Big weekend activist gatherings are usually a market of involuntary exchange- have lost my address book but got a new Edinburgh A-Z map back, and a leather-bound drawing book with cartoons and “karikaturen” of people present at the meeting; got 10 ceramic bowls but the deck chair is missing; and found a badminton set but mislaid my drill, which is about 2 kg heavy and half a metre long, mislaying such a thing is certainly difficult and deemed impossible by me so far. I am thinking about getting a dog if possible one which doesn’t bark much. But first, have to tidy up a little bit.

The Edinburgh Dissent gathering is over now, and it is time to relax. But there is not too much time to relax, as the Big Blether will be the next activist event in ten days, and after that there is the European Social Forum. I have so far never been to one and this year it seems mainly an overgrown “marxism 2004”- as it is heavily dominated by SWP and their front groups. However, in the last months several interesting spaces and discussions have been planned for the Alternative or Autonomous Spaces, which seems far more interesting, so will probably go and have a look.

Just got these poems by email: “The Beatles Updated” Yesterday ——— Yesterday, All those backups seemed a waste of pay. Now my database has gone away. Oh I believe in yesterday. Suddenly, There’s not half the files there used to be, And there’s a milestone hanging over me The system crashed so suddenly. I pushed something wrong What it was I could not say. Now all my data’s gone and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay. Yesterday, The need for back-ups seemed so far away. I knew my data was all here to stay, Now I believe in yesterday. ==================================== Unix Man

In nearly a week and a half we have got a relatively big meeting here, with about 60 or more folks coming from other places, and maybe a dozen or 2 locally. It seems like the organising group has collapsed during the summer, which doesn’t help at all, and feel quite stuck with trying to organise stuff so its at least pleasant for everybody. Now some people are getting back from holidays, hope that helps. On the other hand am trapped in a stupid argument on the www-features list about Venezuela features proposal, which is really deteriorating the atmosphere on the list, which was actually quite good before the whole Venzuela thing came along.

This morning I woke up to the headline on global Indymedia that one of the authorities is making again trouble for Indymedia. So, that as such is not news, but it seemed it is a bit of a double trouble not only with the US secret service trying to stick their long nose into non existant (hopefully!!) log files, why the hell haven’t they just asked to get the stuff hidden? Well at least half a million or so protested yesterday in New York against Bush, which is at least a bit of a relief and hopefully annoying enough for the US administration of intimidation and human rights violation.