The Bath Bomb
@nti-copyright: copy and dis­trib­ute!
Issue #11
free/donat ion
June 08
Our pen is a molo­tov, and we’re gonna write all over Tesco!

Shall We Demo Rolf, You And I?

Last week saw one of the more bizarre demos in the his­to­ry of Bath Ani­mal Action, as they took the fight to Bath Race­course. The cause was well known ani­mal wel­fare activist Rolf Har­ris doing a gig after a night of rac­ing at the course, which BAA con­sid­ered a tad hyp­o­crit­i­cal bear­ing in mind the ter­ri­ble death and injury and whip­ping rate of race hors­es. (A one in four chance of a race end­ing in death at Bath race course, and much high­er nation­al sta­tis­tic, not to men­tion the fact that only 40% of pur­pose-bred hors­es are con­sid­ered ‘good enough’ to race. Evi­dence indi­cates that many of the ‘fail­ures’ are shot at the sta­bles or slaugh­tered for meat). So opposed to ani­mal cru­el­ty is Rolf, that he even wrote a leg­endary song enti­tled ‘Slaugh­ter on the Ice (shall we do it you and I?)’ in which he con­dones the mur­der of ani­mal abusers. Don’t believe me? You can check it out on the Rolf­sters’ Myspace! Mem­bers of BAA turned up on the night, joined by a two-strong counter demo to encour­age Rolf not to do any more race course gigs and let pun­ters know about the cru­el­ty they sup­port. After­wards, activists head­ed inside, leaflet­ing over 250 cars and, notic­ing a stack of pal­lets by the stage, one scaled the pal­lets and blast­ed Rolf’s ani­mal rights song at him through an MP3 play­er rigged to a mega­phone, while the crowd were shown dis­turb­ing images of horse rac­ing acci­dents. Secu­ri­ty stood by, look­ing uneasy, and formed a line to try and pre­vent activists get­ting on the track (some­thing they had no inten­tion of doing!). After remind­ing Rolf of his own moral con­vic­tions through the medi­ums of song and heck­ling, the activists slipped into the night, job done. What was sup­posed to be the race course’s biggest ever bash turned into a coup for the pro­test­ers, forc­ing the bru­tal­i­ty of horse rac­ing to the top of the agen­da, and dom­i­nat­ing talk and media cov­er­age of the event. And as for Rolf — he even praised the demo in the Chron­i­cle! We even heard a rumour that lat­er that night, a bal­a­clava’d pen­sion­er was heard scream­ing ‘burn, you ani­mal abus­ing bas­tards!’ in an Aussie accent while dous­ing the main stand in kerosene. Shall we do it Rolf?

http://seehere.blogspot.com/2006/07/rolf-harris-canadian-seal-cull-protest.html
http://www.chai-online.org/en/compassion/entertainment_racing.htm

Cli­mate Action Starts on Your Din­ner Plate

Bon appetit! On Tues­day the 3rd June, mem­bers of Bath Activist Net­work and Bath Ani­mal Action proved that, some­times, there is such thing as a free lunch, as part of a nation­al­ly co-ordi­nat­ed day of action on the rela­tion­ship between the envi­ron­ment and food pro­duc­tion. Designed to coin­cide with the start of the UN talks on Food and Cli­mate Change, activists gave out deli­cious veg­an food from 12–3pm near the Pump Rooms on Stall Street, point­ing out the neg­a­tive eco­log­i­cal impacts of the ani­mal prod­ucts indus­try, such as land theft, defor­esta­tion, methane emis­sions, food scarci­ty and aquifer pol­lu­tion. Food for thought, you might say. They also offered a side help­ing of edu­ca­tion on food miles, bio­fu­els, dead­ly agri­cul­tur­al chem­i­cals and GMOs, advo­cat­ing wild for­ag­ing, grow-your-own schemes, skip div­ing, and pos­i­tive local food ini­tia­tives to sink your teeth into, such as the Lon­don Road and South­side Food Co-ops. The stall was much-loved by near­ly all, espe­cial­ly the choco­late torte — although it did leave the near­by sausage ven­dor and Envi­ron­men­tal Health busy­bod­ies with a sour taste.

See here for leaflet: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=103798308&blogID=402206974.

