(nicked from Indymedia, because they won't complain)

Despite living in Edinburgh right next to the Meadows, I wasn't sure whether I could be bothered to go on the Make Poverty History march. This is a bit of a shocking admission for someone with such strong ethical views. In the event the issue was resolved by my hangover (which was caused by having a whole bottle of the strawberry flavour of this to myself on Friday night). I went out to the rally to meet my family but left before they went on the march.

Demo Hijackers: There were a few of these but you can't really do much about it except laugh. Played "spot the trot" for a bit, there were a few "make capitalism history" t-shirts around. In general I agree with a lot of what anti-capitalists say, but they have to stop using the phrase "anti-capitalist". When you say you are 'anti-capitalist' people think that you want to abolish money. Which is obviously arse.

One of my friends who was a steward reported that the stewards' briefing rapidly degenerated into socialist-worker-style political bickering. The highlight, apparently, was a woman who was outraged that the caterers at the rally were actually going to run at a profit.

The highlight in demo-hijacking terms was probably my little sister taking the paper bit off a placard of George Bush with "#1 Terrorist" written on it. When I asked what she was doing, she said, "well, this isn't really appropriate for today, but I want one for my wall". Almost nabbed one for myself but I'd rather people talked to me to get my politics, rather than inferring it from my living room decorations.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign were out in force too, but had obviously been kicked off the Meadows and were on the street outside.

Trade Onions: I almost left my union a while ago when they decided to start boycotting Israeli universities. Now, don't get me wrong — I'm in favour of putting pressure on Israel to work towards a Palestinian state (boycotting universities is almost certainly not the way to go about this, but that's another argument).

The reason I opposed the boycott is that I thought that trade unions should work for the benefit of members without becoming political on areas unrelated to their purpose. So, for example, it would be ok for the union to take a point of view on student fees, and lobby the Government, but not on the Iraq war. There was a lot of trade union involvement in the Make Poverty History march (in particular, Unison sponsored the stewards) and I'm forced to reconsider my stance. Without the unions' support and experience in organising demos it might not have been so well organised or successful.

(Note: My union have now withdrawn their plan to boycott Israeli universities because lots of their members complained. Some even threatened to leave).

Party: By the time the first lot of marchers had finished (about 15h30) I was much recovered. A lot of my friends were there (in different groups) and I got several phone calls to see if I was in. Thereafter there was a steady stream of people in my flat until about 1h30. I really like this kind of party, impromptu and with people arriving and leaving through the night. I didn't have any food in, and didn't want to cook, so after a quick trip to the shop we had fruit and salad. This worked surprisingly well and was very popular considering the lack of fat / salt / meat. Also nobody seemed to mind that my front room was crowded by a weights bench and an upturned bed.

During the afternoon we were mainly watching / taking the piss out of the live music stuff that was on. Seeing random bands on the TV is a really good way to find out more about your friends' music preferences.

The party ended with five of us drinking, two having an impassioned and surprisingly well informed debate about the Iraq war (without conclusion, big surprise) and the other three having a game of Boggle. I lost against my regular Boggling-partner for the first time ever by two points. The third player was a friend of ours who got a rather respectable score for a first ever game, especially considering that he's dyslexic.

In the idiom of Scoop, +1, Would Protest Again, But Hope I Don't Have To.