Have been in London last Thursday, and heard that the newest rumour is, that manipulation, mobbing and backstabbing is now extended against the refugee(s), previously meeting in LARC, the London Action Resource Centre, as The Refugee Forum The Voice. This really needs to stop, somebody – but who? – should put a stop to these expulsion based on exagerated prejudices and manipulations, backstabbing and rumours and agreements rising before the meetings. It is disgusting. I have decided to translate the magazine: “Power Writers – Discovering and Celebrating Five African Writers who came to London in the Eighteenth Century” into German, and asked a friendly local left newspaper to publish the articles, which they seem happy to do.

The WOMBLES have now published their “Reflections & analysis: the WOMBLES, the ESF & beyond” on their website and on Indymedia UK. http://www.wombles.org.uk/auto/reflections.php http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/12/303051.html I have still not finished my write-up of the ESF, will post it here when ready and summarised. Personally, i find the declaration disappointing. It does not answer the questions I have now, concerning the ESF and to the anti-capitalist and “anti-authoritarian” groups in London. Most declarations just seem to state the obvious, but hardly anything new, relevant or “revolutionary” compared to the mainstream or even compared to the dominating thoughts and philosophies within the social movements.

Have been away for the weekend. It was brilliant getting away from politics and to have a bit of a family weekend. My partners family is incredibly nice and friendly and very warm. We also went out of our way to adapt and get some Christmas presents. Looking around, in the shops “Outfoxed” is sold as a mainstream film and video, which is astonishing me, because documentaries rarely make their way into the mainstream, and though “Outfoxed” is a good political documentary, it is also very dry, lots of talking heads and interviews, and not much action at all. To my total astonishment “The Battle of Algiers” is sold even cheaper than “Amelie”, and “The Bee Hive” is also up for grap, as well as some other old revolutionary, communist subversive films (as defined in Amos Vogel: “Film as subversive Art” book – except Amelie, of course).

Today I got a letter from our community activist group. Very happy to see that next year, a lot of courses and groups will be offered; such as “campaigning skills” and “Social Research” and even an “anti-G8 summit” course. The campaigning skills will be of practical use, such as getting the activists of tenants groups to paint banners, make leaflets, videos and similar. I am extremely happy about the “anti-G8 summit” course, it is going to be independent of either Dissent! nor G8 Alternatives nor any other group. At the moments I am sick of both mobilisation groups, maybe it is the time of year, to be apathetic, grumpy and pissed off with everything.

Today I saw for the first time the blog statistic for this blog. It gets about 10 – 15000 hits a month, not that good compared with Indymedia, but probably excellent for subjective musings. What is even more astonishing is, that it has a readership from all over the world – the numbers per hour are usually about the same 24 hours a day, that means it is not only limited to Europe, but also North America and all over the world. The main referrals are from protest.net of course; but also from bloglines, which I should have a look how that is coming about.