class in what’s the only class-less profession I’ve ever experienced. A good graft.

Another thing about the couriers that’s worth mentioning is they add a few more species into the overwhelming race of rat that dominates soho.

Given London is one of the most multiculutural cities in the world you’d be pushed to find a whiter enclave than soho.
In fact, any black presence in soho is lauded over by the blank canvas, who feel reasured by its company since it puts them in touch with the urban culture they so desperately seek to appropriate.
You turn the corner onto Beak street. One cant help wonder if all the Chlamydia and shit spilling out from the minds and mounds of the workers is airborne. Does it mix with other STDs (Soho transmitted diseases) that already exist in the atmosphere and flow through the street like a contagion on contemporary culture.
Maybe, or more likely this is just culture itself – burning like a never-ending cigarette being pulled on by the very cancer it creates.

Some of the smoke plombs out of places like the Gaucho or other members clubs where the inherited editors and artheritic critics share allergic acerbic attitudes. Some Old Helpless Oaf talks about the good old days. Maybe it’s the ghost of Karl Marx returing to his Dean Street haunts. But minus the groupies this lot have packed pockets. They have nothing to do with the ins and outs of life here instead drawn here like it’s a magnet to malignant melanomas.
Follow the wafts of hot carcenogen passed the popular as ever Pulpo where there’s more people ordering to queue, then passed the bottom of Carnaby street.

Ahead there’s a gap in the fog and just when you’re about to pass out you gasp for air and all of a sudden Regents St catches you.

Safe Out Here One might think…
SOHO

New Statesman commissions

Finally getting round to organising this stuff:
Private Health
Crime
Defence
Energy
Green Buildings
Waste

Label Of Love

Published on Guardian Online
25 Years Into The Future: Happy Birthday Techno

Detroit based record label Metroplex is celebrated its 25th anniversary this month at the city’s annual electronic music festival Movement. Over 60,000 fans paid tribute to the label’s founder Juan Atkins - along with techno godfathers Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson – at their special birthday stage.

“I never intended it to be as big as it turned out to be,” admits Juan. “I just started it to release my own music as Model 500 after Cybotron had ended. I’d sent my first release - No UFOs - to some major record companies but they all turned it down. I had a real belief in this new sound and setting up Metroplex was the only way to get it out there.”

By 1985, Juan had been conducting electronic experiments for five years. He moved to Belleville, a leafy suburban town on the outskirts of Detorit, at the age of 11 and having played bass guitar in garage bands whilst living in the city began toying around with a Korg MS10 synthesiser that his grandma had bought him. His new isolated surroundings made it more convenient for him to make music alone and Juan spent endless days in his bedroom experimenting with its capabilities - rudimentary tests and trials that laid the foundations for techno.

At around the same time Atkins met Rik Davis, a Vietnam veteran who’d developed an interest in electronic music whilst serving in the army. They shared sounds with each other and soon became bandmates in the group Cybotron. “There was definitely something that made us click together,” believes Juan. “We talked lots about Toffler’s idea of the Third Wave and developed what you might call a techno speak dictionary. In this dictionary were a lot of words like metroplex and cybotron. That’s where these names came from.



“Metroplex is short for Metrocomplex which was a future word that Alvin Toffler spoke about. It referred to his scenarios in Future Shock and Third Wave about how cities over the world would grow so big that they would all become one. This was a Metrocomplex.”

For Juan, soundtracking the future was where his own destiny lay. Cybotron split when Rik’s interest in guitars and rock music and Juan’s commitment to technology pulled the pair apart. Metroplex dedicated itself more to an electro sound. Akins released his next two tracks as Model 500 - Night Drive (Thru Babylon) and Technicolor – which gave way to a 4x4 beat count. Clearly Atkins' future meant dance music.

By this stage Atkins had recruited childhood friend Derrick May to help distribute Metroplex releases, but before the pair could get to work they first of all they had to iron out one disagreement: A compilation that would introduce the UK to this new Detroit sound was due for release. Derrick wanted to call it ‘high-tech soul’ but Juan was insistent that it should be called ‘techno’. Forget Motown, Techno City – the name of a 1984 Cybotron track - was Detroit’s new identity.

According to Atkins the label has gone through various metamorphoses over the last 25 years. “Changes started to happen when a west-coast company Macola took over our catalogue. They pushed the music to an American market. When Derrick and I were working on the distribution our focus was very much on a European market, as well as Detroit. I was very influenced by Kraftwerk and electro had already hit that part of the world.”

Juan moved out of Belleville and back to Detroit city after graduating high school. He doesn’t deny that the city has influenced his music. “It’s not just the artists or the music here but the whole atmosphere. There’s just something about this city that affects you in a certain way. It has a specific flavour."

Detroit city has changed a lot over the years and many people define it these days as a place in decay. “But that’s the beauty of it,” believes Atkins. “It’s not like a major metropolitan city; it’s not shiny and new. It’s decaying like an ancient city in Europe. In the ruins you can see the oldness, mixed with the new. Detroit is an industrial city. It was one of the cities the forefront of the industrial revolution. In front of your eyes is end of the industrial revolution mixing with the start of the technological revolution. It’s a very unique flavour.”

Just as Motown defined Detroit during an industrial era, Techno redefined it once more. According to Atkins, it’s set to do so again. “We’re now in the Third Wave. I strongly believe that Detroit will be seen as one of the most technologically advanced cities in the world in the near future. Something big is about to happen that will affect everyone, not just artists.”

Luckily for Metroplex’s stock-in-trade, there’s a future still waiting to happen and Aktin's wants to soundtrack it. “I’m about to give some stuff that’ll reflect what I’ve always done and that’s make things that’ll last 25 more years.”

Whilst Detroit’s status as a shrinking city might be the antithesis to the future predicted by Toffler and his followers techno’s global success has proven that some kind of world unity was waiting to happen.

Techno’s five track trajectory

Kraftwerk – Tanzmusik (1973)
Detroit absorbed the sound of German electronic music. Derrick May famously set this connection in stone: “The music [techno] is like George Clinton and Kraftwerk stuck in an elevator.”

