In the lantern parade in the village this evening with Kate and Dash, we found ourselves near the front of the parade at the point whether the crowd reached a fork in the road and had to be compacted into one of the forks (the other being open to traffic). So there we were, trapped between a small brass band and some mounted police in front, and a jolly but inexorably advancing crowd behind. I turned to the lady behind me and said “It feels rather like being kettled.” To which she replied, nostalgically, ‘Oh, it’s years since I’ve been kettled. But I remember what I was chanting when it happened: “Kill, kill, kill…”‘. I hope my face didn’t show my mounting horror at this point, because she went on to explain “Kill, kill, kill the bill”, against the criminal justice bill’. Phew, that’s all right then! She then went on to tell me that, growing up, she was so proud of her cool aunty who got arrested at Greenham Common. Very sweet.
I resisted the temptation to go one-up!