16 July 2008

Meeting Magoo and WBM

So the protests continue. We have now started raiding Bristol. Although there is no visible $cientology presence here there have been incidents here in the past, such as the suicide of Richard Collins in 1996. He jumped to his death from Clifton Suspension Bridge after being harassed by salespeople from the cult trying to book him onto new courses and prevent him leaving.

The Jive Aces, a $cientology swing band played a gig in Bristol recently, drawing some belated attention from Anonymous. We plan to hit their next gig here in September. The band are also playing at a summer party at St Hill, East Grinstead on 3rd August. Plans to protest the town and manor on that date are already in place.

We won't sit back and let Bristol become a recruiting ground for this cult. With the losses and disruption being caused by Anonymous worldwide, it would not surprise me to see the cult trying to put roots down in new territory that they believe to be free of Anonymous. If we make a lot of noise now they shouldn't get a chance.

At the last Bristol mini-raid on 5th July we got a good response from the public and managed to find a few new recruits for the main event on 12th July. The next Bristol raid is scheduled for 9th August.

London on the 12th was epic. Numbers were up from May and June, in no small part down to Anons flocking in from Brighton and further afield to meet Tory "Magoo" Christman and Mark "Wise Beard Man" Bunker who we flew over from California to be with us.

I was excited about meeting them, but never imagined I would end up going to dinner with them! They were in high demand all day and generously hugged all those who approached them, WBM even allowed people to stroke the beard! At the end of the day, after much nattering in the pub post-raid (I sat at a table with some Bristol Anons and Tory, as well as Anonyunderpants from York), we moved on to a rather nice Chinese restaurant. It was slow going, due to poor Tory's bad feet and there were about 25 of us, so we couldn't all be seated together.

I ended up at a table with my parents, a rather nice cult researcher, some Bristol/South West Anons and the celebrities. It was slightly surreal, but excellent fun and an experience I'm not likely to forget!