missed deadline

It is gone midnight: therefore I have failed in my original intention of posting a blog each day for 1 year. Please forgive.

Yesterday we travelled to Cardiff to register our protest at the "English Defence League" a spurious body committed to being nasty to immigrants. This is particularly galling for Cardiff, which of course has had a highly diverse, and peaceful ethnic community dating back more than 120 years.

In the event, highly organised police action kept the opposing factions over 100 metres apart: their insurance against serious trouble. Here and there a group of protesters would make a break across the "no-go" zone between the 2 groups and the police would move in very quickly with the horses. I got in amongst it at one point and snapped away at anything that looked interesting. At one point I found I had 3 Muslim women in my viewfinder and pressed the shutter. They were incensed, and later some young chap found me in the crowd and expressed his disapproval of taking photographs of the women without their permission. We had a lively debate about the limits of privacy when appearing in a public place; the rights of a journalist to record events on the street as they happen, and so on. When I got home I realised it was inevitably the best image out of the 100 or so I took that afternoon.

It occurs to me what was wrong with their attitude. If you go a demonstration, then your very intention is to be seen demonstrating, is it not? If you want to protect your privacy, what the hell are you doing there in the first place?