We joined the J30 Critical Mass at the Brixton Oval. Prior to that we had been for a while visiting the different pickets in the Brixton area, and we quickly realised that this strike wasn't going to be confined to a ritual Unions march in central London. We stood for a while in the Lambeth College picket in Brixton Hill where we noticed the constant shows of support by the honking cars passing by. In a way these early morning honks put sound to the widespread support this strike had from the 'british public', no matter what the corporate media try to put down our throats nor how the government and 'opposition' try to demonise it.
At around 9.30am, the Critical Mass that had left the Elephant and Castle over an hour earlier, arrived at the Brixton Oval just opposite Lambeth Town Hall, where a picket was being set up as the preparations for a later rally were going on. The mass then left Brixton southbound down Coldharbour Lane in a detour of south London. It passed Camberwell, Peckham and eventually arrived at the picket at Deptford's Town Hall blocking the traffic for 30 minutes or so. The picket then turned into an impromptu demonstration with people on foot joining the cyclist's mass, which again, stopped the trafic of the New Cross area for quite a while. At this point several police vans turned up following closely the demonstration, and, from then on, sticking to the Critical Mass for the rest of the day.
The Mass then made its way towards central London with a 'police scort' of no less than 6 police vans, and eventually it joined the end of the main Unions demonstration. The mobile sound system kept playing a mixtiure of reggae, drum'n'bass, dubstep as well as pop, rock and punk tunes for the whole journey and until the batteries ran out as it got to Parliament Square.
Here there's another report, and here a live broadcast from a cyclist whilst on the move. And below some pics from the first part of the journey:
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Original article on IMC London:
