Of course, it was all an incestuous gathering of meeja types, PRs and techies, but it was all for charity, so everyone went home being able to live with themselves and sleep at night. And I had a great time.

All of the Twitter folks from the trendy start-ups were there, and there was even some old-media representation in the form of Rory Cellan-Jones, or Ruskin147 as we know him, from the BBC. I didn’t dare say hello though as I through a process of osmosis-like learning from the Twitter feed, I know about him to an almost stalker-like level. I know that he lives in… Ealing? I know he has a dog and a son who got into Oxford, I know he gets up early and goes for a run every morning, and I know his wife recently became a Dame. It’s almost like I’ve been going through his vitual bins.

I did however, talk to loads of excellent people, and saw many more whose “names” I knew according to the sticker they were wearing with their name on, but couldn’t place.

I had a chat with Gareth Mitchell from the BBC’s Digital Planet, and ridiculously, he recognised my face from my Twitter avatar. I said hello to the man doing all of the hard work on the Atheist Bus Campaign, who has been Twittering in the first-person as a personified bus for the past few weeks. Shell_uk was in a similar boat to me not knowing anyone there, as so to speak. Brilliantly, I got the chance to say hello to Annie Mole, who’s blog about the London Underground I’ve been reading for years – she was close to James Cridland, who I didn’t manage to pluck up the courage to speak to. I bumped into ParkyLondon, who produces a superb podcast for London nerds like myself, and just as I was leaving I traded business cards with Richjm.

Well, I say “traded business cards”. Frustratingly, the new business cards that I’ve ordered from ultra-trendy Shoreditch start-up Moo.com hadn’t arrived in time, meaning I had to resort to the “analogue business card”: my Twitter name scrawled on to a notepad I carry around for blog ideas (I genuinely do this). This slightly undermined the savvy-London-Hoxtonite-professional image I was trying to cultivate for myself.

One thing that was quite exciting was that it levelled the playing field a little and I was mingling with some stunningly important people in the industry. I got talking to a man who explained that his “job” was starting start-ups, and he’d started maybe 20 companies in his career, including things that I will have heard of – though he was hesitant to name them to someone like me. In retrospect I maybe should have asked him for some venture capital (or “VC” in industry-speak) for one of the most bizarre outcomes of the night: I seem to have accidentally founded a new .com start-up with Dave Hodgkinson, who ten minutes after mentioning an idea had already bought the domain name. It’s definitely a fast-moving industry. Whatever industry this is.

That was a problem I did encounter – I wanted people to take me seriously, and ideally, offer me money, a writing job and use of the company boat. So when asked what I did, or what my industry was, I made a point of emphasising that I was a post-graduate student – a metric cut above those tawdry undergraduates, before following up by claiming that I also “like to think of myself as a satirist”. This was secret code for “No one actually pays me to be a satirist but I’d like them to”. Even if they question my credentials I’ve got that plausible deniability – the “satire industry” doesn’t exist in any tangible way and there’s no satirists trade union, even though “we” do spend a lot time labouring in a pit of irony.

It was really excellent though – and to top things off, I discovered this afternoon that I’d won a years subscription to Spinvox in the raffle, thanks to @whatleydude.

• I’m in the background on Dave Gorman’s Genius! Look at me! Look!
• Secret Alexisonfire Gig
• London Again
• Date for your diary: Saturday Evening
• Musical map of London

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Post tags:

The line-up was immense too – there was Richard Wiseman talking about psychic dogs, Chris French talking about psychology and conspiracy theories, Stephen Law, author of the superb Philosophy Gym, explaining how creationism is unscientific and talking about the philosophy of evidence based reason, and ended with Ben Goldacre telling us stories about bullshit science that appears in the newspapers and how I think my job actually makes me partially complicit in it.

This was held at the Conway Hall near Holborn… but it wasn’t the only event being hosted there that day. There was also this:

I assure you that this is 100% real.

The reason I give all of this exposition is because it juxtaposes brilliantly with what I did yesterday evening. Having spent the day surrounded by the most rational people in London, in the evening we – Eve and myself, joined by our friend Sinead – went to a party organised by Eve’s aunt in Peckham, to celebrate the end of the Bush administration. It was a ‘Bush Burning’ party and was being held at a squat. In Peckham.

