From Jens Tingleff Six of us had a very nice and productive afternoon out protesting in front of the body-routing grounds of the Birmingham, UK, shop of the criminal organisation known as the "church" of $cientology. Dave, John, Hartley, Neil and myself started off spomewhat apprehensive. The clams had somehow gotten wind of our plans to protest, so we didn't know what was waiting for us. It turned out that what was waiting for us was a police van with three friendly police-persons in it. They wanted us to be nice and would expect the clams to be nice. It also turned out that no clams came out to play, so we had a clear run (sorry!) to do ou thing. Dave had new balloons (larger, clear, single two-toned image) and a lot of balloon gas. I was basically busy for one and 3/4 hours handing out ballons and ended up giving away everything we brought - roughly 250 balloons festooned with Xemu's friendly face and the message "$cientology Sucks!" We were joined later by a local parent and a friend of the parent, brining our total number to a very healthy seven. The leafletters managed to pretty much give away all the five hundred leaflets we'd taken along. I only had one longer conversation with a bystander, so I didn't get a feel for the reception of the protest. All the teenagers who passed by wanted a balloon, though, so the good word got out to the target audience. All in all a very nice demo and a grand day out.