As if this day wasn’t boring enough, the FBI raided Ahimsa harddisks, and amongst others, stopped Indymedia UK from functioning for quite a while. At such moments I am so extremely happy that we now have our independent Indymedia Scotland site, which stays up and can be used in such emergencies; however, in such moments it seems everybody helps together to get another site up and functioning as soon as possible. In these repressive moments the solidarity between Indymedia volunteers could not be stronger, it is in such moments of emergency crisis that I love the Indymedia network most. On a slightly different note, I might have a new job soon, somebody saw me during political organising and was so impressed he offered me a job in a charity organisation.

Am still pretty exhausted from the Big Blether weekend, particularly as I had a fever, which is completely odd if you are camping and you are cold at the back, warm on the front and have a glowing hot head sticking out in the cold. Also, I got drunk, which helped me to sleep through in the slightly wet tent and supported the transport costs of the helpers with the marquee and geodome, as they were running a raffle beer bar, but added to a huge headache on the Sunday to run around with an ataxia similar to the BSE induced spongiform encephalitis.

This weekend the Big Blether is on in the Scottish countryside. Have been there on Tuesday, it is located in an amazing place this year, on the mountains over Loch Tay, with a stunning view over the lake. Slight disadvantage that my exhaust fell off on the journey. Luckily enough one passenger… aehm not quite repaired it, but made the journey continuable, the exhaust is now lying in the back of the car and it is incredibly more noisy and smelly. The venue is an embryonic community, named Culdees, however, it is less of a community as the landlady wants to make all the decisions by herself and seems to be slightly unpredictable in her decision making.

Have looked around a bit for events on at the ESF and found a criticism of PGA, the Peoples Global Action. Guess usually it would always browse by myself without any further notice, but there is one political alliance very relevant to here, the Dissent! network, which is based on the PGA hallmarks. A lot of the criticism on the PGA seems to be made on the issue of funding and how money is distributed & used for and from which sources it comes, which is always a tricky topic. Have borrowed out another drill from another neighbour., it is a little bit like taking part in a “Which” or “Stiftung Warentest” consumer protection and product quality research magazine.

My neighbours are moving out, and giving a lot of stuff away. So far I got a mixer, a coffee machine, a colander, a tent, a stativ and a lamp. A futon is still held in reserve and it would be good for next years big event to have some more comfy guest facilities – though it might be discussable if futons are comfy. Also I still try to get the holes into the wall, have borrowed out my neighbours drill which is battery powered and just doesn’t really work that well, it gets stuck in the holes instead of making them deeper or larger.