Parliament-Funkadelic – One Nation Under A Groove (1978)
George Clinton’s Midwestern electronic funk group influenced a great shift in dance music in the early 1980s and spawned a genre that became known as “electro”.

Cybotron – Clear (1983)
Cybotron’s biggest hit, a real fusion of electronic experimentation and funky dance music that proved electronic music soul had soul.

Model 500 – Play It Cool (1986)
After Cybotron left the game, Atkins brought back the 4x4 beat in a series of electro tracks released by Metroplex.

Eddie ‘Flashin’ Fowlkes – Goodbye Kiss (1987)
Known as Metroplex’s first proper “techno” success.


Ben Ferguson has contributed to a book of interviews with DJs who have shaped the history of music. The Record Players is available to buy at http://www.djhistory.com/

On the brink of the brain, ideas that never made it out of the mouth

Today I remembered an idea that came to mind whilst i stayed in Paris last year. It was mustered up whilst lying on the floor of my one bedroom apartment near Belleville. Crippled with the agony of a kidney infection, homebound thanks to the ceaseless sense that i had to piss every two minutes.

Anyway, like everyone else in this world (apart from the doers in life) there's probably a whole heap of grandiose ideas hidden somewhere in my head. This was the only one that's made it further than my mind (though still nowhere close to becoming an reality)

Motor City and Martha Reeves

Guardian Feature

A force for good

Been writing about UK defence policy all week. It seems each party has a different view of what 'a force for good' is. Here's mine...

Save Plastic People

Click to read in The Independent

Steve Reich

Steve Reich gave a lecture today at the Red Bull Music Academy. His well-rehearsed tales had were punctuated by a set of musical morsels which left the audience entranced. Acting as the luddite, the 74 year old explained how resistant he was to technical innovation - abandoning phasing for live composition. "I wanted to be the second tape," he exclaimed.

His staunch rejection of computer composing was remarkably well received by a room filled with laptop producers who've spent their lives beating off in their own bedrooms. As a tribute here's Enfant (Chants) by Ricardo Villalobos.

Noah Davis

Featured in Dazed and Confused

Artist Noah Davis is in good company where he lives and paints in LA. Skate art hero Ed Templeton, who Noah admits has been influential to his style, is represented by the same gallery – Roberts & Tilton. Hot summers hang off Noah’s canvases – they could just as easily be set in Louisiana as LA, the 1950s or today. But, the absence of time and place makes room for colour in his works.

The 26 year old from Seattle attended the Cooper School of Art in New York. After graduating he stayed in NYC to hang out with graffiti kids. This style never truly appealed to him and Davis soon became disillusioned with the wider forms of art making. In response to this he moved to the West Coast to begin an administrative job in public arts.

Many ’83 babies claim they’re a special bunch and Davis is no different. Exposed to a set of new cultures whilst growing up, feeding off the referential trends in music and art that defined the nineties Davis’ curiosity for culture opened doors upon various different histories. Whilst working in the famous LA art bookstore – Moca – Noah fed off the access to art history the job gave him and whilst working as a colourist for Stones Throw Records designer Parra it wasn’t long before he found himself in a position where he wanted to paint again. This time he was equipped with a knowledge of the past and a nudge from new friends like Dash Snow and Ed Templeton.

Recently Noah’s work was shown at Art Basel in Miami ’09. His paintings featured amongst the Rubell Family Collection exhibition, Black Artists but this is not how Davis would like to be defined. Whilst being black clearly influences his work he insists it’s not about race, tempting the question, is he the first artist of an Obama era America?

ND Race plays a role in as far as my figures are black. The paintings aren’t political at all though. If I’m making any statement it’s to just show black people in normal scenarios, where drugs and guns are nothing to do with it. You rarely see black people represented independent of the civil rights issues or social problems that go on in the States. I’m looking to move on from that stage, we can’t keep tying our culture to a movement that happened two generations ago.

BF Has America reached a post-racial stage – one that everyone billed Obama would herald?
ND I know I’m going to live to regret saying this but yes. I know there are neighbourhoods in LA and surely in London where these scenarios are an everyday thing. But luckily for me that’s not the case so I don’t think my pictures have the right to discuss this. Their responsibility is to represent the people around me. They’re my reference point but they’re not the point I’m trying to make.

BF Many people expect artists to represent big moral issues. This is sometimes an unfortunate responsibility.
ND My paintings just have a very personal relationship with the figures in them. They’re about the people around me. I want people to read them like this whilst taking a meaning of their own from each work. What’s around me is all I’ve got, we have to look to our experiences as tools of education. My first paintings were dealt with political issues but they were silly and out of my depth.

BF So when was the turning point?
ND I did a work called American Sterile. It was really influenced by things Ed Templeton had done. On the one hand it’s a rejection against the nude but the reality of it was that the work came more from my own static creativity. I wasn’t even going to show it, and then someone from the gallery where I had my first show came over and saw it. He loved it, which was funny because I was actually really close to painting over it. I would have but I’d got to the point where I’d run out of shit to paint.
The Mountain School in downtown LA helped me out massively when I came to LA. Eric Wesley and Piero run it from a little room in the back of a bar. Students were taken on tours of artists’ studios during the two classes a week and I found it to be a really inspiring place, it’s uniquely LA. Then I guess it was Dash Snow who really encouraged me by making me quit me job.

BF So you knew the late anartist?
ND Yes. He was on fire. I kept telling him how good he was but he was so humble. Although he had lots of people around him who tried to tag along for the ride, they probably contributed to his death as much as he did. I don’t think he had any idea of his talent and although he received heavy criticism I think everyone was jealous of him.

BF American Sterile is quite like a Larry Clark photo.
ND Ha, that’s an honour. I love him. I think all of our childhoods were slightly based around Kids. Even though I wasn’t a skater that movie set the scene for what you thought life should be about.

