Friday: Onto the Climate Camp buses at Embankment, and finally off to Copenhagen for the COP (off) 15 festival. No troubles at Dover and several service stations later (no toilet on the bus) we’ve passed through France, Belgium and Germany. For a coach trip, it was actually quite pleasant; good people, a bit of singing, reading, joking and legal updates. Before you know it, we hit the German – Danish border….

Saturday: At the border, we are met by the burly German Polizei. We hand over our passports, and one by one they thoroughly search our bags, bodies and the coach for anything, and we sit around for 2 hours in the cold having a laugh. A metal helmet with the words “Press” tipexed on it is confiscated, but otherwise we’re “clean”. The German guards line up to bid us goodbye, disappointed. Two hours later and we’re heading into Copenhagen after 25 hours on the bus; as we enter the city, two large police buses zoom past us, with some of the 1,200 mass-arrested during the day’s march - Day of Action by NGO’s, Church and community groups and the rest – they are bussed to large concentration camps built for COP15, kept for 8 hours, and released at midnight; only 13 are charged. Our group eventually make our way from the town centre to our digs, an abandoned school on the edge of town. But there are warm showers, heating, rooms for 20 mats, a kitchen with stocked with skipped food (from Netto’s bins around the corner) and a congenial atmosphere. Aaaahhh, into the warm at last. A quick jaunt to Christiania, the ex-barracks squatted near the city centre in the 1960’s and still an autonomous, police-free space, where the atmosphere is fun-filled; the large compound houses 1,000 people, cobbled streets, warehouses with music pouring out, stands selling a selection of herbal accoutramonts, shed-like bars, a marquee with world music and a sauna, and large painted murals stating “No Photography”. We stumble back and suprisingly make it back to our accommodation on public transport in this unfamiliar city; at last some sleep.

Sunday: The day begins with a large consensus meeting (Climate Camp style) with the 100 or so people staying in the school. We decide how we will be running the accommodation, using rotas and working groups, get an update on the situation and actions in Copenhagen along with a legal brief, and start to think about we will connect up with the other convergence centres, inhabited by our fellow European activists. I meet up with Brian, and we head on to the Campesino (Peasant Farmer) protest outside the large agro-industrial HQ; we are treated to a little street theatre with people dressed as pigs, eating the world’s grain, then speeches by representatives of landless peasants in Brazil, South Korea, Thailand and a Danish rural activist; they spell out the devastation caused by agri-business: stolen land, poisoned water supplies, GMOs, peasant repression, and the list goes on. The police start to surround the small gathering, while the Rebel Clown Army does a good job keeping them at bay, by taking the piss out of their militaristic poses, using the magic of mime. A little later, some of this peaceful protest decide to take to the streets to march, with the samba band providing a lively accompaniment. Vans of riots cops screech up, and a cordon of riot police surrounds the march, providing an unnecessarily-tight escort as we march off down the street. At one point, a police van drives into the tail of the march, driving through the crowd, pushing people out of the way - a sure favourite Danish police tactic to provoke a response. The march finally ends near Klimaforum (the alternative conference to the horse-trading being done across the river) – it’s fortunate that there are no mass-arrests – the Danish police have powers of “pre-emptive” arrest, which means that they can arrest you for just standing nearby. We get cheap soup in the autonomous soup kitchen (pumpkin and vegetable soup made from home-grown veg….yum) and get some event details from the Info-Centre, and wander around the beautiful Copenhagen for a while.

Copenhagen has become a greenwash showroom – there’s the big Hopenhagen stage with uber-pop (sponsored by Carlsberg) and numerous showroom boxes with techie-solution-products; electric/ alternative fuel cars speed around the streets honking, billboards all over the city proclaim the “green credentials” of such illustrious names as Coca-Cola and Mcdonalds, along with nuclear companies and property developers. It’s all a bit of an “event”; trendy couples have flown in to “be part of the event”, but still ask: “Do you think you can do anything?” It’s all a bit surreal; the corporate show, mixed with the Christmas atmosphere and decoration, while groups of police, mixed with army personnel, stalk the streets, making sure the show goes on uninterrupted.

Finally make it back to the school to have a hot shower (amazing), before we start getting reports back from the other demonstration, that of the shutting down Copenhagen’s port to demonstrate against the pollution it generates. The march has been deemed “illegal”, and the contingent of 400 walking down are instantly kettled by the hundreds of police. Wrists tied, they are left outside in the cold for hours, then whisked down to the police “detention centre”, before being released some hours later. It also turns out that the Danish police have some interesting new tactics: legal observers, who check that detainees are properly treated and that rule of law is followed, are not allowed to check on detainees, or take the arresting officer’s details, and now even face detention themselves if they try to do their jobs. The “iron fist”, that ally of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, is unsheathed. It’s a real pity, because the Danish are a friendly, helpful lot, who don’t deserve such a reputation. Nonetheless, the evening ends at the school, with detainees returning, a skipped dinner and lively chat. Tomorrow’s another day, and things are shaping up…..

Next: In Search of the Zero-Wasters.