People of all stripes dress up on the third Thursday of each month and do a Colour Walk around and about in Old Spitalfields Market in London. It’s advertised on various sites recommending things to do in London, and that’s how I heard about it.
I went and it seemed that there were as many people photographing as there were parading. I thought the people who were dressed up would be in a group or parading as a group, but no. Rather than that, they were shunted off in ones and twos to stand against a dark hoarding to be photographed. It all felt a bit odd somehow, as though the original bonhomie had gone or deflated a bit.
But there was one person who would not be deflated, and here is a shot of him. I recognised him because I also saw him in the middle of a crowd at the Extinction Rebellion protest in 2019 when protesters nailed a pink yacht to the intersection on Oxford Circus in the middle of London, and handcuffed themselves to the stanchions that secured the yacht.
The police at the time were a bit nonplussed about how to deal with what was then a novel situation. Eventually they made some arrests, but in terms of human interaction it was a success.
Two women I bumped into on the way to the Oxford Circus protest saw only good things that would come from it.
Just Stop Oil, another protest group, have had less success in uniting the populace when they have blocked motorways to protest the use of fossil fuels. And where is Extinction Rebellion now? I haven’t heard from them for a while.
Back To The Colour Walk
Here is a photo of a woman who I think is one of the organisers of Colour Walk. Here she is being photographed by several photographers, with a good natured attempt at a smile.
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