death to the rich kids

It´s been a long time since I wrote, and there´s no excuse really, other than the fact that I have uneasy relationship with computers since my laptop was stolen. I can´t help but be annoyed by the ones that I use in internet cafes; all big and shiney and not nicked.

We had the film crew in the palace the other weekend. They´d agreed to pay us about seventy quid for using the palace, which we thought was a splendid reward for having a few people in the house waving camcorders around. Then the day of the shoot dawned and the doorbell went at about six in the morning.

Outside were about twenty people with two trucks full of equipment. There was a generator, a traintrack for lighting, various bits of scaffolding, a portable editing suite and lots of other things I don´t know the name of.

The film was about an eight-year-old boy who is dying of cancer. One night in his bedroom (which was Dave´s room repainted in a sombre blue) death appears to take him away. Somehow the boy ends up playing scrabble with death for his life.

Carl, the Swedish chap who has moved into the Billiards Room was quite outraged. "But that is just a copy of a very great Swedish film," he said. "Ingrid Bergman, the Seventh Seal. Playing chess with death." He got a bit more annoyed when I suggested that the Bergman film was plagarised from Bill and Ted´s Bogus Journey, where they played twister with death. "You are a very silly person," he said.

I had another taste of tear gas on May Day. Jess, Little Dave and I had walked down to the centre to see what was going on. We´d obviously missed the main riot, as Septima was already trashed. Shop windows were smashed, graffiti was daubed on every wall and troops of riot police were on every corner relaxing and eating their sandwiches.

Just as we thought everything was calm the robocops finished their packed lunches and decided to clear the centre of town. The first we knew was when the gas hit us. This must have been a new recipe, because it was so much more powerful than any I have ever experienced. It´s impossible to resist it or even giggle, as soon as it reaches your nose you have to run. Strangely, it didn´t seem to affect Bruno, who was quite relaxed by the whole thing.

As the lines of police began pushing the public away from the central square the anarchists and lefty warriors returned and started throwing rocks at them. It all seemed like a bit of a game. They´d turn up, make some noise, brandish sticks, throw a few cobbles and then run as the police surged forward. Each confrontation would end with the punks being replaced by the crowds of families who would reappear and start wandering around eating ice creams in the bank holiday sun.

Watching the clashes really brought home to me what a topsy-turvy world we live in. All the ´revolutionaries´ were clearly middle-class university students who are probably scions of very rich families. After all, imported Sex Pistols t-shirts and Doc Marten boots don´t come cheap here. The riot police, on the other hand, are all from the poorest families. National service can be avoided here if you can scrape together a few hundred dollars to buy your way out. They obviously couldn´t.

So there it was - rich kids throwing stones at poor boys in the name of international socialism. Something, surely, has gone wrong somewhere.