It was certainly something that a few months ago I’d never have thought I’d do – I mean, a squat… in Peckham? I’d have to be a right plonker to go, right? The chances of being murdered would be ridiculously high.

The bus to Peckham was quite ominous. As we descended further into the depths of the (dare I say) slightly Birmingham-esque south London things became a whole lot bleaker. They say where the trains go prosperity will follow, citing the trans-American railroad or London’s own Metroland metropolitan railway as an example – the opposite seems to be true too. The tube rarely dips south of the river, and as a consequence, Peckham seems pretty grim.

We knew we’d got to the squat when we saw some metal gates that had been hand painted and covered in pictures of sunbeams and the sort of hippy tat that allows a place to be described as unique or having ‘character’. The trouble was the gates were locked. So how else could we get in? On the wall adjoining the gates there was a wooden doorway – like a shed door complete with shed door handle – and we could see the glow of light eminating from behind it. After dithering for a while, we determined that this must be the way in.

Opening the door was quite a shock. Rather than seeing unemployed wasters with scented candles doing some collectivised farming like you might expect at a squat, we instead saw what looked like a very close approximation of a third world sweatshop. Hidden away in darkest Peckham in a building partially constructed inside a railway arch, there were Chinese people manufacturing clothes on large industrial machinery in a rudimentary factory. It didn’t look like the sort of place that would allow the workers to take breaks or unionise. When a rather angry looking manager came over to the three of us, we discovered that his dodgy factory was not in fact part of the squat.

So we waited around outside and just as we were planning to leave, Eve’s aunt, the organiser of the party, turned up to let us through the gates.

I don’t think she was the most “conventional” of aunts. I get the impression that she’s probably never been to a WI bake sale or that sort of thing. What was a little surprising was that she was much, much cooler than her niece (or me, for that matter). Despite obviously being about twice my or Eve’s age, she goths up considerably – big boots, black chains and all – she wouldn’t look out of place in Camden.

She opened up the gates and led us to the squat building. To get there we had to walk through what you might generously describe as a “garden” or “car park”. There were parked cars, caravans and greenhouses (I wonder what they were growing…).  Of course, it was unlit – the perfect place for committing murder (we were in Peckham).

The squat itself is a former community centre that was abandoned by the council so the squatters moved in. If you want to get a feel for it, imagine basically a cross between Byker Grove and a crack den.

Taking a deep breath, and with a great sense of trepidation, we stepped inside. And what we saw was a shock: It was actually pretty cool looking inside. There was a stage, a bar and a proper sound system setup – all without having to go the trouble of worrying about things like live music performance licenses, permits and fire exit that The Man tries to force them to have. Screw the law requiring fire exits to be clearly labelled and lit at all times… that’s just The Man trying to tell us where to go in the event of a fire.

There were sofas around the edge of the room and hanging from the ceiling was a spinning yellow polystyrene “smiley face” on one side of the stage and, bizarrely, a cut-out of the word “innit” spiinning on the other. I’m probably not selling this very well, but essentially it came across as cool and trendy, and untainted by the commercialism of, er, legitimate musical venues. Basically it was punk as fuck. This was underlined by the soundman having a mug that had the Starbucks logo modified to say “Fuck off” on the side.

As you might imagine, it was like a different era – not only were there mentions of the miners strike and the struggle of workers, but people were flouting the ban and smoking indoors. I don’t think they were just smoking tobacco either – there was a horrible stench of drugs that wafted across us with some regularity, and I’m about 60% sure there was a man there who was casually toking on his crackpipe. I don’t know what a crackpipe specifically looks like, but there was a young man smoking a pipe, and he didn’t strike me as the Tony Benn type.

