Bonsoir ,

Last Saturday night, the 4 October, I went to the « Secret Policeman’s Ball 2008 » 15th ? given by Amnesty International at the Albert Hall, London between 7h00 and 11h00. Diffusion on canal Sunday the 5 October. I seems to have been put on youtube although I have not checked it out see
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=policemans%27s+ball+2008&search_type=&aq=f

Lots of people queeing up. When I was a student usher for the proms in 1975, I never saw so many people queeing up as that week-end. Saw a lot of young people wearing a tee-shirt with the candle wrapped up in a strand barbed wire.
Looked out for tee-shirts with « Investigate 911 » , « 911 inside job » , etc but did not see a single one. I noticed that the hall was completely filled and at some moment an organiser said that there was 4000 people inside.

As was written in the program « Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand » Mark Twain this evening was giving power to the people by laughter.
And there was an amazing amount of laughter from the audience. I would say about half of the jokes were on sex. An agreeable change came from the iranian lady Shappi Khorsandi about Human rights especially in Iran. She passed on her message very well and managed to get hundreds in the audience to take out their portable telephone and sign the petition against torture on live. A very effective exercise. (A good idea for the 911 truth movement!)

Another lady near the end re focused the evening on the growing problem of human rights abuse in the world. There is a very worthwhile clip to see, shown in this part. She also pointed out that if the british people do not clearly show that they are against the crimes being committed today in Afghanistan in their name then they are partners to these crimes and accountable for them.

For foreigners like my french wife, it was not so obvious to understand the accents and jokes emerging from the UK culture.

Was a bit disappointed not hearing anything being said about the lies on 911 and that there was no one from WeAreChange.uk as much as I noticed.

Even if the evening was a bit too long, especially for the people standing up all the time in the middle of the floor, it passed very well and it can only but help to increase the number of members for Amnesty International. Seen the price of the tickets and the number of people present this evening should also have been a good fund raising action. The 911 truth movement could perhaps take up on the example.
http://www.protectthehuman.com/ball

Yours

John