======== Newsgroups: alt.religion.scientology Subject: LONDON [UK] ANOTHER DEMO, Sat ##19th## April From: Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine Date: Sat, 19 Apr 1997 21:00:20 +0100 In article , Dave Bird---St Hippo of Augustine writes: > On Saturday 12th April we pulled off phase two of our "double whammy" >against the cult in the UK. We aim ideally to have something happening most weeks, large or small, this town or that town, with different groups of people. Sat 18th picket in London was two men and a dog. Some things went well, some failed. The megaphone has a fault. We were to meet another London contact, but that will be separately in a few days time. We got to site about half an our late, 1:30 rather than 1pm. This was not a fixed picket. There are rules about (a) picketing a fixed site or holding large parades, and (b) selling stuff. There are no rules to stop you wandering slowly down the street, leafletting, canvassing, singing or whatever else you usually do on the street, without prior notice to police. We came out of Goodge St tube, and turned right towards the Org trailing Duke on his lead. We wandered slowly past the org with a loud chant of "woof woof glug glug, who drowned the judge's dog, scientology church of dogdrowners," etc. 'Piltdown Engrams' was just bringing two tpaper cups of coffee in from the caff next door and nearly dropped them when we appeared. Then round the corner to Winegan's Fake for a lunchtime drink. Jacques Vollet appeared al immediately. I asked him if he'd seen Bonnie Woods as (according to Scn) us poor internet lusers aren't capable of organising a picket for ourselves. He wasn't much pleased that we were having a crummy little picket of two people. He's quite lazy, and it means he DOES have to keep wasting his Saturday afternoons coming down to London because _something_ did happen, but at the same time it was only just worth his bother. So, at 2pm, another very slow walk past the org with Duke singing one chorus of "they're drowning my doggie in the poo-l...I do hope that doggie can swim". We wandered on leafletting and talking to people. There was one very good contact with a woman student who will clue a lot of other locals in. I hoped some shops such as newsagents etc would put a notice up and maybe tell people--- but nearly all the shops are fairly upmarket stuff like furniture and wouldn't really be interested. Roland tried singing a whole song at the little park, but again this didn't work: without the context of the Org, people don't see it's about scientology they just wonder why this guy is singing in the street. We stopped off at a pub halfway up but didn't make much headway, in canvassing terms, there. We were, however, putting out a steady rate of leaflets. Back down past the Org and a slow march-past with a bit of a chant. Then round past Winegan's Fake and into Goodge Street itself. Much better response here. We stopped off at a pub halfway along, sat outside with Duke and with our cool drinks and..... it was great. We were shifting more leaflets than mobile, just sat at a table in the street taking our dog on a pubcrawl. Duke was superb. he has a true understanding of tone40: to be in absolute control of a situation through _perfect_serenity_. He didn't need to make a loud noise; in fact, I'll swear, he didn't even once open his mouth and bark. He just pointed his wet black nose and gave a pleading look, and the public just came up and begged for leaflets. Most excellent. About 4:15 we took a leisurely stroll back. An area car swept past along a crossing round and nearly swerved into the pavement, as the cops fell about giggling at the sight of our dog with waterwings. Past the org again, and a quick blast of "woof woof glug glug, who drowned the judge's dog -- scientology drowns yer dog!". Roland, who has an even bigger gob than me, took up chanting "woof woof glug glug, scientology drowns yer dog" repeatedly all the way for a 10 or 15 minute walk up to the victoria line tube at Warren Street. We got a _lot_ of smiles and a lot of response. Tottenham Court Road is like a canyon of five story buildings each side: turn your shout at a glancing angle to the building frontage, and there is a _superb_ 1/2 second reverb comes back at you. We also met an anti-cult contact who's a friend of Steve Hassan's and said he would be in touch with us. So, all in all, another nice day out. Two SPs, 200 leaflets in 2 hours, a couple of good personal contacts, lots of good ideas who to build up pressure in the local area. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. __ .' '. "OUR GRAND DAY OUT" : : | _ _ | cracking clams, grommit! .-.|(o)(o)|.-. _._ _._ -- -------( ( | .--. | ) )-----.',_ '.------.' _,'.----------- '-/ ( ) \-' / /' `\ \ __ / /' `\ \ / '--' \ /.' \.' './ '.\ \ `"===="` / ` : _ _ : ` `\ /' |(o)(o)| `\ /' | | http://www. /`-.-`\_ / \ xemu.demon.co.uk _..:;\._/V\_./:;.._ / .--. \ .'/;:;:;\ /^\ /:;:;:\'. | ( ) | / /;:;:;:;\| |/:;:;:;:\ \ _\ '--' /__ _____/ /;:;:;:;:;\_/:;:;:;:;:\ \_.' '-.__.-' `-.__art_by_jgs.