{"id":809,"date":"2004-05-01T20:04:00","date_gmt":"2004-05-01T20:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/u75blog\/?p=809"},"modified":"2004-05-01T20:04:00","modified_gmt":"2004-05-01T20:04:00","slug":"809","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/809\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayday 2004<\/strong>
\n
After the full-on anarchist argy-bargy of previous Mayday protests<\/a>, this was rather a sedate and curious affair.<\/p>\n

The main protest had been cancelled beforehand and replaced by a picnic in St James Park. This sounded like fun to me, so we popped along mid-afternoon and found a ball-less cricket game in progress, put on by those mischievous chaps, the Space Hijackers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Cricket<\/p>\n

The players were nicely turned out in full cricket whites, with a small gazebo serving as a club house and pavilion (with pimms available).<\/p>\n

Billed as ‘Smash Capitalism for Six!’, their accompanying leaflet implored you to “Bring your trusty wooden bat, swing for glory and whack capitalism across the boundary”. Wonderful stuff!<\/p>\n

Because ball games are outlawed in the park by-laws, the cricketers played with an imaginary ball instead and took the virtual game very seriously indeed while the police looked on, baffled.<\/p>\n

A large and unruly football game kicked off nearby, starring several urban75-ers with differing states of fitness and skill.<\/p>\n

\"Football<\/p>\n

An ad hoc adherence to the rules was adopted, with the occasional ‘pile-on’ adding interest. I scored a fantastic goal (well, OK, the defender was only 11 years old and the goalkeeper was on the phone, but it still felt good).<\/p>\n

Sadly, the football action was accompanied by some of the worst singing I’ve ever heard with painful ‘interpretations’ of punk classics being delivered by a tuneless woman, a trumpet player and – to add insult to injury – a fucking clown in full costume.<\/p>\n

Happily a mobile sound system turned up later and pumped out some restorative ska tunes.<\/p>\n

To be honest, I’ve no idea what the point of this year’s Mayday was.
\n
But it was a hell of a lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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