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'They arrested the gorilla!'
Johann Hari, Evening Standard02.06.08
On the concourse at Liverpool Street station, two men dressed as Tower Bridge are dancing a slow waltz. Their partners are a gorilla and a sex doll that has Boris's beaming face. This is not a strange dream: it is the last party of Ken Livingstone's London.
When I first signed up on Facebook for a final boozy toast to Ken on the Tube, I imagined a few hundred people would appear - but I underestimated my city. As I enter the station, the crowds begin: goths and bankers, Asian teenagers and posh white women, all waving their bottles of Guinness and Blue Nun.
The plan is that we will all clamber on to the first three Circle line trains to leave the station after 9.02pm. As I push through, I bump into a man who is on his knees, a tube in his mouth, with his friend pouring lager directly into his gullet. A chicken carrying a banner which says "People Not Profit" tells me: "Boris symbolises everything we hate. He's not our London." Every time a train pulls in, the crowd whoops and yells "Ken! Ken!"
Hundreds heave on to the first party-train, but as it leaves the Tannoy announces: "This is a security alert. Evacuate immediately." I squeeze out next to Nat Hill, an advertising executive encased inside a giant inflatable horse. "I am dressed like this because I think now we have to be allowed to take horses on the Underground," he says. "Horses are better than alcohol, obviously, so if Boris bans alcohol, he has to allow horses, doesn't he?"
More than a thousand people throng in the centre of the station, and I mingle among the booze fumes and costumes. A lean Brixton-boy says: "I think the drink ban is probably a good idea - but let's party!" Then the crowd is suddenly united with one chant: "Boris is a wanker!"
A group of Essex lads dressed as the Village People stand high on the platforms above, leading a stationwide cover-version of YMCA. A conga line forms and, at 10.17pm, a sound system covered with Free Tibet stickers appears. We all begin to dance, and there is a random cry of "Dalai Lama! Dalai Lama!"
At 11.01pm, boys gyrate on top of ticket machines, and a girl rides the information sign like it is a pony. A friend who got on the party train calls. "They arrested the gorilla!" he cries.
At 11.14pm some idiot starts smashing bottles. Other people tell him to stop, and a few guys start trying to clear up the crunchy carpet of cans and bottles so it doesn't look so bad. But it's too late: the police, who have been watching from the platforms above, swoop.
A girl slurs to me: "I am going to stand by the Cornish pasty shop. Nothing bad can happen next to a Cornish pasty shop."
The police form a line and start pushing people out. A few more protesters foolishly throw bottles. Everyone is chanting again. Pushed out onto Bishopsgate, the crowd looks now as if it will dissipate. But then, suddenly, a bongo-player appears from nowhere, and we all begin to dance again, long into the night.
Looking with a smile at the throng, a girl dressed as a Fifties starlet in a shimmering dress, hands me a biscuit, and says: "This is so London, isn't it?"
Reader views (8)
I was jealous when I first read this story and saw the photos! What a party! You geezers!
- Rachel, Central Florida, U.S.A.
I wonder how many crimes non-alcohol drinkers committed during the time that Boris decided to use throngs of Police to crackdown on young people having a party.
Probably quite a few; probably a number of domestic attacks by respectable, white middle-aged lawyers and self-righteous Asian doctors.
I wonder how many kids were threatened by non-alcohol drinkers in North, East, South and West London on Saturday night. I wonder.
I wonder if Boris cares about these people, or if the easy-blame card is the only one he intends to play during his term. It's easy to blame alcohol. We live in a society where young people are treated like sinners before they can even hold a pint glass. We like to do this. It means you absolve yourself of any accountability, and can let them annoying kids pay for the decadence and tragedy that you have clocked up over the past thirty years.
So, some staff were verbally abused? That’s not nice. Attacked. That’s very bad. But, I kind of get the impression that the sensationalised tube-party hysteria has been over-egged somewhat by the newspapers. Maybe if our Mayor had accounted for the obvious party on the eve of abolishing a London tradition, then that wouldn’t have happened... But then again, what does Boris know of London traditions?
So London. Damn right: long may people get together and play.
The demon drink? It's like power; bad in the wrong hands, like this great city's "mayor".
- David Jones, London, UK
It's not going to stop the people who get lagered up first and then make a sick on the underground. It's a pretty insignificant ban that will only really affect the odd Special Brew drinkers.
- Kat Ruiz-Gregorio, London, United Kingdom
The tube network is not a place for parties, neither is it a place for urinating vomiting and assault, go and have your so called good time somewhere else James Page, or maybe we could all come to your place of work and urinate and vomit there and then assault you, all in good fun of course.
- Brian, Swindon
So Johann - how much cash are you offering to clean up and compensate the people injured?
- Joe, London
How very kind of them to prove Boris absolutely right to ban drinking alcohol on the tube.
- Kaz, London
Oh look, no one seems to want to post on the story about people having fun and enjoying themselves. Still, I suspect there's plenty of room for all the 'its a disgrace' and 'should be ashamed of themselves' on one of the other articles
- James Page, London
"This is not a strange dream: it is the last party of Ken Livingstone's London."
amazing, you are still managing to blame Ken..
- Richard, London
