A BOOK IS NO SUBSTITUTE FOR A RIFLE: But it does help sharpen one's aim!

The weekend started with a drive up to London for the 22^nd Annual London Anarchist Bookfair. The event, as you would imagine, involves lots of stalls selling… you guessed.. books, magazines pamphlets etc all with an anarchist theme. The event gets bigger every year, attracting around 4,000 people throughout the day.

Originally there were 5 of us going but on the day it was down to just two of us, me and me mate Tom from Newport. We cruised along and managed to find the venue without any wrong turnings and very little reference to the A-Z. This year the venue was a resource centre in Holborn, North London, near Arsenal’s Ground. It was by far the most modern venue of any of the Bookfairs I have been to.

There were three large rooms set aside for bookstalls, stalls covered just about every aspect of Anarchism; Confrontational (Class War), theoretical (Aufheben), grass roots housing co-op type stuff (Radical Routes), international (various international groups), local (Bristle and Norwich Anarchists), big(ish) dealers (AK Press) and stalls selling one particular magazine (SchNews/Black Flag). On top of that you had everything from animal rights and anarcho feminists to ‘anarchists in social work’ and much more.

Within and hour or so I had spent more than the ‘limit’ I had set for myself, on CDs, Books, Magazines, Pamphlets and DVDs, so I headed off for one of the numerous meetings going on. I went to ‘Where next after the G8?’; a meeting called by members of the Dissent Network. It proved to be a good opportunity to meet up with loads of old friends from the network from all over the country, but to be honest this was about the tenth meeting entitled ‘Where next after the G8?’ and as yet none of the meetings have come up with an answer. There did seem to be plans for a ‘consulter’ (Zapatista speak for conference) next February, which will hopefully finally come up with an answer of some sort, or at least something that we can work with for a year or so.

Whilst walking from one meeting to another, I got a text telling me City had slammed 6 in against Crewe Alexander, winning 6:1. I had to make a call to make sure it was true. It was. Nice one. A pleasant end to a pleasant afternoon.