Battleships, bloodsports and Batman

On Sunday 12 September, electronic pioneers The Pet Shop Boys played their new soundtrack to the epic silent movie The Battleship Potemkin. For one dank autumn evening we filled Trafalgar Square, 25,000 of us, to watch the great revolutionary drama. Some danced, some talked, some stood and watched, but the roar of approval when the firing squad refused to shoot the protesting sailors was deafening and came from all sides.

This was a uniquely London event, one of those moments that make you proud to live in the capital. A hugely diverse audience, representing all ages, races and backgrounds, brought together by their love for the arts and by a shared belief in the power of peaceful protest to change things. We were overlooked by Nelson, the great symbol of British patriotism and independence.

In the following week, two events took place nearby that emphasised the diversity, passion and good humour of politics in the metropolis. A few minutes walk to the West of Trafalgar Square, a chubby middle-aged man in a lycra Batman outfit managed to scale the walls of Buckingham Palace. Protesting against a system that can make it hard for divorced fathers to get sufficient access to their children, he stayed up there for several hours, waving his banner and occasionally drinking cups of coffee from the palace kitchens.

On the Thursday, half a mile South-West of Trafalgar Square, the Houses of Parliament fell victim to a similar stunt. Four energetic young toffs, protesting the ban on fox-hunting, managed to bypass our government’s sophisticated security systems. These turned out to consist of some unlocked doors, and a few men in stockings and wigs commanded by a figure known as ‘Black Rod’. Arriving on the floor of parliament, the protesters were clearly unprepared for their success and only managed to shout incoherently for a few minutes before the men in stockings dragged them out.

Other great cities and wealthy countries have suffered desperate revolutionaries, only kept away from the palaces of the powerful by indiscriminate firing squads. In London, we have protested for nearly two centuries in Trafalgar Square, a few hundred yards from Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Although many of those who gathered to watch the Battleship Potemkin would not have been supporters of Fathers 4 Justice or The Countryside Alliance, their methods delighted us all, as did the cheerful and civilised response from the authorities.

A city where politics is can be conducted as farce is surely a fantastic place to live. When the Houses of Parliament is defended by unarmed bouncers in silly period costumes and when a group of a dozen middle-aged men can make a mockery of Europe’s most powerful monarchy, then we know we are free, we know we are safe and we know we are having fun.

The Lost Trees

Campaigners are calling for an audit of London Trees amid fears that thousands are lost each year to commercial and residential development. It is thought that there are eight million trees in the capital and although the number planted has been recorded there is no documentation of the number of trees destroyed. Graham Simmonds chief executive of pressure group Trees for Cities, said between 25,000 and 30,000 trees were being planted in the capital annually. “We don’t know how many trees are being lost, but our view is that the tree population is going down the whole time.”

Patrick Stewart boldly defends houseboats

Residents of houseboats moored on the south bank of the Thames near Tower Bridge have won their battle against eviction by Southwark council following a last-minute intervention by science-fiction legend Patrick Stewart. Stewart told the inquiry that he considered the boats and their vibrant occupants a benefit, not a problem. He scoured the riverside for a flat but found other locations sterile and lifeless. He said: ‘I chose a flat in Tempus Wharf, overlooking the Downings Road moorings, because I like the diversity and liveliness of the boats’. The jubilant boat owners, whose homes were described as an “eyesore” by protesting residents, were elated to have saved their 100-year heritage.

Hunting the Haunts at Ham House

Inexplicable ghostly footsteps were discovered at Ham House, a National Trust property, in South-West London this weekend. The mysterious prints appeared on the wooden floor of the inner hall at the 17th Century stately house which has been home to weird and wonderful phenomena in the past. Anne Partington-Omar, the property’s manager who lives at the house said: ‘Once again we are witnessing some very unusual phenomena at Ham House. Be it the appearance of mysterious footprints, the opening and closing of doors, ghostly sightings or unexplainable moved objects’. Ham House, is currently being examined by a team of members from Britain’s time honoured ghost investigators’ club.

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