One of the main things I've been getting used to since moving into Southwood six months ago is the longer commute into the office. Time-wise its not a huge difference from the old place in Tilehurst, however distance wise its a fair chunk more, and due to the vagaries of road layout the other side of the M4, its a bit indirect as well.
It doesn't help when a bunch of tree hugging wastrels decide to lie in the road of a Monday morning, thus causing huge tail-backs down the only road linking Burghfield to Reading. My ride in goes right past the main entrance to AWE Burghfield (and my house is just outside the primary evacuation zone), and this morning there was a tailback from the town centre all the way to Burghfield Village. Even on a motorbike it took a while to get past the jam, as I had to contend with the various lorries that operate out of the quarries near the motorway.
I really don't get what the protesters were trying to achieve. If you piss people off on a Monday worning they really aren't going to be sympathetic to your cause, they are just going to think you are assholes. More generally, I don't get these protesters. AWE Burghfield and AWE Aldermaston have been around for donkeys years (the 50's as far as I can ascertain). I think everyone agrees that in an ideal world nuclear weapons wouldn't exist...however its not, and they do, and maybe they are just going to have to live with that. I'm pretty certain lying in the road and getting on 10,000 peoples tits isn't going to get rid of them. If you're adamant that you don't want to live in a country with nuclear capabilities, there is always the option of leaving...no-one is stopping you, I doubt you'll be missed...
Comments
Whilst disrupting the monday morning commute is not going to earn you any sympathy it certainly will gain publicity thus highlighting the "cause" and bringing it into the public arena.
I am opposed to trident, I do not agree that having a sleep in front of traffic is going to assist get rid of it in any way but I can understand their point of view.
Time to buy a bulldozer ;)
Whle I agree they got media coverage, the Trident debate has been in the news quite frequently over the last year or so. By choosing this method of protest they are probably biasing quite a lot of people against their cause... I don't mean just the people stuck in the traffic jam.
Yes, they were trying to block entrace to the site, but actually stopping people going in is going to screw the local infrastructure. Why didn't they do something that showed their disapproval without pissing off people unrelated to AWE? Egging cars or something.
Its also worth pointing out that the main wankers were not even local, they had travelled many miles to fuck off the locals.
It seems only fair to me that their names and addresses are disclosed, and then everyone from West Berkshire is invited round to their house to take a shit in their living room, before making some completely arbitary statement about something they don't like. I think I'd make a statement about how crap I think public transport is, while landing a large Mr Whippy in front of their tele (which is probably powered from a Nuclear power station, which if I understand correctly was technology from an offshoot of AWE (I may be slightly off on this, I really don't care enough on the subject of nuclear weapons to look it all up...)
They made Newbury News...so all they have done is piss off people who already know. We get newsletters from Aldermaston telling us what they do.
Nuke them I say. That'll learn 'em.