The first act on stage merely confirmed the punk credentials of the squat, as if being a legal-grey area, grassroots organisation full of crackpipes and crackpots was not enough. He was a “punk poet”. Attila the Stockbroker, as he called himself, performed some poems that totally stuck it to the man. I’m not normally a fan of poetry – in fact, I like to think that I’ve built my reputation on the back of my loathing of the so-called “artform”, but Attila won himself an awful lot of goodwill from me when right at the start of the set he denounced literature student-esque poetry as being rubbish (confirming my opinions) and then launching into some good old fashioned left-wingery:

The next people on stage were a succession of acoustic artists who had a common theme linking their songs: they were all about the Bush administration. Much like Attila’s poetry, these hard lefties were not familiar with allegories or metaphors, so the songs were pretty transparently political. Excellent.

After this came the main event of the evening: the purpose of the party. The Bush Burning.

In the garden area a bonfire had been constructed close to a wooden frame containing effigies of Bush, Blair and Brown. As you’ll see in the video, it was actually a lot more disturbing than we were expecting. Whilst burning a Guy on bonfire night is all good fun, there’s something that seems slightly more sinister about implying the death of still living people. What’s more, given the ramshackle nature of the squat, there were a lot of visual echoes of mob justice and lynchings and the like – for people who minutes earlier were singing songs about how international law had been broken and the like, they seemed awfully keen on the extra-judicial killing of these effigies. Sure, it was only symbolism, but it still left something of a nasty taste in your mouth.

That said, the taste could have been the embers raining down on us from the fire that looked as though it could get out of control. I’m no council bureaucrat (though I’d love to be), but I’m pretty sure there must be some rules on starting big fires like that, without so much as a fire extinguisher or healthy and safety officer to hand – London doesn’t have a particularly good record with fires, after all. (This said, if the fire had spread, this blog could make me the new Samuel Pepys).

After this, we all traipsed back inside the squat to see an old-fashioned sounding punk band play some songs. I say “old fashioned” because the members of the band were my parents age, played three chords and had one song where the only lyrics were “money talks” shouted over and over again. It was punk as fuck.

We left shortly after this on the basis that going home any later than midnight in Peckham is almost definitely going to get us murdered. Over all it was an amazing, bewildering and bizarre experience – similar to the rap battle in that respect.

• Duke Special
• Musical map of London
• Flogging Molly
• More reasons to love London (and Twitter)
• When I got the music, I got a place to go

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Post tags: left wing, london, Peckham, punk, Squat

In a brilliant coincidence though, I found myself in the pub last night though, arguing with who I believe was the chairperson of the local Conservative Future branch, who rather inexplicably, is the latest girlfriend of another of my friends. (Unfortunately, “connections” like this merely mean that I live in a small, incestuous town, rather than am sort sort of town bigwig who knows the other bigwigs.)

Of course, when I found this out, a quiet evening at the pub became a bit like a junior version of Question Time, where Star Columnists (ahem) and Key Political Figures are bought together to argue about the issues of the day. And the best bit? To my delight, the future Tories – the party that are back in their constituencies preparing for Government – are completely clueless.

I started by challenging the Tory chairwoman and her “Tory” friend with an easy question: “Eh? What the fuck? You’re under the age of 60 and support the Tories? What Tory policies do you like?”

The question appeared easy, but then I did slip in the phrase “Tory policies”, which must have floored them a bit. After the friend muttered something weak about the Tories being “for families”, and agreeing that the other party’s Maoist “People’s Communes” policies are ridiculous, they eventually they said something about the Tories “abolishing university tuition fees”.

“Huh?”, I thought, having not heard anything like this – challenging them, they then went on to admit that they’d “just made it up”. Which I suppose is one way to win an argument. (Googling after the event revealed this, but I’m about 95% sure this isn’t current policy.)

“Do you really like David Cameron?”, I asked next, expecting them to say they did, so I could rant on about his plastic face and his mollusc-like slime trail, to my surprise, the chairwoman said she didn’t actually like him for these very reasons. “PARTY DISUNITY!”, I somewhat childishly cried as I pointed at them, to the bemused glances of the pub’s other patrons. “Who would you prefer to have in charge? IDS? David Davis? Norman Tebbit?”, was met with a blank look and protestations of “You don’t talk about politics at the pub!”, which became their most powerful line of “argument”. I was bewildered by this, as politics chat is all I go to the pub for. I mean, other than objectifying women and grunting whilst football is on the TV, obviously.