And for all of you who missed it on the day, here’s the recipe for that torte:

1. Line a cir­cu­lar dish with grease-proof paper and smear with a small amount of veg­etable oil
2. Smash up some hob­nobs and coat the bot­tom of the cir­cu­lar dish
3. Melt the fol­low­ing ingre­di­ents in a bowl over hot water, stir­ring: 450g dark choco­late, 5 table spoons of brandy, 5 table spoons glu­cose syrup or liq­uid glu­cose, avail­able from most chemists.
4. When melt­ed, add 1 pint of soya cream and stir.
5. Pour the mix­ture into the dish and put in fridge overnight 6. When you take it out of the fridge, dust with choco­late pow­der.

http://www.networkforclimateaction.org.uk/
http://www.vegansociety.com/home.php

Veg­an­ism, You Can’t Say ‘Fayr­er’ Than That

The week­end of the 31st of May and 1st of June saw a con­tin­gent of Bath veg­gies take a trip to the annu­al Bris­tol Veg­an Fayre. The event was a veg­an’s dream, with bands rang­ing from Aswad to Bad Man­ners, and more free sam­ples of veg­an choco­late than you could ever imag­ine. As well as this, the event pro­mot­ed envi­ron­men­tal aware­ness, advice on healthy eth­i­cal liv­ing, nation­al and glob­al ani­mal rights cam­paigns, and offered veg­an cuisines from around the world, as well as (sup­pos­ed­ly) the largest veg­an bar­beque ever. The debate of much of this year’s fayre was also ‘raw food’ diets and more activisty fare revolv­ing around ongo­ing cam­paigns against cru­el­ty. The week­end was a goodun, and upon tast­ing veg­an cheese ‘Sheese’, the one veg­gie in the Bath con­tin­gent flipped to veg­an­ism, tak­ing her boyfriend with her — result! Oh yeah, thanks to all the stalls who donat­ed food to the Bath free lunch event such as Sheese, Yag­ga and Har­vest.

http://www.bristolveganfayre.co.uk/

Bath Foie Gras Free! We Won!

Final­ly! After a year of relent­less demos, blood, sweat, tears, and a good deal of beg­ging for mer­cy, Bath cen­tre is Foie gras free! The news came after the Roy­al Cres­cent agreed to drop the sick del­i­ca­cy after a noisy demo fol­lowed by what we can gen­uine­ly call a civilised and pleas­ant dis­cus­sion (seri­ous­ly!). After that, it only took a phone call to the Bath Spa hotel to per­suade them to ditch foie gras. The final list of estab­lish­ments who no longer sell reads as fol­lows — Le Petit Cochon (now ‘Pinch’), Epicerie Gour­mande, Beau­jo­lais, Bistro No.5 (who, like Le Petit Cochon, unfor­tu­nate­ly had to learn the hard way what hap­pens when foie gras slips back onto the menu — direct action stylee!) The Fine Cheese Com­pa­ny, Roy­al Cres­cent Hotel, Bath Spa Hotel and Cavendish Hotel, who were up for a scrap, but ulti­mate­ly got KO’d at the end of round one! After a long, hard and often tir­ing cam­paign, we are glad to be able to leave the foie gras cam­paign on a high note after deal­ing with rea­son­able folks such as the head chef of the Roy­al Cres­cent. Nev­er ones to take a break, Bath Ani­mal Action are busy sniff­ing out more ani­mal abuse in the city, and will be check­ing up on cer­tain restau­rants on a very reg­u­lar basis. So, for now at least, from all of us over at Foie Gras Free HQ — over and out!

Smashed EDO

On Wednes­day the 4th June, 5–600 anar­chists and anti-war cam­paign­ers from around the coun­try descend­ed on the offices of bomb builders EDO MBM in Brighton, for a colour­ful and riotous Car­ni­val Against The Arms Trade! A small del­e­ga­tion from BAN joined the throng. EDO, owned by for­mer Nazi col­lud­ers ITT, are the man­u­fac­tur­er of the Pave­way mis­sile sys­tem, used in the mur­der of thou­sands in Iraq, as well as oth­er nasty toys used in the occu­pa­tion of Pales­tine. How­ev­er, their evil has not gone unno­ticed, and they’ve been the tar­get of the 4‑year ‘Smash EDO’ cam­paign [of ‘On The Verge’] fame, forc­ing the com­pa­ny to the loss of a huge court injunc­tion to sell off their Rugged Sys­tems divi­sion, and cycle through nine com­pa­ny direc­tors. The parade start­ed at mid­day on the Lev­el, with sound sys­tems, a crit­i­cal mass bike ride, pup­petry, cir­cus per­form­ers and a gath­er­ing crowd kit­ted out in var­i­ous shades of blood red. The chant­i­ng mass then made its way across the sun­lit reclaimed streets of Brighton to the foot of Home Farm Road, where the com­pa­ny is based, car­ried along by the sound of sam­ba and run­ning police. At last, out­side the offices, and faced by a heavy Sus­sex Police and Lon­don For­ward ‘Intel­li­gence’ Team wel­come, the scene turned into a vir­tu­al music video: baton swing­ing, rock throw­ing, push­es and counter-push­es, all set to the tune of Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Know Your Ene­my,’ and the sound of the police. Injuries were trad­ed, eight arrests were made, one cop­per received a white gloss paint makeover, and the cam­paign lived up to its name, with the trash­ing of win­dows, the direc­tor’s car and com­put­ers. As one ban­ner said, ‘Stop killing peo­ple, you fuck­ing twats.’ Whoop, whoop.

