CIRCA

Aldermaston 24th March 2008: We are the Bottom Inspecting Gaggle of the Brigade United Mondiale (BIG BUM) of CIRCA and our mission is to sniff out Stinky Bums. Nuclear Bums are extremely stinky and offensive (sic) and so are the Bums of the police who protect them. CND protesters Bums, by contrast, tend to be squeaky clean and smell of roses. It is our job to separate the Stinky Bums from the Sweet Cheeks! There is also the question of texture. Police tend to be hardasses while protesters buttocks are soft as a baby’s – er – bottom. As tailend-charlies, we have to put the squeeze on the hardasses and, unavoidably, fondle a few protesting posteriors into the bargain! For our mission, if we choose to accept it, each CIRCA BIG-BUMmer will need some or all of the following equipment: 

Toilet rolls, which may be worn bandolier style but which must not – repeat not – be thrown over the fence of the Aldermaston Base at any point; ‘Ban the Bum’ posters and CND symbols doctored to look like buttocks; Gas masks, pegs for noses…Imitation (?) pooh – plastic doggie dos or similar smell-like substances to pull from behind a putrid Plod. Apparently malt loaf can be readily formed into replica turds and eaten! Chocolate puddings…Sniffer-dogs (toy dogs on the end of sticks) or knowing-noses (noses on sticks) for getting around the backside of putrid PC Plod; Score cards with values from -9 to 9, as per Olympic events, to hold up when a Bum has been sniffed out; A stinkometer anyone, as per Peter Snow’s famous swingometer? Yellow Cards to warn a suspect Bum that a little personal hygiene would not go amiss and Red Cards for a Bum that is just so foul it merits an immediate sending off; Deodorant sprays containing rose-water or sweet scented air to puff at those pongy police butts. Maybe talc…Flowers to give to those found to have Sweet Cheeks; Toilet brushes should take the place of the conventional Clown duster for this operation and may be used direct on offending posteriors   

We must clean up the police and then the waste that is nuclear weapons, so let’s use our oh-so-vivid imaginations! But remember, you Clowns, it’s a toilet out there so let’s be flatulent, let’s be fetid, and let’s be having you! For logistical information on accommodation and transport, check out http://www.cnduk.org/aldermaston/ . Let’s meet at the Home Office Gate on Paices Hill (see http://www.easterncnduk.org/aldermaston/gatemap.php ) from 11am for a Karzy Council. Note that in an allied operations, Clowns will posse up with the Grimmer Reaper to deliver new improved nuclear death to Aldermaston…  

Clownesque Techniques, Physical Theatre & Political Performance with Glasgow Kiss   

Saturday March 15 & Sunday March 16, 10am - 5pm
Carnival Arts Centre, 34 Albion St, Glasgow
please email jampaz@riseup.net to book a place

throughout the weekend, we are hoping to touch on a variety of techniques, including elements of the Rebel Clown training, other clown techniques, physical theatre and perhaps forum theatre. It will be challenging & is for people who want to explore different ways of using our bodies and minds for nonviolent civil disobedience and creative colourful ways of alternative living. And it will be interactive - not just “us” teaching “you”, but us all going through an exciting group process together. And of course it will be a weekend full of joy, outrageous silliness and frivolous fun. Bring on the Carnival!

And the training is only the beginning… It is meant to stimulate an excitement in creative activism, to be explored further in subsequent practice. We’d like to develop a think tank on how to effectively apply these techniques in social, environmental & political activism - we will be having an open meeting on this at the end of the workshop.
Let’s start now - if you want to take part in the weekend and have any ideas or hopes about what you want to get out of it, please email us!

We could perhaps extend the weekend until Sunday evening or Monday morning to all go out together and putting play into practice. To be followed up by more weekends like this to go deeper? - exciting potential!

- please remember to book a place so that we get a rough ideas of numbers, and please come only if you can make the full weekend training. if you can’t make both days for exceptional reasons, please contact us.

- the training is absolutely free! Only bring your enthusiasm. If you need a place to stay in Glasgow overnight, let us know & we’ll try to work something out

http://www.the-swarm.co.uk/
www.glasgowkiss.org uk

Don’t forget Aldermaston on 24th March. What’s our story? The theme of the action - surrounding the base - is ‘the bomb stops here’. Or did we hear that wrong, was it ‘the bum stops here’? So, Clowns will start with a Bottom Inspection, a seach and stop opeation. Then… Trident’s replacemen’s is ‘one-thousand times more powerful’. So, the rumour is that a sexed-up, mega deadly, Grimmer Reapa and possee will deliver it to the base… CU all there, Capten ‘KABOOM’ Cyboli

Big Shoe Camp in Wales? Any takers for a Big Shoe Camp training in Wales in the near future? We need as many Clowns as possible to go to Aldermaston to help the Police deal with some very naughty peaceniks, femernists and hippies! Contact Trwper Twp lotte.reimer@btinternet.com

Calling all clownlets!