BF Minus the AIDS Telly was our hero and Kids was a guiding light. Perhaps it would have been better without the big issues though.
ND Right, I still hang out with some of the guys who were in the film. Their careers took off after that movie but unfortunately the not so nice aspects to Clark’s films were a reality for some of them and are they’re gone now. I guess Dash falls into that bracket too.

BF What influences you now?
ND I think a lot about German painters, Neil Rausch and Daniel Richter, and those guys from the Leipzig School. From Britain Peter Doig, Francis Bacon and Lucien Freud created their own language for their work. Henry Taylor too. He couldn’t give away a painting for a while, even though now he sells for Saatchi. Race wasn’t an issue for him, black people were just around. He’s a real painter; he stuck with it even during those times. I always ask myself if I’d have that kind of commitment. I think the dream for any artist is to create a world in which you can express your own ideas. Dash managed to achieve this language too.

BF I agree, his work is automatic, it boasts the raw talent that defined Beautiful Losers.
ND Right, there’s a voyeurism in his work that makes you want to be there. Like in Francis Bacon’s work. He wasn’t technically the best painter but his talent lay in the use of colour. His strokes created worlds of his own.

BF Do you collect images like he did?
ND Whilst I worked in an art bookstore Moca I felt like I had every image ever made at my fingertips. I studied them, looked images upon images and thought, “What do I need to do to stand out.” If you don’t study the trends, and I don’t mean trends in a bad way, trends are always a thing to study because they’re always trying to get ahead of you.

BF It’s interesting that you have this relationship with trends yet you practice an old trade.
ND I just love it. Painting does something to your soul that nothing else can. It’s visceral and immediate and is always readdressed in new ways that keep it relevant. Whilst I was in New York I became jaded and I only wanted to see drawings. Now I think it’s very important that art remains to be about ideas but it shouldn’t be an either or battle between concepts versus painting. They can exist together. I guess when my school forced fed us a conceptual education I reacted against it. I left school because it wasn’t teaching me anything. Art students are missing out on a certain amount of training whilst they obsess about their ideas, but at 18 what are they based on? Someone sold a pair of socks at Frieze this year but soon they’ll find they can’t do this anymore and be stuffed. I don’t care about how much my art sells for. I think people with money dictate the art world too much, at both ends of the spectrum, even the ones who create work as a reaction to that fact.

BF Is that why you just go with what you know?
ND Absolutely

Wasteman

Appeared in the New Statesman

Chris Ofili, Tate Britain

(Featured on www.dazeddigital.com)
Where the work of Chris Ofili was once all about shit, dicks, pussy and tits now he paints bottoms, bosoms, hips and lips. Come shots have become waterfalls, giant muffs have turned into tree blossom. The mid-career retrospective of one of Britain’s greatest living painters goes on show at Tate Britain today.

If simplistic conclusions like this could be made it’s due to the traditional chronological way that Tate Britain has curated this show. Samples sliced from black culture and 90s current affairs that comprise Ofili’s early painting are less apparent in the layered but laid back stuff of late. In fact the overall effect is rather like listening to the entire Wu Tang discography - whose millennium material marks their retreat from da clan in the front. Messages make way for method; potency is replaced by production.

As any music fan knows, hip-hop had a golden age and Ofili – whose work in rooted in hip-hop culture – did too. For Ofili this was 1998, the year he won the Turner Prize (and incidentally Lewis Parker released Masquerades and Silhouettes). The exhibition’s first three rooms straddle this period. Classics that made him controversial, cutting and current such as 7 Bitches Tossing Their Pussies Before the Divine Dung (1995) and No Woman, No Cry (1997) greet you at the entrance to the gallery but ring in your mind from then on.

Visitors are led into The Upper Room (1999-2002), a walnut womb of 14 paintings built by RCA architect David Adjaye. During a solitary time in Ofili’s career this mid-point in the show mimics the psychological sentiment of an artist who at this stage became sick of fame and attention. And out of this he appears reborn and colour replaces cuttings from now on.

The colours of the Pan-African flag – black, red and green – create his work between 2002 and 2003. They bring to mind album covers like Tribe’s A Low End Theory and Roy Ayer’s Ubiquity. What’s more, they mark the moment when Ofili’s attention shifts away from the UK. Whereas references to Stephen Lawrence’s murder were local, these colours are part of an international culture and his move to Trinidad in 2005 was imminent.

Not long after his relocation Ofili paints only in shades of blue (not the Madlib record). Whether blue was the new black or because in Trinidad his skin colour was no longer in the minority Ofili was a responding to his new surroundings. Again his creativity seems inspired from his senses – accurate works from acute impressions.

Ofili claims that his new work that hangs in the final room represents life in Trinidad. Calm curves, and warm colours create a serene scene at first. But look a little closer and beneath the simple image of yellow blossom that cascades down a black background, The Healer (2008), hides a creature that devours on this colourful juice. The poui flowers, native to Trinidad, last only for one day. In Ofili’s eyes their beauty is stalked by a sinister stranger - perhaps equivilent to an insatiably hungry media from which his sought freedom in Trinidad.

Such subtle references take the place of frenetic cut-outs, jolted jizz marks and snatched-at samples that made his earlier work so urgent. The surfaces of his recent images are fecund and fertile. With less fight Ofili’s work has grown up. That’s not to suggest that he’s retreated into the earthy tones of ‘world music’ or any kind of painterly equivalent - The Healer, with all its resolve, is still exciting and it’s hard to ignore the sex it implies.

But for fans of him, and of hip-hop, it’s good that he’s moved on. The urgency of his earlier work did its job, broke down the same barriers that hip-hop beat against and now Ofili and his contemporaries across the globe can relax, fathers in a field that is still so respected today.

::22 12 09::

NGOs and civil society groups have accused Denmark of obstructing the democratic process after nearly 2000 people were arrested in Copenhagen during the UN climate summit.

An official letter of complaint will be written to the Danish Police and the UN after the “outrageous way that Denmark prevented people from exercising their democratic right to protest," said Kirsty Wright, Senior Campaigns officer for the World Development Movement.

