("I came, I caw, I grumbled a lot...")
As a first-time political protest attender, this was a mahoosive damp squib. Nothing happened.
Allow me to be a little more accurate. A lot of things happened, but none of them amounted to much more than the civil disorder version of a wet, dribbly, fart.
So what, pray tell, was this waste of time I attended? The 'Save Brexit' rally in Parliament Square today. I left about an hour or so later, utterly bored and tired (I'm not had a good sleep last night, which didn't help).
So what the hell did I attend this afternoon?
Having seen these kind of things on the television news in the past, I was expecting an energetic crowd, full of righteous anger as to the utter farce that Brexit has become, shouting from the rooftops so as to even be heard in the chamber of the House of Commons, so as to coerce them into doing The Right Thing and nailing a leaving date to the calendar.
Alas, that was not what I got a hefty whiff of.
It was crowded, smelt of diesel, sweat, and spilt beer in places, didn't scream as much as grumbled, and Police and media helicopters, two at a time, hovered overhead, so we got their rotor sounds in stereo (that certainly didn't help the sound system on the stage, and more on that later!). The overall impression we got from this was that no-one had a bloody clue what to do next.
A good couple or few thousand people in that Square were milling about, trying to find somewhere to stand where they weren't being barged into by others with the same idea, tourists meandered all over the place, apparently wondering, like the attendees, WTF as going on, and asking me - ME! - what was going on, as if I had a bloody clue (Hells bells, I wasn't even wearing a high visibility vest, the usual people-magnet-like clothing that normally attracts such inane questions as "how to I get to Sutton, please, guv?!").
We couldn't even understand what was being said on the makeshift stage, as the sound system was emphasising the bass range, and not the mid-range, thus rendering any speech to what can only be described as sounding very much like "Argle bargle gargle margle bargl buggle muggle parp". I have NO idea what bloody language that is, by the way, so don't ask. Others around me were looking just as confused and bored as I was, by this time.
It felt as if the effort was being sucked out of the place, there was such a feeling of muted mass depression and impotence. The BBC earlier reported that there was a feeling of mass anger. Maybe. From where I stood, it was a lot different to that, truth be told. Disquiet, yes. Anger, yes, to a certain point, but more than that: Impotence, due to our not being able to affect or influence those people we put in a place who were supposed to actually LEAD us out of the EU, not prevaricate us to a consignment of eternal bondage to the EU.
This was not, on balance, something that was going to erupt into a frenzy, an orgy if you will, of mass hysteria and violence. Mass muttering appeared to be the order of the day, instead.
It had the civilised nature of a middle-class "That's just not the done thing, old chap" tea party gone slightly awry.
Even that right wing nut "Tommy Robinson" (real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, now there's a really matey lower class name for you. Not) couldn't rabble rouse more than a muted few jeers (or was that cheers? No-one could really tell) on his reporting that the House of Commons had, once again, failed to reach a verdict on how to proceed on Brexit.
The assembled pissed-off people didn't, it seems, even have the energy to spit on the tarmac, let alone riot. It would appear that the utter mind-sapping farce that is Brexit has robbed us of even that capacity.
Then the drunks appeared, from the direction of Trafalgar Square, coming down Whitehall, with a bevy of skinheads of equally soberless nature. Once on Tower Bridge Road, opposite Parliament, and between us and the tube station (dammit), and with a couple of carriers-worth of Public-Order-kit-equipped members of the Metropolitan Police's finest standing, poised in epic boredom behind them, did they then break into song, which, in the event, was an off key (painfully so, God help our ears) rendition of "Rule Britannia". Repeated a few times, it was even more off-key with every verse, if that was even possible.
Even THOSE worthies hadn't the energy to break into riot (of course, the previously-mentioned riot troops behind them might have had something to do with that).
It kind of summed up the event for me.
So, the hell with it. Nothing of any real worth was going to happen, and certainly nothing of any massive bad either, aside from maybe drunken scuffles. So I left, just under an hour after I got there.
I strongly suspect that has SOMEONE decided to take proper charge, a meaningful rally could have been had. But there as no apparent programme, no actual aim, no guiding hand to a higher political goal.
There was nothing.
It had been billed as a celebration of Brexit, back before Parliament buggered up the 29th of March as the leaving date.
And no-one had the foresight to retroactively make this a day of political action.
Political inaction was the order of the day, today. Even Parliament noticed that, as it again voted to fudge up the mess that is Brexit.
Sad, innit?
So much for them paying attention to us, the people.
I've been told that the rest of Europe views the UK as a laughing stock, due to the Brexit mess.
I can honestly say I cannot bloody blame them one sodding bit.
Anyway, here are a few photos that I took. Enjoy.
Panoramic shot of Parliament Square at around four in the afternoon of the rally.
One of the two helicopters (in this case, a Police one) that hovered overhead, drowning most of any remaining coherence out of anyone even trying to use the public address system on Parliament Green.
The marchers arrive to a bit of "Oh, alright, if I must" clapping and tired cheering, and one, lone, solitary apparent 'Remainer', who booed. He later left, completely unmolested (and probably very upset that he couldn't sport war wounds to the press).
More of the marchers.
And more of the crowd, trying to hear what was being said on the podium (the "stage").
I didn't bother photographing the off-key drunks. You can find those most Friday nights, in most high streets across the country.
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