Friday 22 August 2003

Inside London Flash Mob ##2








Look at all the Tauraus' and Virgos in The Griffin at 6.10pm. The bar staff were rushed off their feet getting cokes and half pints for everyone who then turned round and watched Friends on the TV screen over the fruit machines. Atmosphere was lively with anticipation. People checking their watches and looking intently around in case they miss something. We tried to look nonchalant and not stare at the fruit machines (rumours of last time the instructions being left on the fruit machine). 6.20ish a slip of a girl gave me a tiny scrap of paper with the instructions on. This message will self destruct in 10 seconds... Planners discussed exactly what it meant - which side of hungerford bridge how long it would take to walk there. Suddenly the bar cleared, some confused man who had been at the back of a sea of people got to the front of the queue in a split second and joked with the barman about ways to clear a bar, barman shrugged.

Strolled down Villiers Street to Embankment and passed through the underground station and up onto the footbridge. 6.30 a roar of AHOY! went up as a train went passed (instructions said - wave heartily). Spent 10mins waving frantically at trains, shouting AHOY! at passing boats and clicking our fingers, not answering the phone calls we had instructed our friends to make to us at 6.35. Trains tooted, boats blew their horns, passengers waved frantically back. We stood laughing waiting for another passing passenger service. At 6.40 we left, in all different directions and paid complements to two complete strangers. Someone liked the colour of my hair. I liked someone's shirt.

I met bails for a drink at the Royal Festival Hall - she said it looked hysterical from the pavement - hundreds of people shouting and waving off the bridge. She was really pleased because someone had told her she had great hair (she was quite put out that they may not have meant it because they were instructed to do so).

What a laugh!

For more information London Flash Mobs and report. And I've just discovered over at Diamond Geezer that there was another mob dancing and singing in the rain in Somerset House who then came and looked at us from Waterloo Bridge.

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