After this, unfortunately every time I mentioned politics they were all “I don’t want to argue!” – so I responded to this complaining that argument is what politics about, and how if that’s what the Tory campaign is like, I can’t wait for the next general election. Unfortunately, rather than, er, argue with me, they just ran off to smoke – and presumably phone the constituency chairperson to let them know to keep an eye on that James O’Malley and his ultra-leftist column in the local paper. Or at least, that’s what I hoped had happened.

So, er, at risk of ending on a Partridge-ism, needless to say, I had the last laugh!

• Tories :-(
• The Conny Club
• Outed the blue?
• Cameron’s Principles
• Politics Update!

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Post tags: conservatives, local politics, pubs, tories

I’ve got a confession to make. This evening, I did something terrible. I went to my local Conservative Club.

No, I haven’t renounced my dignity, I was there on business. Well, sort of anyway. I was there for the 21st birthday party of two of my friends, Ben & Bailey, who are the cool sort of people I’d make a sacrifice like this for – its just they have inexplicably poor taste in booking venues.

When I parked in their car park, the stench of Conservatism was already thick in the air – there was a notice on the door informing me that I had to be a “member” to park there and there was a regressive fixed-rate fine for parking violations (as opposed to linked to income), meaning that it was the poor who’d be hit the hardest.

So after I’d re-parked my car in the chemist’s car park (Free medicine for everyone? How sickeningly socialist), I approached the entrance again, trembling. I didn’t know what it’d be like inside. Would there be the heads of murdered foxes lining the walls? Would rivers of the blood of poor people pass by the terrace outside? Would there be genuine, real-life Tory voters inside?

I took a deep breath and pushed open the door. I was surprised that I’d made it this far in – every week I write in the local paper and slag off the Tories or Tory values in one way or another. What if they recognised me? I was worried that someone would “out” me as a nanny-state loving liberal. Would they throw me out? Or worse?

The bar appeared to be basically an old man pub, and they had the same selection of drinks on offer as secular bars. What was slightly unsettling was that everyone in there looked like a Tory – its hard to describe exactly what makes a Tory, but if the birthday party hadn’t been there, the median age would have been in the upper-50s or low-60s, and they all looked moderately well off and self-interested. I felt like Louis Theroux observing a group of crackpots and not trying to be offensive to their horrendous worldview.

The other problem was with money. I was buying drinks from the Tory bar – was my money going directly to funding the Conservative Party? Is David Cameron going to be paying for his chauffeur to drive behind his bike using my money? The prospect is too horrifying to even think about.

I spent £4.50 there (on three Pepsis, since you asked) – I think now the only thing I can do to morally redeem myself is to donate £4.50 to a cause that opposes the Tories. Maybe the LibDems, as the least evil of the three big parties and the second biggest party in my constituency (the Tories are depressingly first). But then, Nick Clegg is a Tory in all but name, isn’t he? I’m thinking maybe donating it to UKIP – a party equally, if not more hideous than the Tories – the theory being that I can try and split the right wing vote and give the lefties, whoever they are, more of a chance.

I’m assuming all of the evil plans were hidden away as they were allowing “outsiders” in.

• Tories :-(
• Outed the blue?
• Maybe the future is safe?
• I’ve always said Conservatives are nutters.
• Politalk

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Post tags: conservative club, conservatives, party

Chris, Lottie, Barney, Kyron, Ant, Me, Sam, William, Shark, Kat and Dan. Not pictured: Katy.

Dan bothering a mime.

It being Easter, we thought we should respect the religious aspects, and celebrate Jesus’ death by recreating Leonardo’s Last Supper.

As luck would have it, Barney looks a bit like Jesus. And Sam looks a bit like Mary Magdeline. And I played the part of Judas. The other apostles were perhaps a little less enthusiastic.

Spending about eight hours with me is difficult enough for anyone, really. Unfortunately, William’s Jamesomalley tolerance was slightly less than eight hours, so he ended up punching me.

But it was fun. I may have another tale to tell about this in a few days.

