They had brought in Scientologists from all over Europe to boost the numbers standing in the rain, and having to walk past our posters and our slogans. For what one would have expected to be a joyous celebration for the Scientologists, they were mostly pretty glum - especially the staffers who looked as if they had realised that everything that went wrong was going to be blamed on them.
We started at about quarter to twelve. Just before one, a Scottish bagpipe band arrived and had to stand in the poring rain until Scientology was ready. When they marched out again one gave us the thumbs-up and shouted "I'm with you". Eventually the speeches began, interrupted by loud cries of "Rubbish" from Tony. At about two the speeches ended and the Scientologists wandered off, as did we, having had a wet but enjoyable day.
I arrived at the rendez vous point earlier than the others so I took advantage of having a bit of time in hand to scout the area and view the "enemy" camp and their preparations prior to the engagement (sounds good, doesn't it).
The main approach was completely sealed off by police and a substantial presence of Co$ guys in dark suits, so I decided to walk around the building and try other approaches just to see what was going on ( if anything ) on other sides, so I gradually discovered that EVERY single road or alleys, all around the main building, were guarded by people wearing dark suits making sure that no "undesirables" could get anywhere near the event ( who could these people be anyway . . . ? Cool ), and I have to say that the one thing that really hit me, when I was looking at how they sealed off the whole area, was this feeling of fear and worry in the whole area when, at least in theory, this should have been a very happy event for them ( obviously no one of those attending had done The Way to Happiness Course, or at least they should have been flunked ), I swear the whole scene and atmosphere prior to people arriving, looked and felt like the opening of a new Gestapo interrogation centre, rather than the opening of the latest jewel of the only hope for mankind in London.
When I found out the the big man himself ( little David that is ) was attending, then I realised why the whole scene was permeated with fear and tension; any dedicated staff member was obviously painfully aware of what the slightest displeasure caused to their Fuhrer could have meant.
After returning to base camp I met with two other SPs who arrived in the meantime, and I was told that a 3rd SP was currently making the final arrangements with the Police for us to begin our contribution to the grand opening, as per LRH policy on exchange.
The OSA clams nearby were not pleased !
One of them went immediately into SP alert mode, and started making his ARC felt, with the usual remarkable communication skill that you could expect from an Homo Novis, at which point the nearby Police realised that it would have been a very good idea to put an extra barrier in between us and them and told them to leave us alone ( with the only TR40 that any staff members truly understands ), and so the clammers, after trying to control both us and the Police with their amazing ot powers, decided to leave us alone, as they realised that a public display of ot powers could have caused a serious amount of restimulations and enturbulation in the still mainly aberrated London area.
The Police on the scene have been very professional, kind and understanding, throughout the entire event.
Once the clammers realised that they were not allowed to use their ot powers, they settled for diverting the incoming flow of people as away as possible from the spot where we were standing, in order to prevent them from seeing us and our Xenu and placards, as they were apparently fully aware that the confront level of their followers is very high only when they are in a registrar office and have to go for the cheque book or credit cards.
This tactic made little difference as there was little room available and we were strategically placed so most people saw us anyway, and they greeted us with a mixture of surprise, displeasure, sarcasm, and all the theta you can expect from such hopes for humanity.
I cannot stress enough how very few genuinely smiling faces were present during the sad, long procession, and the sarcastic smiles coming from the OSA guys supposed to handle us, were patetically fake as you can expect. FLUNK !
The combination of mainly dark clothes and sad faces made it look more like people going to a funeral, rather than to a grand opening.
The most satysfing thing during the whole picket was the fact that, thanks to their PR people and organization, our small protest has received quite a bit of attention by the medias present, all free of charge. :-)
So in the end, after enduring quite a bit of rain, and when it became clear that the event was over and most people were leaving, we got our very wet, but happy selves, out of the area and went back to base for debriefing.
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