(no subject)
May. 8th, 2018 05:43 pm( Update to FIL situation )
My Saturday excursion to the pro-choice rally was well worth doing, I think. There was a surprisingly large 'March for Life' which culminated in Parliament Square, so the group I went with was set up with signs and chants etc to protest them as they walked past us into the square. We had some brief but rousing speeches from a succession of speakers before the March arrived, and then practised chanting! Some women who were just passing actually decided to join us, I know this for sure because I was stood next to a couple of them. Extraordinary number of chaps with cameras taking pictures of every.single.sign and the person with it, and nobody at all asked anyone's permission to publish said picture anywhere. I think some of them were 'our team' and some of them were definitely not. Tried to smile and look like a normal person, anyway.
There were a few people from the MfL who obviously wanted to convince some of our lot of the rightness of their cause, and one or two of our lot who were ready to fall for it and have an argument, but by and large the organisers kept things well under control. I hardly think that the middle of Parliament Square on a very sunny day, with traffic all around, people *everywhere*, an amplified speech and a bunch of chanting, is a good place to have an intelligent argument on the merits of one's point of view—though inevitably my night's sleep was delayed by the need for me to convince the MfLer in my head that she was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Glad I went, anyway.
So I headed back over to Stratford—obligingly the Jubilee line joins Westminster and Stratford, a thing I had not realised on the outward journey. I wandered around the Olympic Park for a bit, and then met up with![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ephemera for iced coffee/tea and a natter before I went to get my bus and she went home.
My Saturday excursion to the pro-choice rally was well worth doing, I think. There was a surprisingly large 'March for Life' which culminated in Parliament Square, so the group I went with was set up with signs and chants etc to protest them as they walked past us into the square. We had some brief but rousing speeches from a succession of speakers before the March arrived, and then practised chanting! Some women who were just passing actually decided to join us, I know this for sure because I was stood next to a couple of them. Extraordinary number of chaps with cameras taking pictures of every.single.sign and the person with it, and nobody at all asked anyone's permission to publish said picture anywhere. I think some of them were 'our team' and some of them were definitely not. Tried to smile and look like a normal person, anyway.
There were a few people from the MfL who obviously wanted to convince some of our lot of the rightness of their cause, and one or two of our lot who were ready to fall for it and have an argument, but by and large the organisers kept things well under control. I hardly think that the middle of Parliament Square on a very sunny day, with traffic all around, people *everywhere*, an amplified speech and a bunch of chanting, is a good place to have an intelligent argument on the merits of one's point of view—though inevitably my night's sleep was delayed by the need for me to convince the MfLer in my head that she was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Glad I went, anyway.
So I headed back over to Stratford—obligingly the Jubilee line joins Westminster and Stratford, a thing I had not realised on the outward journey. I wandered around the Olympic Park for a bit, and then met up with
ephemera for iced coffee/tea and a natter before I went to get my bus and she went home.