• A “Barney” in London
• The Da Vinci Code
• Former Hitler Youth member stays on the far right
• Threats of physical violence
• Changing Church Rules

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Post tags: barney, dandan, easter, Friends, katy, kyron, london, meeting, meetup, mushroom, photos, pizza express, PKMN.NET, pokemon, pubs, shark, the rocket, xagor

It was also excellent because I got to meet my friend Matt for the first time – after knowing him online for very nearly seven years:

Despite being in London, we didn’t do anything particularly touristy – we just went to three pubs and a Pizza Express like locals may do, largely ignoring the spectacular views of central London around us.

As the day went on, things got progressively louder, culminating in a drinking game in the last pub (which didn’t really work on me, as I wasn’t drinking alcohol), and Barney, Dan, and Sam getting approximately very, very, drunk. They’d been drinking since 11am, having gone to a pub at Liverpool Street Station before meeting the rest of us, so by 9pm, weren’t walking in a straight line. This meant that me, being sober (I’m straight-edge), and Katy (who I’d dragged along for the day), who was only tipsy, had to try and guide them back to their train stations so they could get home.

It was a most excellent day, really. 10/10.

• Easter Meet
• Matt & Dundas Return (Briefly)
• Matt’s Birthday
• Out of my depth!
• A close shave?

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Post tags: barney, katy, london, mattward, meetup, pizza express, PKMN.NET, pokemon, pubs, steffan, the rocket

I put together arguably the most formidable quiz team in the country – who coincidentally were my university friends Katy, Sean, Sarah and Michael. And I, as the most experienced quiz player, was the Captain.

I’d been training the team for over a week. This didn’t actually involve any practice quiz questions, and was more a case of drumming motivational slogans into their heads. “It’s not the taking part that counts, it’s the winning”, “We can’t do it if we really try – we can only do it if we know the answers to the questions that we are asked”, “I’ll hate you forever and not be your friend if we lose”, and so on.

Things got off to an unfortunate start when Michael failed to turn up – but as luck would have it, so did someone from the opposing team.

So the quiz began, and we got our first starter question right – but then the other team got two in a row, and it went on like this – much like you’d expect a quiz to. There were bonus rounds on identifying the Simpsons guest stars, and a music lyrics round, a bit like a lower-brow version of the thing on the telly (we are a former Polytechnic, you know).

It got a bit farcical though during one round which was “identifying the place from an aerial photo”. The first slide said “Where in Britain…”, so we thought that all of the locations were in Britain. The first one was Wimbledon, the second was Alton Towers (I thought it was Jodderell Bank) and the third location looked really, really like the Hoover Dam. It turns out that it was the Hoover Dam. Damn.

And so it went on – with us eventually losing by something like 85 points to 65… which is fairly respectable. It was interesting to see Sean, who’s usually calm and collected, and the sort of person who can “work the room” without feeling ridiculous lose his cool slightly as he confronted the host about the aerial photo fiasco, or photogate, as I hope it will become known. She wouldn’t change her mind and admit that it was a travesty worse than naming a teddy Muhammed.

Still, at least there wasn’t any massive cash prizes at stake this time – and it was apparently for charity, so I can’t really complain. The team tried their best, so I can’t fault them. Just a shame its reduced my quiz shows participated in to quiz shows won ratio to 2:1 (50%) for this week, really.

• Wilko Quiz
• How to win at quiz shows
• Pub Quiz
• Eggheads
• Rage Against the Quiz Machine

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Post tags: katy, Legendary Steam Train Photographers, lose, Michael, quiz, Sarah, Sean, uni

Westminster Abbey

We went to Westminster Abbey – actually paying to go inside a Church. It was surprisingly worthwhile, as there are stacks of dead people in there. I saw the tombs of stacks of royals: Elizabeth I, Henry III, William & Mary, Mary Queen of Scots, and Mary I, for example. Unfortunately though, they are sort of hidden between a lot of filler. Nobody really wants to see the ex-MP for Exeter, whoever he was.

There were also lots of other important people: Newton, Darwin, Thomas Hardy, various old-timey Prime Ministers and so on. Now no one can say that I haven’t drummed on top of Chaucer’s grave.

It was also sort of funny to see the spot where Oliver Cromwell was buried, until Charles II got it removed. There’s some sort of RAF memorial there now.

