Saturday, March 25/2009

Wake at 5 to watch qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, F1 season opener. Well, semi wake, anyway, but enough to enjoy seeing the formula 1 world turned on its head as the season shapes up with no certainties at all.

Join the Put People First demo in central London, a broad and loose coalition of Churches, trades unions, Greens, anti-war movements and, more darkly, anarchists, all of whom want G20 leaders to focus less on business and banks and more on common people and underdeveloped countries. There's an amazingly broad range of sponsors, from Quakers to journalists, and an equally eclectic looking group of marchers of all ages, long white beards to babies in pushchairs. Even a few dogs along. We walk from Parliament Square to Hyde Park, led by a small band. Quite a lot of police at the beginning but we're a pretty tame lot. As we leave Hyde Park we see them paying closer attention to some anarchists gathering with red and black flags by the Marble Arch end. A construction area with bits of rubble suitable for projectiles has been prudently fenced off.