http://www.smashedo.org.uk

Tricky Tesco Tries It Again

Is it a turd that won’t flush? Is it that cousin you’ve been try­ing to avoid for years unex­pect­ed­ly knock­ing on the door? Worse, it’s anoth­er fuck­ing Tesco! Just a quick shout out to all con­cerned with the blood-suck­ing par­a­site oth­er­wise known as Tesco. It appears the store’s prop­er­ty devel­op­ers have pur­chased the Bath Press site in a bid to open their first super­store in Bath. Groups includ­ing Bath Activist Net­work are already plot­ting against Tesco, and the com­ing cam­paign promis­es to be a bit­ter fight, but one that we can win. But we will not win unless we move away from the dour nim­by­ism that has dom­i­nat­ed ‘Bath her­itage’ style protest over the past cou­ple of years. What we need is cre­ativ­i­ty, ener­gy and an under­stand­ing that wher­ev­er Tesco goes, and what­ev­er it does, peo­ple, ani­mals and the plan­et get fucked over. We need — and are busy build­ing — an uncom­pro­mis­ing cam­paign that stands up for Moor­land Road, and all small traders, stands up for the envi­ron­ment, check­out assis­tants, shelf stack­ers, Ecuado­ri­an banana pick­ers and Chi­nese sweat­shop work­ers, all used and abused by Tesco. We will fight Tesco and we will win, but we will not just fight Tesco away from our doorsteps, we will fight it as an idea, in its entire­ty — we will fight against every­thing that Tesco is, and hopes to be. The writ­ing is on the wall Tesco — out of Old­field Park, off our plan­et! To get involved in the cam­paign, Con­tact us at bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk

http://www.tescopoly.org/

Bath Bomb Ben­e­fit Bash!

Bath Bomb does­n’t print itself — you do, on your boss’s pho­to­copi­er! But there are still costs involved with run­ning a free sheet, and as always, we’re skint. That’s why we’re using BANers Jon and Fin’s joint birth­day par­ty as an excuse to scrounge cash off the unsus­pect­ing pub­lic. The Gig will start at 8.00pm at the Porter Butt and the sug­gest­ed dona­tion on the door is £4. The line up includes Welsh folk-punk afi­ciona­dos Kiln(A)boy, local dub­sters Dirty Rev­o­lu­tion and psy­chobil­ly leg­ends the Cheater Slicks. We’re also split­ting the pro­ceeds with the Bris­tol Anar­chist Book fair col­lec­tive. Good music, good caus­es, good times, so get your­self down!

http://www.stuffit.org/abookfair/

Bub­bling Under — Cli­mate Camp Spe­cial

On Sun­day the 15th of June, Bub­bling Under will be bring­ing us two mas­ter­pieces of the activist film world cov­er­ing the J18 protest/riots and last year’s Camp for Cli­mate Action at Heathrow. Thrown into the deal will be a speak­er from the Cli­mate Camp move­ment hell bent on talkin’ your ass down to this August’s Camp at Kingsnorth coal-fired pow­er sta­tion in Kent. It is, as always, free entry and will be start­ing at 1pm, and due to the fact that most of Bath’s activists sleep in fields between mid June and Sep­tem­ber, this will be the last Bub­bling under until Sep­tem­ber!

Free­dom To Move, Free­dom To Stay

On Thurs­day 15th May, from 12–2pm, 14 activists from Bris­tol No Bor­ders and B.A.N., pick­et­ed the Bris­tol-based office of the IOM. What’s the IOM, you may ask? Hid­ing behind those three unas­sum­ing let­ters, it’s the Inter­na­tion­al Office for Migra­tion. Beyond the walls of the anony­mous-seem­ing Park­house Busi­ness Cen­tre, 10 Park Street, this shad­owy insti­tu­tion spe­cialis­es in migra­tion man­age­ment: reduc­ing peo­ple to the equiv­a­lent of prod­ucts, they direct the des­per­ate to wher­ev­er cheap labour is demand­ed, and then, when the job’s done, ditch ’em. There’s no job too dirty — when nation­al gov­ern­ments around the world want to wash their hands of the neg­a­tive PR of depor­ta­tion, kid­nap­ping, slav­ery and de fac­to mur­der — i.e. send­ing Iraqis back to war-torn Iraq — the IOM steps in. Need an off-shore, deni­able, con­cen­tra­tion camp to for­get about those pesky asy­lum seek­ers? The IOM’s the com­pa­ny for you! Would you like barbed wire and hand­cuffs with that?