By far the best bit, though, was what is apparently BRITAIN’S OLDEST DOOR. Here is a photo of me, knocking on BRITAIN’S OLDEST DOOR:

There’s even a sign explaining that it is BRITAIN’S OLDEST DOOR. It even made the news.

David Davies

It seems like only last week I was slagging off David Davies. Whilst walking through Westminster today I spotted him being interviewed for the telly. Here is a picture of me stroking my beard with him in the background, as if to imply that he is saying stupid things and is a twat:

We also saw Sanchez from Garth Merenghi’s Darkplace walking down Tottenham Court Road, but I don’t have a clever picture of me arsing about with him in the background.

Apple Store

We walked up Regent Street to find the Apple Store. And I got to have my first ever go on an iPhone. And it turns out that I really, really want one. Anyone from Apple reading? Send me an iPhone for free, please? I’ll review it and say nice things!

It was literally the best thing since sliced bread – the interface was incredible. The scaling, the scrolling, everything. The picture was sharp as anything. Its just a massive shame that £270 is ridiculously expensive, even before you consider the £35 a month contract.

We also had a go on the Apple TV – which is a set-top box/media server sort of thing, and I ended up watching my own YouTube videos on a massive plasma telly in London. Which was cool.

Conclusions

London is still cool. iPhones are excellent. Important dead people are interesting. But perhaps the most pertinent conclusion is that I am still a dreadful tourist. However much I try to fit in, complaining about tourists, reading the Metro on the Tube, walking around like I know where I’m going, I’m still Oyster-less and have to get about by using the most humiliating ticket known to Londoner: a national rail day travel-card.

• One last lie from Blair
• Whoring myself out to marketing
• Look away now if you’re easily offended
• Nerdy blog update!
• Halloween

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Post tags: bouff, britain's oldest door, david davies, graves, iphone, london, westminster abbey

One thing I worried about before going, aside from potentially being eaten by lions, was the car insurance implications. I mean, do the park pay for any damage the monkeys make? Or do I have to swap insurance details with the monkey, then ring my insurer and try and explain to them how a primate smashed in the bonnet?

Unlike most worries, this was not baseless: a monkey did actually jump on to the car, and wouldn’t go away. So I ended up driving along with a monkey on the roof to try and knock it off.

After the drive though bit, where we came up-close with a rhino, a bear, a lion – all of the scary animals basically, you can park your car and look around a more traditional Zoo-like area. Unlike zoos though, the animals don’t tend to be behind fences, and you can get right up close to them. Here are some photos to prove this point, in case you, er, don’t believe me:

The best bit though was undoubtedly an aviary, where you can just walk in and be surrounded by birds. Whilst this doesn’t sound too spectacular, you could buy nectar in little cups, so that when you walk into the main area, half a million birds swarm around you and land on you, fighting over the food. Here’s a short video (and I do mean short- it’s only 26 seconds, unlike the eight minute epics I’ve been producing lately):

In retrospect, instead of saying “Hello” to the bird at the end, I should have said “So, do you come here often?” to maximise the gag. I guess this is why proper film makers write scripts.

But yeah, it was good. Recommended.

• Roller Skating Dream
• London Zoo
• Revolutionary Graffiti
• Paris Miscellaneous
• More tedious “I hate students” stuff.

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Post tags: animals, katy, safari park, video, woburn, zoo

We tubed to Embankment station and walked down Whitehall to College Green. The plan was to get to Parliament and see if we could blag our way into the last Prime Ministers Questions. We were unsuccessful, unsurprisingly. But walking down Whitehall, who should we see heading towards Downing Street, but none-other than TV’s Huw Edwards. I’m not sure if he noticed me excitedly saying to Katy “Holy shit! It’s Huw Edwards… fucking hell! Huw Edwards!”, whilst wildly pointing at him. I hope he did.

Bizarrely, despite the old adage saying that the camera adds weight, he seemed to have a fatter face in real life than I remember from the TV. Rubbish geeky quip: maybe the BBC studio uses 2.35:1 ratio cameras and they squash the picture?

When we got to Parliament, we were told by a woman working there that there were no tickets available until “about 12:30″ (the time PMQs ends) – she seemed completely oblivious to the significance of the day.

