On the barricades and behind the cameras in London

OUR day of covering the protests starts with a failure: the Whitechapel Anarchist Group, whom we had emailed about interviewing, fail to answer their phone (too busy preparing to spread mayhem if other press reports are to be believed, though their blog huffily decries these accounts). At 7am, the City is quiet. Work traffic is light for a weekday, and my camera-wielding colleague and I are keen to get shots of the City prepared for protests, so set off looking for banks and offices that have shut for the day. HBOS and Halifax both sport locked doors, but security guards prevent us from filming. Frustrated, we head toward London Bridge where one of the marches is due to start.

We see no protesters at first, but the march is not due to start for another hour. Suddenly, we spy a young man gripping some red signs. They have words like “interest” and “poverty” and percentage signs on them, so we hurry after him, skidding across the station concourse in our eagerness to talk to someone, anyone, who might have some kind of gripe with the world. He is tolerant of our desperation and answers our questions willingly enough. ...