Friend’s of the Earth, the World Development Movement and the Jubilee Debt Campaign will use the pattern of mass arrests during the summit as well as raids on parties and activist sleeping quarters and the arrests of high-profile spokesmen and women as examples of the divisive tactics used by police to disrupt the organisation of demonstrations.

Their frustration comes after the UK Ambassador for Denmark Riis Jergensen wrote to a group of NGOs ahead of the COP15. He ensured the group that a revision to Danish laws to give police the power to arrest people who they thought might provoke violence would not infringe upon people's "legal right to protest peacefully” in Denmark. Yesterday Mr Jergensen reiterated that, “Events during the last fortnight do not contradict my statement. Police solved the tremendous challenge very professionally."

Jonathan Stevenson, Campaigns Officer for the Jubilee Debt Campaign, believes, “Denmark wanted to avoid the embarrassment of protest playing a central role in the summit. Their efforts went so far that now the embarrassment has swung in the opposite direction. We will investigate police behaviour fully to ensure that the outlawing of public participation will ever happen again."

::19 12 09::

It had become almost routine when police decided that once again the peaceful protest outside the Bella Centre last Wednesday was immediately illegal. As they drew their batons and lay blows to the shoulders of unshielded activists the crowd had learnt after a week of similar encounters that linking arms was their only hope. Pepper spray was landed in the eyes of a 68-year-old Dutch woman and the chain broke when her husband and son ran to her rescue. As a similar fate met individuals who crossed the canal on an inflatable raft any sort of People’s Assembly clearly had to happen outside the centre’s grounds.

Two things wont be the same again after over 50000 activists came to Copenhagen for the UN conference on climate change: the ability to demonstrate against the state in Denmark and the shape of environmental activism to come.

For many, the purpose of the COP15 was to create a global environment movement that would continue to push for fair and sustainable solutions to climate change for the global south after this conference had ended. As news of the accord filters through the absence of such a deal means that a lot of fighting lies ahead. However, from now campaigners will feel an international family supports their efforts, thanks to the two weeks that grassroots organisations have spent learning from each other.

Now, delegates and demonstrators wait at plane and train stations for a ride home, ironically their journeys are being delayed by an extreme turn of cold weather. For activists, the new sense of collectively found here will feel warming. However, they leave behind them a debris of legal litter will make protesting in Denmark even harder.

The illiberal stance taken by police towards protesting made this occasion remarkable. The Danish government hurried through laws ahead of the conference that gave police powers of preventative arrest. Like a bull in a china shop, their powers were used to smash demonstrations and soon the temporary warehouse-prisons in the south of the city became full. Amnesty International have called for an independent investigation into the 1989 people who were arrested but not charged during the conference and other NGOs are writing letters of complaint to the Danish government.

Police led a persistent campaign to keep activist groups on edge. They targeted people who they thought were influential in the non-hierarchical activist network Climate Justice Action (CJA), and invaded activist parties with teargas and dogs ahead of Reclaim Power day last Wednesday.

Despite this, activists continued to show their strength to demonstrate in the face of demonization. Neither temperatures of minus 5 or the tight cage of police riots vans froze the day into a pathetic fallacy. Reclaim Power day was deemed a success by organisers.

The Dutch woman regained her vision again and said, “My family came here because this situation is too important to ignore. Copenhagen has started a new era for environmental activism.” The spray had left her with a white mask around her eyes. “Come on, it’s just a bit of pepper,” the seasoned campaigner said. For others, Copenhagen would have been their first taste of such encounters. They will take a lot of away from the last two weeks as their attention turns towards Mexico next year.

::16 12 09::

Danish authorities say that three years preparation has gone into policing the activism around the UN climate conference in Copenhagen. As demonstrators travel from all over the world to participate in Reclaim Power day today they say the illiberal stance police have taken against protesting has not put them off, despite 1500 people having already been arrested.

This figure continued to rise yetsterday as Tadzio Mueller, a spokesman for the organisers of today's event, Climate Justice Action (CJA), was arrested by plainclothes police as he left the Bella centre. He will be charged in court today. A police spokesman said, “We are charging him under sections 119 and 134 which involve violence against police and inciting unrest in the city.”

Jonny Lunberg, from Copenhagen police, said, We have tried to keep a good dialogue between NGOs and ourselves and hoped that no arrests would be made during the conference.” 194 people were released at 6am yesterday morning and activists were recovering after a night in which teargas and molotov cocktails were used in clashes with police in the Christiania area of Copenhagen. Climate Justice Action (CJA) were hosting a meeting to discuss today’s event and Naomi Klein was speaking. The riots happened after an otherwise peaceful day of protesting.

The trouble began at 11pm when police entered Christiania, an autonomous neighborhood in Copenhagen where families live. After a young group of people set fire to barricades that blocked the entrance to the neighborhood, Henrik Suhr of Copenhagen Police said, “We entered Christiania as a preventative measure so things wouldn’t get out of hand.”

However, eyewitnesses report that police were already within Christiania before there was any fire. “It was really frightening”,
said one resident who wanted to remain anonymous, “Police were chasing everyone through the streets and forcing their heads into the ground before tying their hands behind their backs. I didn’t know what was happening but ran a fast as I could to my house.”

The meeting had taken place in Woodstock bar and people began dancing and drinking afterwards. Another witness said, “It was really surreal. All of a sudden there were bangs. I looked outside and saw people being arrested whilst everyone inside was having a great time. Then police came in and made everyone sit on the ground.”

Amy Jacobs had left the party with a friend and her three-month-old baby. “I heard bangs and explosions but we kept calm inside. The police banged on the door and even though we explained 'We've got a
baby in here' they just smashed the windows before breaking down the door and coming in. It was as if they were looking for someone"

Ed Thomson of CJA agreed, “The way people were acting it was like they were on the hunt. All the Danish people who were arrested have been kept in detention until January. “ A police spokesperson responded to the accusation that they were looking for specific people by saying, “We wanted to arrest people who we identified as being troublemakers. We had police buses waiting in the area because we knew that was where activists went to after the protest during the day.”

