WHEN A QUARTER MILLION BECAME 90K

A very long day really starting way back at 4am when we woke up and left home at 4.30 with a very mild but windy and wet early morning drive to London where we were parked up at the rear of Marks & Spencers on Oxford Street just after 7.30 and as soon as they opened at 8 we were straight into the cafe for a Bakewell tart and cappocino. Then I left Mandy and set off along Oxford St recording the buses which actually seemed rather thin on the ground although all routes appeared to be running. Actually it helped get nice clear shots and I soon was ticking off the new RMs with special liveries and noting just how common they have become. As I headed down towards Oxford Circus I saw some notices about services today and that there was a big demo and march and lots of service alterations and cancellations but we'd heard nothing and I suppose nobody unless in London or involved would have known. I hopped on a bus down to Piccadilly circus and it was obvious that there was limited bus activity, at Trafalgar square I met the first person I knew, one of several during the day, how random is that either London is just a small village or I know people on every street in the country. The bus routes through Trafalgar square were limited and I thought it was best just to give up for the morning and head down to Elephant & Caste surely south of the river services must be a bit more normal. Getting there wasn't easy, no services were running to any sort of order and I asked on Whitehall of the driver of a Go Ahead 24 if he was going anywhere where i could connect to get to the Elephant, he just grunted no, I think he might have been polish, anyway the nest one along was a really nice black chap who dropped me off at Waterloo and instruction which direction to go in and then I met the second person I knew and got the tip off thast the latest new RM route was running and there were several new buses out on it and that it crossed at Elephant & Castle.

I caught another bus from Waterloo there and had a scout around, the far end has been rebuilt with new islands and the mound I used to film from has vanished but eventually I settled on the approach from the city end and then was interupted when workers arrived with a road work warning sign with van and trailer so had to move yet again. Eventuall after meeting yet more bus friends I settled down and got some really great shots of the new buses and the drivers who had been very helpful were real stars, stopping even to pose until I'd got still shots as well. Then I headed back up to the city and ended upo around Aldwych where there was really chaos, Mandy meanwhile had been stranded by a bus who dumped the passengers when it got to the march and then she was really stuck as she hadn't taken the wheelchair with her. The police were reallyt supportive and tried to sort something, they got her a seat at the cafe on Marble Arch and then the parade stopped while she crossed but had to struggle all the way back to her car as there was no transport, it was really a bit much, he was surpprised we hadn't heard about itm but I'd not heard a dickey bird either. Anyway I struggled to make some sense of what was going on there were certainly lots of new RMs about amidst the chaos and then I settled on route 38 and got lots more shots as the sky darkened ready to rain. I eventually tried shots back to Piccadilly circus and then Trafalgar Square and Pall Mall etc before hopping on a bus back to Oxford Street and eventually met up with Mandy with my knee pretty well shot and Mandy with her legs finished, but still she'd managed a bit of shopping!

The police had told her that the helicopter crew reckoned there was a quarter of a million people on the march which took hours to pass but on the new its diminished to 90K countrywide, strange manipulation no doubt at goverment request, free press what free press only free stuff they give is from hacked phone calls but as GCHQ listens in to them all whats new, we are the only country to be so highly monitored outside North Korea, even the cops though Cameroons and his cronies should be locked up..