15th February 2003 London

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Pictures of some of the banners and people at the big "Don't Attack Iraq" march in London. These thumbnails are just details of the larger picture, not straight shrunken versions of the whole picture like I usually do. The usual kind don't suit this subject. The colour ones were taken with a Boots single-use camera, the black and white ones with my Canon EOS 300 and some Ilford 3200, which is good for taking pictures while walking along in February.


1 Jewish Socialists against war	2 Archaologists against war - I can imagine that if you're an archaologist, bombing Babylon, Nineveh, Ur, and several more of the world's oldest known and rather well-preserved cities is a big no-no, to use the technical term.	3 Everyone wanted one of these, which in my opinion nicely expressed the true sentiments of a large proportion of those present, but hardly anyone could find out where they'd come from. They were sponsored by something called Karmarama, which I believe is a band.

4 A young man checks and balances his end of a banner, as we emerge from under a bridge	5 One of the best banners, but only funny if you're a London regular and you know that these walking signboards usually say "GOLF SALE". In fact one demonstrator actually had GOLF SALE, I'm not sure whether he was a London Frenchman making a bilingual pun or had just got swept up in it all while doing his day job.	6 This fine young woman looked incongrously cheerful about the thoughtful and ambiguous message on her placard. I think she was just delighted so many people had turned up to look.

7 Ideal headwear for political demonstrations in London in February.	8 Walthamstow Labour Party had brought their particularly classy banner with its picture of Karl Marx, at least I assume that's who it is.	9 Hard work, this.

10 Looks like a career protestor to me, in this hat, and slightly surprised to find himself utterly swamped by normal people.	11 Another traditional painted banner from Tower Hamlets.	12 A selection of faces in the crowd.

13 A well-timed interjection from the Metropolitan Police	14 One of the reliefs at the base of Nelson's Column is holding a placard, unfortunately I couldn't quite make it out.	15 Small numbers of police looked on, approvingly as far as I noticed, this one is explaining the early (split) part of the route to a demonstrator.