Before the ESF

Blogging the WSF in Mumbai earlier this year for the New Standard News (http://newstandardnews.net/wsfblog/) helped me to make sense of a huge and bewildering experience. London ESF is likely to be a very different experience, not least because there is no counterpart (so far as I know) to the ZNet dinner which Michael Albert organised in Mumbai, where NSN bloggers and others from around the world were able to meet face to face.

Having divided up the anti-war events at and around ESF with others, I am not scheduled even to go to Alexandra Palace, but am going to circulate entirely in Central London, among the workshops.

My biggest regret going in, however, is not missing Alexandra Palace, but going to the march on Sunday rather than going to the first screening of Naomi Klein's film THE TAKE, about a group of Argentinian workers taking over their factory.

It follows them over 8 months, and is said to be 'what we are for', as opposed to 'what we are against'. It's at the Curzon Soho on Sunday at 1pm, for anyone who is willing to miss the march!

Instead I will be meeting up with other Voices in the Wilderness and Justice Not Vengeance folk at Gandhi's statue in Tavistock Square at 12.30, gathering leaflets and information briefings to hand out on the march.

Milan Rai (JNV)