College Green was a hub of excitement – and according to Wikipedia – the roof of an underground car park. All of the news crews were there. You can tell its a big day when they’ve got the gazebos out. The BBC were there, Sky were there. ITN were probably there but they didn’t make themselves very visible. Even the Austrian national broadcaster, ORF were there.

As we got in everyone’s way, we noticed a number of big names. There was Julie Etchingham (Newsround circa-1996) presenting live for Sky, Jon Sopel (a man who is fluent in French, unneccessary fact fans) presenting live on News 24. I was surprised to see Andrew Rawnsley there, not only because ITV seemed to have opted for broadcasting mindless bullshit in the form of This Morning, rather than covering the most important political event in ages, but because his jaw is even more massive in real life. I’m not sure why I keep judging celebrities on their faces.

Quentin Davies, the Tory defecator defector was there being interviewed too, as was Tessa Jowell. On watching the News 24 coverage when I got home I was impressed with her. When Jon Sopel interviews her if she thought she still had a job, the ultra-Blairite said that she’d love to stay in the cabinet, despite it being obvious that she was destined for the figurative rolled up carpet in the back of Brown’s figurative Mafia car. Knowing this, quite incredibly, she said “but that’s not what today is about”, religiously defending the incoming Brown regime. That’s pretty impressive, as if I were sacked, I wouldn’t religiously defend my former employer. But then, I don’t do anything religiously.

Talking of former employers:

As PMQs drew to a close, we wandered down from College Green back to Whitehall, where by now crowds were starting to gather. There are some hinged barriers in front of the gates of Downing Street which are used to keep the proles back whenever people need to get in and out – despite the barriers being in use, as we were all standing in a big crowd waiting for Tony to fuck off, normal pedestrians, seemingly uninterested by the day’s festivities tried to push their way through the crowds carrying multiple bags of shopping from Tesco’s, only to get frustrated and turn back when they realise the barriers were in use.

Not being funny, but who goes and does their shopping, then on the most important and widely publicised political day of the year decides to go home via Whitehall? Would they just have walked past Downing Street without giving it a second thought? Is that how Londoner’s operate? “Oh, it’s only Downing Street, so what?”.

We witnessed Tony come back from PMQs as his car swept into Downing Street for one final time. After maybe half an hour the gates opened again and his car whisked him off to the Palace. It was a bit underwhelming in a way, as the whole car passing bit lasted maybe twelve seconds, and the windows were tinted so we couldn’t even see him.

Across the road were some anti-war protesters dressed as Guantanamo detainees – despite having the best viewing spot of everyone gathered there, they unfathomably decided to wear black bags over their heads so they couldn’t see what was going on. I’m all for staying in character, but this was history in the making, and they missed it.

After this, following a tip-off from the political blogs, we headed down to the Treasury, as we knew that’d be where Gordon Brown was leaving from before heading off to the Palace himself. Katy and I got a spectacular viewing position – if it weren’t for the hundreds of armed police officers in the vicinity, I could have easily happy-slapped Gordon Brown as he left. Take a look at the video to see for yourself.

Sky’s Jeremy Thompson (doing a pre-record, in which we were clearly visible in the background) and Jon Craig were there (doing a live), and the BBC’s Carol… someone or other was there. Michael Crick was there for Newsnight too.

Again, this only lasted a few seconds after quite a long wait. Brown walked out, waved a bit, got into a Ministerial car and was off. The media were calling it a “limousine”, whereas Katy rightly pointed out it was a red Vauxhall of sorts… which doesn’t look or sound too fancy.

After this was over, we headed down Horseguards Road, round the back of Downing Street, heading towards the Mall. Excellently, parked up on Horseguard’s Parade were Tony Blair’s Removal Vans. Here’s a photo with me by them:

I could have been standing literally inches away from Tony Blair’s guitar or Cherie Blair’s juggling balls.

It was an exciting day. Now watch the video.

• Political Suicide
• Blair shits in woods.
• Political Predictions
• “Muslim Leaders”
• Bye, Election

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Post tags: blair, brown, katy, labour, london, media, moving, prime minister, Television