Police have received over 200 official complaints over the treatment of people in Copenhagen and Amnesty International has called of an immediate investigation into the legitimacy of the many arrests. “When nearly 1,000 people are arrested and then all but 13 are released it means that many of those people were just innocent people,” said Ida Thuesen, of Amnesty International Denmark.

Olly Stubbs, a graffiti writer from London, was arrested on Friday for wearing a scarf whilst walking towards a demonstration. He described the detention centre as, “freezing, especially because they don’t let you wear any shoes. A group in the pen next to me were sprayed with teargas after they brought their benches together.” Police confirmed that pepper spray was used during this incident.

The police have been following activist forums and websites ahead of today’s protest. Jonny Lunberg said, “We have allowed the demonstration to happen as you have the right to protest in Denmark and we have agreed that the march will only be aloud to a designated field where the Bella Centre can be seen.”

Ed Thompson of CJA said, “There’s a widespread feeling that people have tried to avoid getting arrested before today. It’s the big one, it’s the most important one of the lot and hopefully police incitement won’t result in people just throwing bricks and bombs. It would totally detract from the aim of the day, to create a people’s assembly.”

Delegates from Latin America are expected to participate in the people’s assembly today. This is due to take place at the gates of the Bella Centre but Mr Lunberg warned, “It will not happen there. I know we will be successful in halting the demonstration at the field and any event will happen at the field.”

::13 12 09::

Frontline, Princess Nyah style

Police arrested hundreds more people in Copenhagen yesterday during aweekend in which even peaceful protest seems to be unacceptable during the UN conference.

Buses arrived to remove 256 people from the scene when police halted the demonstration after having gained information from indymedia.com that activists were planning to force themselves into a locked part of the harbour to stop production. A police spokesperson, Flemming Munch, announced, ‘We decided to set up a search block and stop everyone who was in the march. Initially we had a good dialogue and said if we found nothing on people we would let them through but a lot of them
wouldn’t cooperate and then it became an aggressive situation so we used force and arrested everyone.’

The protest, Hit the Production, began at Triangen in the Osterbro area of Copenhagen. Kate Cuthbert, said, ‘We’re hitting the harbour because shipping is a perfect example of how our whole economic system is responsible for climate change.’ Organisers say 500 people began to walk towards the harbour but after 100 meters police had surrounded
the group on all sides. By the time it had reached Oslo Plads they were met my riot vans, dogs and a wall of armoured officers and immediately detained in a controversial kettling tactic.

Karen Davidson, from the civil rights group, Parents Against Police Brutality, said, ‘The force used here was completely disproportionate to the level that was needed. People who didn’t want to be searched were immediately pushed to the ground. Soon, the police had surrounded everyone and began placing them in plastic hand ties.’

Henrik Ama was one of the initial few to get away. He said, ‘Only six of us were let through before police became violent. They smashed the window of a car that was travelling with us and took gasmasks and bolt-cutters from it. They have my bag still but it only has a sandwich in.’

Munch said, ‘We saw that there was gasmasks and equipment to break into a locked part of the harbour so decided to take action.’ However, when The Independent pressed to find out how these tools were spotted,
Munch said this was classified police information.

Meanwhile, members from the German environmental group, Robin Wood, who scale buildings to hang banners, were hauled over a bridge by police and bundled into riot vans. Daniel Hafner escaped arrest because he had a press card. He said, ‘Our message said simply, Pay Climate Debt, but within 10 seconds police grabbed the ropes and yanked the climbers back up.’

Throughout the day police helicopters continued to hover over Copenhagen whilst riot vans sped sporadically through the streets. Whilst new laws were passed ahead of the conference that allow police to detain people for 12 hours without cause, the Danish public believe that their illiberal powers are a result of rioting between the police and youths in 2006.

Organisers of today’s event were part of the activist network Climate Justice Action (CJA). For police and protestors the focus is now on Reclaim Power day this Wednesday when activists will try to enter the Bella Centre to create a 'people’s forum'. After 968 people were arrested on Saturday after the same preventative measures were used CJA is encouraging people not to be put off by the inevitability of arrest. ‘This is a historic moment and police should know that nothing they do will deter us from what we’ve come here to demonstrate.’

::12 12 09::

2006 was a brave year for youths in Copenhagen. After the city mayor chose to evict the cultural youth house, Ungondshuset, protests were enacted on the streets for a year afterwards. Since then, youths and police have been pitted against one another in a battle that's altered laws and protests today.

Earlier tonight, a police spokesperson announced at 7.30pm that a group of 700 people had been arrested after a window at the Danish Foreign Ministry was smashed and fireworks had been let off. News reports run this a their line tomorrow and police have successfully detracted from the fact that the day had otherwise been a success, for peaceful protest and the environment movement as a whole as 100000 took to the streets to show their support for the action on climate justice.

Arrests were made on Amagerbrogade (street name) soon after the largest environmental gathering in history, The Flood, organised by Friend's of the Earth, left its halfway point in Parliament Square in Copenhagen. Once the march past Torvegade bridge and enter the Christiania district of Copenhagen Police employed a controversial tactic known as kettling to sever a group of 700 from the back of the demonstration. A police spokesperson said that this was because a number of people in the crowd had masks on.

There was no violence at this stage and a police spokesperson admitted this group were unprovoked. Protestors report the mood being 'happy' and 'like a carnival' when a group of 50 police entered from the back of the group, forcing a number of protests to sit down whilst cornering another group and picking out the masked few. The police spokesperson reiterated that in Denmark it is illegal to cover your face during a protest under new laws past ahead of the COP15 and that police have the right to disrupt any form of protest.

After detaining the group of 700 for 5 hours public buses arrived to take them to a temporary compound facility on the outskirts of the city.

