No there isn't a photo for this entry, I was too busy at the time..... but there should be a photo of police in riot gear, and police mounted on horses, bikes, in cars and up in the sky in helicopters..... sigh..... I was taking a couple of friends from the US on an excursion to Brighton, in Sussex (UK), a short train journey from where we were staying with our host D.
It was a hot day, we had sat on the train chatting about what we might do when we got to the town.... go to the shops? have fish and chips? ice cream? visit the pier? Lots of possibilities were going through our heads as we stepped out of the train station into....... the police lines!
My American friends didn't seem to think this was unusual (M commented that she hadn't noticed *quite* so many police in one area before) and strode on towards the lines. Meanwhile I began hyperventilating and suggest we stop while I see what the problem is. I'm assuming there is some kind of protest rally going on. I wanted to avoid having to explain to American visitors that "kettling" (a means the police use to contain protesters) is unlikely to end in a nice pot of English tea...!
I approached some heavily kitted out police officers (have I mentioned I like a man in uniform?) and asked what was going on. Seemingly there were two protests going on connected with St George's day (in an effort to avoid having my blog "flamed" by anyone picking up search terms in google I'll not go into detail - it's not that relevant anyway) and the police were there to keep the two different parties aside. It has to be said there were more police than protesters from what I saw - which isn't much given I'm way below minimum height for police officers so couldn't actually *see* above the police lines... Anyway the police officers just directed us to a route that was clear and would enable us to head down to the promenade and away from trouble.... except things had changed and we ended up behind MORE police lines..... I was trying to admire the beautiful police horses but was also rather more concerned about getting out of the way of the protest before things "kicked off". So I had to approach yet *more* uniformed officers (a girl has to do what a girl has to do....) and eventually got directed *out* of trouble...... phew.......
By the time we came out of the Royal Pavilion all was quiet on the streets so we headed off for traditional fish and chips! No photos allowed of the Royal Pavilion and not wanting to cause an incident which might just involve further police activity I complied..... see here for the web site if you are interested though - late 18th Century "bling"!
Thankfully I managed to stay out of trouble for the rest of our visit.....
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