We started fairly early as the exhibition began at 12:30. The location is all the way along New St, through the food-court of the library complex and across the broad footbridge to the International Convention Centre on centenary square. We were pretty much at a low for numbers; one of our guys doesn't answer at home or work so presumably is on holiday, others were tied up or had various problems. Still, a sturdy little band of Dave with boombox and Jens with helium balloons, later joined by Martin Poulter, arrived opposite the awning of the convention centre and began to put our message to the crowd.
As we pitched up, a little creepy guy came and more or less sat in my trouser pocket to make a mobile phone call. He said that "a tramp was looking for me and would throw more than Guinness this time" -- a reference to an incident at Saint Hill where they once bribed a homeless nutter to come and attack us. Despite a small picket of 2 or 3, there was a whole cluster of local and Saint Hill clams running around counter-leafleting. Later the Jive Aces appeared under the awning and tried to drown our speech out with amplified music; it didn't work very well. I started singing 'Xemu Loves You' to the beat and key of whatever they were playing.
Later some OSA clam objected to use playing brief extracts of Hubbard's speech. He didn't know which organisation owned the copyright. Jens was all for being sued, but I launched into a protected parody "the Xemu Rap" (original words and music (C)Dave Bird) instead. By the end of the demo we were really getting going and heard well over the top of their music. However, we'd done our three hours and we decided to go home. All in all, we had a grand day out.
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