Whistles

©  2006  Rose George

A pre-trip test blog: I ended up inadvertently in the stop the war/peace/hands off lebanon march through London, which was passing in front of Waterstones where I was buying books on China for my trip to Hong Kong on Monday. I watched it pass, and listened to an excitable American saying on her phone that there were a million people and they were all blaming Bush - not true on both counts (”Who let the bombs out? Bush, Blair, Olmert”) then tracked it on my bike round the back streets of Mayfair, and ended up at the end in Hyde Park. A man was selling whistles for a pound a whistle. His slogan fitted with all the socialist worker stalls - “make them hear we're here,” but he didn't. A passing nice lady leaned over to me and said, “I think he's a Jew trying to make money out of us.” She turned out to be Palestinian, but still…Soon after, the third speaker said “do we support Hamas?” and the crowd said “yes” and that was me done. I don't support Hamas. Or Hizbullah. Or Israeli jets and malign realpolitik. I cycled home in the rain and a cyclist signalled heavenwards and said, “It's nice, but you forget how wet it is.”