Stopping the March For England in pictures.

Well, what a day!

Because I was having a nightmare uploading pictures to Twitter I thought I would put the pics on here. Bit of a departure of style for me on here, but thought it would be easier than spamming my timeline and yours!

They aren't in order for the day, but hopefully they will give you a flavour of what was an amazing day.

From the station to the sea, Brighton will be Nazi free!!!

There really weren't very many of them.

This is the cunt who said I should go back to where I was born (Surrey) and that he would find me later for a fight. 

Obligatory hippy in a hat. It wouldn't have been the same otherwise!

Amazing what came out of those windows!

This was one of only 4 arrests I saw.

Nice umbrella. Kind of misses the point of being ENGLISH though.

Police at the beginning of the demo, when there were about 20 of us.

Couldn't be more proud of Brighton today.

The police kettled the scum and we kettled the police!

Must have been a very important tree *nods*

First arrest of the day.

Kept seeing this copper. We named him Shirley.

Looked like they were about to break into a dance routine. Wouldn't have been out of place in Brighton!

Here is Shirley again. This time cleverly disguised in a different hat. We weren't fooled though!

Just before I got the beer thrown at me.

Surrey Police Dance Collective get ready for their set.

Looked empty at this point but we knew Brightonians would come through!

This shows how few of the scum there were!

Favourite chant of the day 'What time's your minibus?!?'

We were right. The people of Brighton did not want the scum on their streets!

The longer they stayed the more people turned up to tell them to go!

Yep, it got REALLY busy!

Water that the police were handing out. Bit of a PR fail really!

Whose streets?

Lots and lots of vans. Wonder what the crime rate in the south has been today?

Lots of anger. So proud!

As the song says, there were many, many more of us than them.

Things got heated quite early on. He was on our side!

Got To Dance #fail

Soooooo many of us 

Things started to get a bit nasty around this time when they realised that we were not having it!

Laughed when we saw how few of them there were.

There was shit everywhere. The horses contributed to that too!

Scum were held at the station for AGES!

Every time we thought, 'Crivvens! That is an awful lot of police' more would turn up.

Think this was supposed to be a dragon. Looked more like a deformed donkey. About sums the EDL up really!

No Room In My Womb... Why I Am Pro Choice

Been a bit of an eventful weekend for this goddess. Spent lots of it doing pro choice stuff. Leafleting, marching, shouting at pro life harassers of women. That sort of thing. Been a good one too. Empowering and knackering all at once.

And I am bloody knackered.

Yet here I lie on a sunday night full of thoughts that won't let me sleep. The following is my attempt to put them in order and get some kip. Fair warning, it might get ranty. It will definitely be sweary. But I will, as ever, be honest.

When I was at the excellent Carnival for Choice with the fantastic Brighton Pro Choice (@BrightonPC) I heard an exchange that has had me thinking. Summed up, it was about abortion being murder. 'Even in the case of rape?' was the question asked. Got me wondering why rape was a special case when a woman is seeking an abortion.

Don't get me wrong, I'm certainly not underplaying rape. I'm a survivor of it myself, the first time it happened I was 14. Luckily I didn't get pregnant, but if I had, I'm sure that I would have had access to safe, legal abortion and only the fundamentalists would have judged me.

The thing I am uncomfortable with is the idea that there are abortions that are more 'justifiable' than others. If you think that, then quite simply, fuck you. I don't want you to feel pity for me because I got pregnant after rape. I want your support because I got raped in the first place!

Abort67, the nasty, fuckwitted organisation who have been harassing women outside abortion clinics in Brighton use pictures of aborted foetuses to 'persuade' women not to go through with their abortion. These images are graphic and upsetting. Not just to women who are seeking abortions though this is pernicious and misogynistic enough. What these narrow minded, holier than thou IDIOTS don't seem to take into account is the amount of women who miscarry every year. I have never had an abortion, but I have miscarried. Twice. I went for my 12 week scan to be told that I had been carrying a dead baby around for 4 weeks. Twice. The procedure they used to 'evacuate' my womb is EXACTLY the same procedure they use for early abortion. So how do you think those pictures make ME feel you cunts?

*sigh*

This blog was supposed to help me get my thoughts in order, not be a messy rant, so here goes. My idiots guide to why I am pro choice.

1. Personal autonomy. It is my body so I get to say what goes on in it.

Yeah, that is about it actually. My body, my choice.

'But what about the father?' I hear some idiots cry. 'It's half his so he has rights too!' I even had someone say to me today that if the man wanted to keep it that the woman should be made to keep it so that the man can bring it up.

Do me a fucking favour! Firstly, the foetus is not chattel. Nobody 'owns' it. Nobody gets to call dibs on it. And that goes at least double for the woman. She is not chattel. Nor is she a breeder put here to be an incubator for 'your' progeny. The role of the man in this is to listen to the woman, offer his opinion and then support her in HER decision.

Seriously men, when you can get pregnant and give birth to a baby then maybe you will get a say. Even then , I would support YOUR right to choose.

I never met a single woman who took this decision lightly.

I never met a single woman who uses abortion as a contraception.

I never met a single woman who didn't have the right to make her own choices about what happens to her body.

Now fuck off out of my womb and my decisions. There is no room for your hatred there.

Channeling Queen Cersei... Why I am #teamlannister part 2

It's back! Game of Thrones is back!!! I am, quite predictably, very excited at this. I love it. I love all the twists and turns and the vain attempts of my friends to steer me away from the Lannisters.

Go team Stark they tell me. Team Danaerys is the way to go! One wag even decided that I should switch my allegiance to the bloody Greyjoys!

Not gonna happen. the Starks are so insufferably noble. Danaerys is good and I have a well known love of dragons, but really? Wake up woman and smell the horse blood. As for the Greyjoys. *yawn* All horn and nothing to back it up with. Theon is a simpering idiot. One who thinks he's god's gift to women.

So it is Lannister all the way for me. The vain Jamie, the wonderful Tyrion, the dreadful Tywin and even the deranged Joffrey. But mainly because of Cersei. Wonderful, loving Cersei.

Everything that woman does is for love.

Don't believe me? Have another look. She is fierce, the lion suits her well. She is all about family and there is nothing she will not do to protect them. Even when she is being unspeakably evil, she does so out of love. That she is losing control over the monster Joffrey doesn't detract from that. She never gives up on him. That she hates Tyrion for killing her mother doesn't detract from the fact that she will never see harm come to him because he is family. And she loves him. She will fight for her father's affection and will kill if it means she gets his respect. Because of love. And her relationship with her brother Jamie, doomed and incestuous as it is will never die because she loves him. A woman with Cersei's strength and guile could quite easily have never got pregnant, and even if an accident had occurred, I know she could have taken care of things and never given birth to the golden haired 'Baratheon' children.

She even loved Robert.

I think of what could have been if he had loved her back. What a team they could have made!

But I digress.

Everything she does is for love. But this does not make her weak. Far from it. Love is what makes her strong. Love is what sustains her in her battles with everyone who would underestimate her. And if and when she is brought low, it will be love, and the strength she derives from that will sustain her through the hard times.

Last night at a meeting I was told that the threat of the far right wasn't really an issue in the area I live. A white, middle aged man told me that the rise of the BNP and the EDL in my area wasn't really an issue.

At that point I started to channel Cersei. I was scathing with him and to be honest, if I could have summoned the King's Guard I would have! I was calm though. Calm and collected and spoke to him in a way that would have scared the seven out of Littlefinger and Varys.

He won't be messing with this goddess again.

For I was channeling a Queen. And a Lannister at that!

HEAR ME ROAR!