It’s not-so-grim up north ~ just a bit Mancy! Big Shoe training 23rd-24th February, Manchester University Union/Jabez Clegg, Oxford Road. Come Fish in the fog… GiggleGaggle in the gale… Sock in the Snow and play hug-tag to keep warm!

Mancy Clowns are a-go-go and everyone’s invited! Big Love, Lefleg Nicnoc

haveyousnookeredyourself@yahoo.co.uk

Hooray! Maybe there is a god! And she obviously thinks that it is time for the cops to get back into the protest movement when they march for more pay in London. So, let’s welcome them with open arms (but keep the pink riot shields with purple glitter ready if they are to do anything violent), let’s show them that we believe in the right to demonstrate, the right to protest, the right to march the route they choose, the right not to be policed, the right not to be kettled, LET’S SHOW THEM THAT WE WOULD NEVER ACT LIKE THEY DID IN THEIR PREVIOUS LIFE AS THUGS! Get those feather dusters out, the banners for the freedom to protest, the we-believe-in-your-right-to-protest-will-you-now-believe-in-ours? posters out, the now-you-know-what-it’s-like, the let’s-march-together-to-Aldermaston, the hug-a-hoodie/helmet, the a-policeman-smashed-my-face-and-i-still-believe-in-his-right-to-protest… Invite them to join real democracy! We want change and we want everybody to be part of it. Er….that’s it, really. Hugs, feather dusters, love and respec, Trwper Twp

On March the 24th, Easter Monday CND are organising a surround the site event at Aldermaston Atomic Weapons Establishment to celebrate 50 years of Protest and the right to carry on! We are trying to make this event as colourful as possible and would love all the CIRCA blocs to come and join us! We always need help with police liaison!!! Mell Harrison, mellcndeast@cnduk.org, 08453370282

Dec 6 2007 by Sarah Miloudi, Western Mail
Protesters dressed as clowns and polar bears forced work on a controversial opencast mine to be abandoned yesterday. The group, who included the author and campaigner George Monbiot, chained themselves to machinery at the Ffos-y-Fran site in Merthyr Tydfil, bringing work to a halt. He and 30 other protesters entered the site at 9am yesterday morning, and a group – known as the Aberystwyth Rebel Clown Army – forced diggers to stop work by dancing around in front and waving feather dusters, in protest at the site’s environmental impact. The group then climbed onto the industrial vehicles and took over pieces of site machinery. Many of the protesters refused to leave the site despite being warned by police that they could face arrest. Speaking at the site, Mr Monbiot said, “I am here for two reasons. Firstly, the Government is currently negotiating over climate change and this mine contradicts everything it says it is trying to do.“The mine will dig out approximately seven million tonnes of coal, but give 30 million tonnes of carbon dioxide – equivalent to the emissions of 35 million people every year. “Secondly, it is devastating for the quality of life of the locals.”
More at http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/news/wales-news/2007/12/06/clowns-take-control-at-opencast-site-91466-20209599/
Clowns, polar bears and elves (elf & safety) were part of the Rising Tide Network in Wales http://risingtide.org.uk/

Pull a prank that packs a punch. Roll up, roll up! The climate circus is in town. Climate change threatens our very survival, but the fools at the head of the fossil fuel empire continue to plunder the earth, with governments the willing court jesters at their side. They would have us believe that we can escape climate change with techno-fixes, market mechanisms and offset schemes – all technocratic acrobatics that distract us from the truth: the only real solution to climate change is to keep fossil fuels in the ground. For over a century the fossil fuel industry has been fooling with our lives. From extraction to combustion they have poisoned our air, polluted our water and ruined our climate. On April 1st, 2008, we’re going to turn the tables and show them who the real fools are. Find a local fossil fool – the coal-mining clown, the offset contortionist, the aviator tripping on the high wire, the supermarket food mile freak show, the oily strong man, or any other fool that deserves your attention – and join with thousands around the world in taking one step closer to dismantling the fossil fuel industry. On Fossil Fools Day, bring the spirit of carnival and mischief to the fight for climate justice.

www.fossilfoolsday.org.uk 

www.risingtide.org.uk