But they don’t just fill a mar­ket niche, like any oth­er busi­ness-savvy enter­prise. These peo­ple deter­mine immi­gra­tion pol­i­cy. They also bribe refugees to go home with cash incen­tives, just so it all seems nice and civ­il — but if you refuse, you get locked up and dragged back any­way. So, in the light of the IOM’s bla­tant breach of every basic human right going, the activists leaflet­ed and spoke to passers-by, lift­ing the lid on the atroc­i­ties of the pen-push­ers inside. The pick­ets will con­tin­ue every month, with the next one on the 19th June.

Mean­while, the day before in Bath, UK Bor­der Agency grunts raid­ed the Ocean Pearl restau­rant in the Podi­um, arrest­ing 7 so called ‘ille­gal work­ers’. This raid was a repeat per­for­mance of that which struck the Cin­na­mon restau­rant of Keyn­sham last Sep­tem­ber [as report­ed in BB#2]. Clair Fen­nessy, run­ning this oper­a­tion, had this to say for her­self: “We car­ry out oper­a­tions like these to put a stop to ille­gal migrant work­ing and its harm­ful social effects.”

Yeah, lady, you’re a saint.

Warn­ing Poi­son Alert

Over the past cou­ple of weeks, pet own­ers in bath around the Syd­ney Gardens/Widcombe area, have been shocked and dis­gust­ed to dis­cov­er a brown syrupy liq­uid that has killed 4 of their dogs and caused at least 20 more to need trips to the vet. The coun­cil denies any involve­ment and has put up warn­ings. The sub­stance, which smells of coal tar/bitumen has been sent to Bris­tol Uni for analy­sis. Dog walk­ers please be aware and if you have any info please con­tact bathanimalaction@yahoo.co.uk

STOP PRESS! So it turns out that the poi­son used was residue dis­charge from fire­works…

Com­ing Up

Roots, Manu­va, Action. Keep your ear to the ground, the Roots Of Change are com­ing. This will be an event on 12th July held in the Green Park Mar­ket from 2–5pm to big up Cli­mate Camp and dis­trib­ute info on cli­mate change issues in gen­er­al. Help make this event colour­ful and well attend­ed!! Con­tact Bath Activist Net­work to get involved.

For fur­ther info on any of our sto­ries see www.myspace.com/bathbomb

EVENTS

Mon­day nights
Bath Hunt Sabs Meet­ing, 8pm, Bell
Wednes­days 4–7pm
Lon­don Rd Food Co-op, River­side Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre
Sat­ur­days 11.30am-12.30
Bath Stop The War Vig­il, Abbey Court­yard
25th June, 6.30pm
Bris­tol Anar­chist Book­fair meet­ing, Kebele, Bris­tol
25th June, 8pm
Tran­si­tion Bath Trans­port Group, 55 New King St
28th June, tbc
Tran­si­tion Bath Local and Wild food event Www.transitionbath.org.uk
30th June, 7.30–9.30
Tran­si­tion Bath Ener­gy Group, upstairs, the Ram pub, Wid­combe
2nd July, 7.30–8.30
Bath Ani­mal Action meet­ing, back room of Bell
3rd July, 7.30–9
Bath Activist Net­work meet­ing, Hob­gob­lin
12th July, 2–5pm
Roots Of Change, Green Park Mar­ket
18th July, 9pm-late
Left­ism, pro­ceeds to BAN, £2/3 The Crown Inn, Bath­wick Hill

Q: Who Are Bath Activist Net­work? A: A local umbrel­la group cam­paign­ing on issues as diverse as devel­op­ment, envi­ron­men­tal­ism, anti-war, ani­mal rights, work­ers’ rights and more. Help­ing to pro­duce The Bath Bomb, we are open to any­one, and our mem­bers range from trade union­ists to anar­chists, lib­er­als to greens, and peo­ple who just want to change Bath for the bet­ter. For details on meet­ings, demos, or just to get in touch, ring us on 07949 611912, email bathactivistnet@yahoo.co.uk, or see our web­site: www.myspace.com/bathactivistnetwork

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Con­tact us by e‑mailing bathbombpress@yahoo.co.uk. Large print e‑versions avail­able on request.

And now, to the dis­claimer: As any­one is free to con­tribute, the opin­ions expressed in each arti­cle are not nec­es­sar­i­ly reflec­tive of each con­trib­u­tor. Nat­u­ral­ly, any right-wing or cor­po­rate bull­shit will be binned and spat on. Need­less to say, the opin­ions of the author of this dis­claimer does not nec­es­sar­i­ly rep­re­sent the views of any oth­er con­trib­u­tor…