By the News Hound
Wow, what a week in Bristol NUJ.
Marching here…marching there…and a branch meeting too.
It did mean I didn’t really get too many walks, which wasn’t all that good because I got a bit bouncy and scratched the carpet, which I just couldn’t help.
Mistress did a big sigh when she saw it and that made me give her a very sad look, and push my nose against her hand to say sorry. We were friends again after that and she gave me a piece of ham.
Anyway I’m glad I didn’t go on that march in London. It was full of Hardcore Anarchists and Menacing Extremists who charged into Fortnum & Masons famous for delivering Tea to the Queen. The Mob Ran Amok and there was a Battle of Trafalgar Square! I saw it in the Daily Mail.
All those words made me think about cannons and the sea blowing up in huge big waves and fire, and also scary men in black balaclavas hurling ammonia everywhere in sinister light bulbs and smokebombs, the protesters surged and the Ritz was attacked and it was a Day of Violence. There were pictures full of red smoke like Turner’s sea battles as well.
The sea! The Cannons! The Hardcore Anarchists! The Bombs! The Violence! OH NO!
It unsettled me so much, I had to bark for quite a long time. Then I had to sit down and eat a biscuit.
I’ve never seen a Hardcore Anarchist, but while I was eating my biscuit, I thought that if I met one throwing an ammonia bomb at me, I would properly snarl.
I’ve never snarled before, only once, at a man on a bicycle.
So the Daily Mail kind-of called that nice march, with so many well-meaning activists in it, a battle – the Battle of Trafalgar Square. Isn’t that a title that yokes together with violence, as Samuel Johnson said? Not that I would know.
They didn’t really call it that, but it was all in the same headline, so the words Battle, Trafalgar, fight, arrested, hardcore, anarchists were the ones that seemed to describe the word ‘march’.
I mean clever people could probably figure out the difference, but I’m only a dog.
The Daily Mail says, on the front page, that at least 31 police officers were hurt, 11 of them taken to hospital.
But Wikipedia says from Al Jazeera, at 19:59 on the night of 26 March, that 5 policemen had been injured.
Al Jazeera mean the daytime disruption, not the night-time disruption. There is nothing on Wikipedia about the night-time disruption because it wasn’t part of the march.
But the Daily Mail says that there were 84 ‘reported injuries during the protests’. So the Daily Mail doesn’t tell you which bit is which. Which was at night, and which was the actual daytime march?
By putting all those words together, the Daily Mail makes it seem as though the march itself was full of violence, even though I know it wasn’t, because a lot of dogs were there on leads, and babies in pushchairs and musicians playing instruments. There were half a million people and it was definitely not violent at all.
Our Branch Vice-Chair says so on this website and she was a steward there, so she should know.
It makes me wonder how come the people at the Daily Mail don’t understand the difference between night and day, when I understand it and I’m only a dog.
Here is an explanation for them.
Night is when the sun goes down and it’s dark.
Day is when the sun comes up and it’s light.
Maybe they couldn’t understand it because they were just very scared of the Hardcore Anarchists and Menacing Extremists when they wrote that headline, and got muddled up.
Perhaps our Branch should take a Motion to send them some biscuits to calm them down. I don’t mind donating a few if I have to.
Another Dog
I didn’t go on the March to Find James Bubear in Bath either, which I’m quite glad about as there was Another Dog there, Mistress says.
That dog was quite alarmed by all the hundreds of students marching through the city and chanting and giving out leaflets to remind people about how their friend, writing student James, who is just 19, has been missing now for 2 weeks.
Our NUJ branch has helped them. The march was on the TV news and in the Bath Chronicle and other papers. It is on Facebook on ‘Help Find James Bubear’.
James disappeared in the night, and it was dark.
I was very very sorry when I heard about what happened to James, and if he is found, I will jump up and lick him on the nose specially.
Two words: Come Home James!