::11 12 09::

Wu Tang Bring Da Ruckus

::11 12 09::

Music is the highest form of art…Hegel

In fact, it keeps proving itself to be the highest form of anything (although maybe not food, despite Shakespeare’s early efforts to tie the two together, if music be the food of love, play on).

Tomorrow will host the first major action to take place in Copenhagen during the COP15. Demonstrators have called the day Our Climate Not Your Business and will focus their direct action on highlighting the fact that corporations have no role to play in democracy. Expect action against typical victims of anti-capitalist attention such as McDonalds, C&A, Microsoft and Netto.

In praise of these activists they tend to practice what they preach and take pleasure in abstaining from these corporate demons. Their action thus is an effort to persuade others to adopt a similar way of life to the ones they lead. However, for all their effort, their performance becomes immediately fetishised by mass media and their lifestyles remain in the margins.
But how to get around this? Only music has the answer.

Similar to anti-capitalist rhetoric, music has its own range of lifestyles and cultures. It possesses a mainstream and has ‘alternative’ styles as well. However, where music differs from political activism is in the way it’s peripheral forms work as a virus, encircling the mainstream and infecting it from the outside in. In this sense, activism would do well to observe this phenomenon.

Musical subcultures in urban environments often emerge from neighbourhoods that require urgency from the art produced there. Examples of this include baile funk, kwaito, reggaeton and grime. Max Ingram has termed these Shanty House, ‘a new strain of post World Music. However, the purpose of this term is to avoid these strains of global urban music being considered an extension of World Music…a concept inextricably intertwined with concepts of the earthen and the rooted.’

However, political activism with environmental connections seems unable to disconnect itself from the same brush that brands World Music. For the mainstream it appears, as Ingram says, earthen and rooted and thus not as good as what they’ve got already.

So it needs a makeover. Shanty House represents the same DIY approach to culture production as many grassroots movements who will battle over the next week. And like Shanty House, their offering is better and more sustainable than what the money hungry makers of the mainstream offer. Thus, eco-political activism needs to model its approach on the stuff that has made Shanty House an appealing form to appropriate.

For starters activism could mimic the egalitarian nature of music. Welcome newcomers, seek to teach rather than preach and most of all learn the importance of being NOT SO earnest.

Whether you like it or not, subcultures in music are much more effective at changing the mainstream than any political action group. It needs to locate itself as the starting line for people before they ‘career’ into life, rather than the corner people go to when they fall out with life. This could be done promoting its benefits: free food, skill sharing, community. Having got people at the source, tributaries such as eco activism would run into a river that could then start to shape the geography around it.

::10 12 09::

::08 12 09::

There are a number of great things about this news story but I think the best is the empirical proof it provides that Australian's take wanking and thus being wankers to another level.

In other news, UK firms Easyjet and BP have been named worst ‘greenwashers’ by Consumer International in their annual Bad Companies Award. Hopenhagen gives other multinationals the chance jump on the COP15 bandwagon by adorning every flat surface in town with brand logos.

Greenwashing, the practice of companies who market themselves as environmentally friendly, has become a topic of hot discussion in Copenhagen. Rasmus Kjeldahl, Head of Consumers International and Director of the Danish Consumer Council, described greenwashing as businesses’ efforts to ride on the back of environmental concern and spin their products as environmentally friendly. ‘They mislead consumers.’

Easyjet is accused of greenwashing for using misleading information on its website that states it is more environmentally friendly to fly with them than drive a Toyota Prius. Another winner, BP, have attempted to garner an image of being environmentally friendly by committing to alternatives to fossil fuels. But, since launching an alternative fuels campaign in 2005, BP has cut their carbon reduction research budget from $1.5Bn in 2008 to $500m in 2009. However, Robert Wine, of BP said that they would still spend $8Bn before 2020.

Greenwashing masquerades as activism in central Copenhagen during the conference. Not surprisingly, ‘activist’, or rather advertist movement Hopenhagen is sponsored by Coke, Gap and BMW. It has a massive visual presence in the city. This is not surprising as it describes itself as a ‘movement generated by the International Advertising Association.’

Naomi Klein said, ‘The COP15 and the many surrounding events have become branding extravaganzas. There’s a huge globe in the city centre with a Siemens logo on and [Hopenhagen] is sponsored by Coke. That is a capitalization of hope.’ Coca-Cola is also accused of greenwashing by Comsumer International for promoting a range of plastic bottles earlier this year that are made partially from plants. Kjeldahl pointed out that this would only account for 15% of their output.

This Friday international corporations arrive in Copenhagen to take part in the Business Day at the Bella Centre. Greenwashing will fuel a day of direct action by activists who will demonstrate against the ‘illegal’ role played by corporations in democracy under the title Our Climate is Not Your Business.

Bad Company Awards 2009 – the ‘Winners’

Audi – for suggesting its diesel cars are clean and green.

BP – for talking up its renewable ambitions, but investing next to nothing.

EasyJet – for claiming its planes are greener than a hybrid car.

Microsoft – for marketing Windows 7 as green whilst encouraging consumers to
buy new PCs.

::08 12 09::

Broken camera means design notes will be generic. Here's nice Arne Jacobsen chair

::07 12 09::

Klimaforum09 Opening

‘Leave the oil in the soil, leave the coal in the hole and leave the tar sand in the land’ said Nnimmo Bassy, Friends of the Earth International chief in his message at the opening of the People’s Summit, Klimaforum in Copenhagen last night.

Naomi Klien said, ‘This is the last chance to save the world. Our role is to be the truth teller and the lie detectors. We’re here to recognise the difference between a deal and success.’

She reiterated that this is a coming of age conference for anti-corporate protestors who will demonstrate in Copenhagen in hope of a good deal but warned that ‘The Bella Centre is the biggest case of disaster capitalism yet. The deal we really need is not even on the table.’ In praise of suggestions coming from Bolivia she said a positive outcome would include deep emissions cuts, repayment of climate debt, and the adoption of green technologies.

‘This isn’t going to be an Acitivsts Versus COPs event,’ punning in the conference’s name COP15. ‘But rage has a place here. All along we’ve been betrayed, especially by Barack Obama who has blown so many once in a generation opportunities like having the banks in his hands. We have a right to be angry but intelligently.'

