Ten Ways To Greet The Summer
1. We didn't have spring this year, just a long wet winter. But we did for the first time have a May Day bank holiday like the rest of Europe's workers. And we did have a May Day weekend, 80,000 people marching through London to make public their contempt for racism and fascism.
Ten Ways To Greet The Summer
LETTER FROM BRITAIN
by Simon Frith
1. We didn't have spring this year, just a long wet winter. But we did for the first time have a May Day bank holiday like the rest of Europe's workers. And we did have a May Day weekend, 80,000 people marching through London to make public their contempt for racism and fascism. Speeches and reggae bands on trucks and it didn't rain and afterwards a cheery gathering in the park to hear Patrick Fitzgerald (left under a trickle of beer cans) , X-Ray Spex (didn't hear because I was still walking), the Clash (didn't hear because the PA fucked up), Steel Pulse (elegance over half a mile of heads), and the Tom Robinson Band (good crowd-warming stuff and some politics, too). One of the Carnival organisers was Rock Against Racism, whose concern is to bring together black and white teenage hoodlums to bop. They were there alright, scattered somewhat cynically about, but as we all secretly knew, the event was really a grand nostalgic gathering: the biggest demo since Grosvenor Square in '68, the most enjoyable rock festival since...