Just been on the London march, and still in London now...

Thought it was going to be a somewhat boring SWP style march/rally type thing,and by the time i got to Hyde Park was wishing that i had instead gone to Fairford, but just as i was leaving to find a phone, there was a mass sit down in Oxford Street, at the crossroads by Marks & Spencers, blocking the traffic in 3 directions and drawing police attention in the form of a helicopter.

Probably about 4-500 ppl blocked Oxford St (there were probably about 400,000 on the march imho) and as i got there (about 5.30pm) there was one, presumably Muslim, protestor waving a Palestinian flag on top of an empty police van (for some reason the 2 police vans were parked there with no police in them), and after some chanting and noise making he was joined by a second guy with an American flag, they started to burn the US flag on top of the police van, at which point about 5 black clad police appeared out of nowhere on top of the other van, grabbed the 2 Muslim protestors and started laying into them, not100% sure if they were using their truncheons or not... ppl in the crowd started throwing bottles and sticks at the police, who seemed to ignore it (i didnt see anyone else arrested than the 2 on top of the van),but many more police started arriving and blocked the 2 other sides of the crossroads (so the only way out was going back towards Hyde Park).

At this point it got a bit odd, an Imam(? - hope my description causes no offence, i dont really know anything about Islamic religious practices) cleared a large space at the front, between the buses stopped by the sit down and the protestors, and a large group of Muslims started ritually chanting and praying in Arabic, which left most of the non-Muslim protestors loking a bit confused... they stopped after a while and the chanting "No War" resumed again.

A samba band then started up and one protestor carrying a Green Party placard somehow managed to climb on top of one bus, and for the next half hour we all danced, blew horns/whistles and chanted while surrounded by ludicrous numbers of bored looking police... ileft at 7pm looking for some food but for all i know it is still going on now...

The ppl on the buses that were blocked all seemed really supportive, smiling and waving (although after awhile i think the police let the drivers leave and the buses were left parked so everyone got off).

I also met someone who had been to Fairford today in the middle of the sit down - apparently the coaches from London to Fairford were turned away about 10 miles from the base, altho apparently some ppl who arrived in cars were allowed to get closer to the base and were spoken to by George Monbiot, but still couldnt get into the actual base... anyone just got back from Fairford like to post what happened to them?

Bush and Blair will not be able to continue their war for much longer if this level of public disruption is kept up for as long as they remain in Iraq...