Obama took another hit when she spoke of how bored she was of the word hope after his campaign. Citing Hopenhagen, a major music concert where the Backstreet Boys were billed to play this evening before dropping out, as green washing, she termed the event a branding extravaganza. ‘The globe has a Siemens logo on the bottom and the whole event is sponsored by Coke. That is a capitalization of hope.’

Speeches this evening served to gather the thoughts of those whose attention might have wandered in the run up an event that has already seemed to last forever. Klein squeezed in an apology for flying to Copenhagen instead of swimming but reminded activists of why they had taken the long journey here, even if some took longer ones than others.

::06 12 09::

An Unlikely Activist
Ben Mansour Mimoun, 68, is a habitual activist. Having focussed his efforts on the promotion of multiculturalism throughout his life he’s also been distracted by anarcho-veganism and expelled from his homeland Morocco for his allegiance with insurrectionary socialism.

We met as a result of a recurring battle between food and bed that happens each time I pass through a city alone. As usual, food had walked off with the prize of the few Euros that I had to spend on one or the other. The Belgium chips and waffles went down well but left the victor with a few hours until dawn as everything else began to close.

I walked up to the Arabic neighbourhood near Gare du Midi where it was probable that the Moroccan takeaways there had the stamina to stay open until I could enter the station at 5am. Typical of any late night café near a station I was offered some weed, however, determined to get some use out of the backgammon I’d foolishly packed I returned the gesture by suggesting we play instead.

He had other things to do. We spoke for a while and I went inside. The dealer got back to work and Ben struck up a conversation about racism in Britain. He’d been watching the footage of anti-Islamic demonstrations in Nottingham on Al-Jazeera, however, it offered an opportunity for me to find out about everything he’d done.
Worldly and knowledgeable, until it came to AIDS which he said you couldn’t catch if you were circumcised, he snuffed his snuff and we chatted about his time working for Ravage, No Paper and SOS Racism in Amsterdam. He cooked at the famous autonomous kitchen Autonomcentrum and is still active now, directing Mrax.

It was clear that his anarchist uniform of black Dickies and a hoodie had enjoyed a lifetime in rebellion. Whilst the scenester protestors might dress up like Bill Ayers (police photos below), here was the fashion inspiration for the more autonomous activists.

His saggy face looked like a basset hound as I caught him cadge a Lipton from the fridge and sneak it into his pocket. This freegan from three generations ago has probably used that look a lot. However, whether it was because he saw a similarly rebellious streak in me or because he was pleased to have beaten me twice at backgammon, my completmentary chick-pea stew and mint tea was well received.

It was nice to come across this diehard in the most unexpected of places.

::05 12 09::

When Climate Camp announced they would pitch in Trafalger Square, I was in a record shop in Brussels. Yup, during the UK's largest ever climate demonstration I was buying 80s disco. Although my commitment to this cause seems questionable I did not choose to be here let alone miss an otherwise more important event.

However, having found myself in this situation it's probably worth drawing links between the point of this trip and the products of ADD. Not to mention distract me from thinking about all the other things I'd rather be doing (Benji B at Soul City London, Theo Parrish at Plastic People, Guilty Simpson in Copenhagen, waiting for paint to dry) - Brussels suspends life in a limbo where the strain is on your head rather than your lower back. The discovery of the shop in question came as a relief.

In 1980 Kano released their self-titled debut album, a gem of a record produced by band members Luciano Ninzatti, Stefano Pulga and Matteo Bonsanto. It took Italo Disco to the international stage and made nifty use of new technology like the vocoder. The tracklisting includes classics such as It's a War, Cosmic Voyager and I'm Ready. It was a good find.

I left the shop, went for a little coffee and carried on reading my press copy of Sonic Warfare by Steve Goodman (aka Kode9), out January. Chapter 5, Abusing the Military Entertainment Complex, talks about the appropriation of military technology for entertainment purposes. Goodman quotes media theorist Freidrich Kittler:

"Funkspeil, VHF tank radios, vocoders, Magnetophones...have released an abuse of army equipment that adapts ears and reaction speeds"

"Our discos are preparing our youth for a retaliatory strike"

With this in mind, Kittler's comments posit Kano as a good group to soundtrack some action. Ruckus to 'It's a War' with its use of 'army equipment' and the Danish authorities are bound to break. Or at least dance.

And whilst police are cleaning themselves up after the excitement experienced from the sweet grooves on this record, protestors will relish in the humor and harmony of this beautiful genre. Kano will be a welcome change to the asexuality and white cultures that stiffen (in a flacid way) most environmental demonstrations.

Alas, this hope might not fall on deaf ears but it'll probably be drowned out by Throbbing Gristle or Stockhausen. The closest they ever came to subversion of a human kind was at the ICA in 1976.

::05 12 09::

For when the rains come
Alice Coltrane feat. Pharoah Sanders - Journey in Satchidananda

::03 12 09::

Attend Copenhagen without being called a hypocrite (or a total twat/delude idiot/wasteman)

The data below describes the amount of CO2 emitted by people on a trip from London to Copenhagen.
As you can see, if you travel by bike your carbon footprint stays low. The train is the best form of transport if you don't have any legs. The car improves a bit if more people are traveling and if you plan to fly then why not take a giant shit on Al Gore's face while you're at it:

1 Passenger 2 Passengers 3 Passengers 4 Passengers
Route kgCO2 Route kgCO2 Route kgCO2 Route kgCO2
Bicycle 12 Bicycle 24 Bicycle 36 Bicycle 48
Train 39 Train 78 Train 117 Train 156
Plane 107 Car 169 Car 169 Car 169
Car 169 Plane 213 Plane 320 Plane 426

A few notes:

:: Car
Route consists of driving from London to Harwich and then taking the ferry to Esbjerg (Denmark) and then onward car journey to Copenhagen
:: Bicycle
Assumes the same route as the car but avoiding motorways and travelling as a foot passenger on the ferry
:: Train
Assumes Eurostar to Brussels, Thalys to Cologne, Deutsche Bahn train to Copenhagen
::Plane
Includes train from London to Heathrow and train from Copenhagen airport to central Copenhagen
This considers CO2 emissions only and does not include the non-CO2 effects of aviation. To take into account the full impact of aviation these figures should be multiplied by 1.9. See Note 10 of Annex 6 for more information

Bigup the Energy Saving Trust for providing this information

::01 12 09::

Albert Ayler, "Music is the healing force of the universe"
Roska - Climate Change

::30 11 09::

A week today, the largest environmental gathering in history will begin. From December 7-18, 30000 people will flood Copenhagen to express their support for action on climate change. Expect bike blockades and a one-hour electricity blackout as part of the most imaginative acts of insurrection yet.

Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine, took part in The Battle of Seattle at the World Trade Organisation conference in 1999. This time round she believes, "It’s really tricky for activists in terms of figuring out how you interact with a summit like this. There’s a different dynamic [from Seattle], because the fact is that the people in the streets overwhelmingly support the mission of the meeting in Copenhagen. And, so, they’re not saying "no" to the idea of a climate summit. In fact, they’re saying "yes."”

Klein will speak alongside George Monbiot and Vandana Shiva at the official ‘People’s Summit’, Klimaforum09. “Klimaforum’s aim is to provide an opportunity for the public to enter into discussion. We're going to be looking at radical solutions," said spokesman Richard Steed.

Meanwhile, Friends of the Earth International (FOE) have organized one of the major actions during the conference. The Flood, consisting of about 3,000 members of the public who will take to the streets dressed in blue and march towards the Bella Centre after joining up with the other marches that day. Collectively, they will signify that a good deal needs to be made for the developing world.

The Flood will be part of the Global Day of Action on December 12 when the city centre will become a carnival of parade. 'System Change, Not Climate Change' is the slogan for the less formal actions being organized by Climate Justice Action (CJA), the umbrella group for an international network that includes Climate Camp, Focus on the Global South, and the Indian Social Action Forum. The network of organisations marching that day plan to convene outside the Bella Centre to show the level of solidarity needed to meet the reduction rate. A massive video screen next to the entrance to the Bella Centre will display suggestions and messages to delegates and a 4-story globe, the Climate Rescue Centre, will also be in situ inviting delegates in for coffee and the chance to debate with the public.

Developed countries accept domestic emissions reduction obligations of at least 40% by 2020 compared to 1990 with no offsetting. African governments walked out of the talks at the last UNFCCC meeting in Barcelona because rich industrialised countries refused to commit to emission reduction targets. As well as coercing governments into committing to these targets demonstrations will also highlight that market-based ideas, like cap and trade schemes, emissions trading and carbon sinks might be simple opportunities for companies to profit from pollution. Protests will highlight that climate finance needs to be reliable and transparently managed and allocated for mitigation, adaptation and technology transfer for developing countries. Importantly, most protestors reject any World Bank involvement in international climate finance and demonstrated on December 11 by actions from a group Our Climate Not Your Business.

Other protests such as Resistance is Ripe and ongoing exhibitions by members of indigenous populations from Peru, the Philippines and the Arctic will meet the suggestion from developed governments who promote trade liberalisation, privatisation, forest carbon markets, agrofuels and carbon offsetting as methods to reduce carbon emissions. NGOs such as The Third World Network, Focus on the Global South and Jubilee South will participate in the official conference and lobby against the dangers of these proposals to local communities.

Meanwhile, many people will travel to Copenhagen for the arrival of the high delegates on December 16. Highlights include darkness at 7:00 pm the lights of the city will go dark for one hour - Earth Hour - sending a powerful message about the need for a commitment to a global climate deal that is strong enough to avert catastrophic climate change.

During that day, members of the public and CJA are arranging an action called Reclaim Power. They will attempt to enter the Bella Centre en masse and turn the debate into the People’s Assembly for Climate Justice. Although this sounds easy, UK protestor Isabel Jama, believes, “that we’ll definitely be met with violence from the police. CJA has a guideline that we’ll only use our bodies in the protest and we’re anticipating police tactics to be an obstacle to get around not to confront. However, this will be different to UK protests where police don’t use teargas and we’ll be working with legal and medical teams on the day. Danish kids are rowdy and the police use dispersal tactics there instead of kettling.”

Danish officials have taken a firm stance against activism in recent years and UK protestors are expecting to witness the type of resistance seen in the dismantling of Ungdomshuset (Youth House). Police emptied the community centre run by activists and musicians in the middle of Copenhagen in March 2007 and 436 people were arrested after police used teargas against the crowds. Another example of intolerance is the steady dismantlement of Christiania, an autonomous zone in the centre of Copenhagen where cannabis laws did not apply until 2008. Whilst the Danish government announced last week that they have turned warehouses and gyms outside the city into temporary prisons a new law has been hurried through parliament ahead of the summit and police are now entitled to arrest anyone who they suspect might breach the peace. Danish student Seb Ross says, “Protests have begun to combat these infringements of civil liberties, and whilst there’s an ideological perspective to their action their point is informed by the environmental agenda that requires a constructive outcome.”

Nonetheless, protestors believe this draconian approach simply requires imaginative thinking. The Laboratory of Insurrectory Imagination (Lab of ii), a Bristol based art collective, have joined up with Climate Camp to design a bike block to aid Reclaim Power. Isa from Lab of ii said, “We’re utilizing all the benefits of bicycles to make the day a success, for example their swarmability. By combining the creativity of the art world with the courage of the activist community our prototypes include chariots and multi-story bikes, where one bike is welded on top of another making it really tall. These will give protestors advantages over the police.”

Such images of engineering are reminders of the post-apocalyptic scenes in the cult film Mad Max and appropriately so for an event that aims to halt the world’s decent into such a scenario.

Damien Hirst Interview

For the Indenpendent