CEWAP - Mark Thomas and his little pranks

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Saturday 5th February 2000 was the day when Mark and the crew at Vera invited a bunch of folk for a day out with a difference. The first I knew about where were going was when I got a message saying to meet up at 10:00 am outside North Greenwich tube station.

We were going to the dome!

Disbelief

[The Millenium Dome]
Actually this was quite unreal as we'd always sworn we were never going to go for the obvious reasons, but this opportunity was too good to miss and as it turned out we got our money back anyway (read on to find out why)!

Meeting up

We met outside North Greenwich tube station though a lot of people turned up late due to the fact that the Jubilee line signals weren't working so lots of us spent up to an hour doing a journey that should take 15 minutes! We milled about a bit, met up with old friends and a made a few new ones, including some MT mailing list members. We were given the entrance fee and an itinerary (see picture below) and we all bought tickets and made our way into the dome.

The first thing that struck me on walking up to the entrance was how little of the dome you could actually see. It was very unimpressive from ground level, though once you got inside you got a much better impression of how huge it is, especially from within the central arena. I have to admit I was very impressed with the dome itself as a engineering feat. After going inside some of the zones, it soon became apparent that it really is not worth the entrance fee. The content of the dome is sadly lacking.

Yellow stickies

Our first meeting spot was in the "Work Zone", which is really dire. The only vaguely interesting thing in there is a massive table football table (about 30 players per side), but even that was badly thought out as the ball never seemed to get anywhere near the goals, it just shuffled back and fro in the centre of the table. This results in the score being nearly always 0-0!

We'd been handed yellow sticky notes and pens and while we weren't 100% sure what these were for it soon became apparent. On rounding one corner there is a huge wall with lots of sticky notes behind glass, so some of us started writing our own notes out and adding them to the wall. It was surprising how difficult it was to spot that they weren't under the glass like the others and I was amazed that the staff in there didn't spot us. Mark and the film crews eventually turned up (by that point we'd got bored and started sticking them up on other displays) and added a couple of pocketsful of notes to the wall. I reckon in total we probably had about 60 notes up there.

Meet the generals

Next stop was the Mind zone, sponsored by BAE Systems and Marconi, where a group of people from CAAT, dressed up as generals started asking questions about where all the weapons were and doing various demonstrations of the capabilities of Hawk jets, etc, gathering a bit of a crowd in the process.

McUnions

Bugger these TV types don't half move fast. One minute we were all loitering around "home planet", the next we were all legging it down to the nearest McDonalds (about 1/5th of a dome revolution away) where leaflets and posters and sticker badges were handed out and the McDonalds staff were asked questions about their wages and the rules on Trade Union membership.

A lovely lady called Barbie was there. She had been sacked by her company for joining a Trade Union!

Homeless camp

Apparently you're not allowed to camp in the tent (or be camp on the Number 10 website!), but the next bit of fun to be had was when a crowd of homeless looking people set up camp between the legs of the body zone in a location that was carefully chosen not to obstruct anything, any walkways or the like and also that it was right alongside the main queue for the body zone to maximise impact.

By this point security were having apoplexy, especially "Blowjob" Pictured right) our favourite security person, who looks like he was a recipient of some bizarre reverse liposuction experiment. Mark and the rest of us were in full flow by now, all helping out and providing maximum cover for the campaigners and assisting with the building of the camp, including attempting to attach the tent to the body zone itself with masking tape.  Helen gave her copy of the "Big Issue" to one of the campaigners after I had unsuccessfully attempted to sell it to Blowjob.

Mark had a very interesting debate with chief security officers about how long the homeless people could stay there with a variety of answers. Finally the press officer appeared and was asked the same question.  Despite being warned by Mark that he was walking into it he proceeded to be most helpful, but still didn't come up with a full answer. I think were still waiting for him to get back to us on that one.

Spelling it out

The final stunt was held in the main arena where Mark had gathered a few dancers just before the main 2:30 show and they'd managed to sneak onto the main stage in the arena while Mark was diverting the attention of the security guards. They were all wearing T-shirts with a single large letter on them and when they arranged themselves on the stage and opened their jackets to reveal the T-shirts it read: £800M QUID FOR BIG TENT SEEMS CRAP.

The Millennium Dome being the huge world-wide attraction that it is, it was also necessary to convey the message in French, German and Italian by cleverly reshuffling the line of people so that it read the following:

£800M POUR CETTE MERDE
£800M FUR DIESE SCHEIBE
£800M PER QUESTO MERDRE

Mark was approached by a visitor at this point who enquired "are you responsible for this?". When he replied "yes" the visitor said "best bloody thing I've seen here!" which sort of sums it all up really.

And at that point they all got thrown out of the Millennium experience.

We actually missed this as we were waiting at the designated meeting place outside the Faith zone. We'd been clocked by another group of security guards who were wondering what we were up to and as such I guess we provided a useful diversion. One of the funniest moments of the day occurred here as a couple of folk decided to have some fun with the security staff that were lined up across the entrance to the zone. At one point they just legged it past the security guards into the Faith zone and then split up and ran different ways. About 4 guards chased after them, lost them and they just ran out the back and joined us again at the front a few minutes later.

Ejected!

After we'd hung around for a bit we were told by a security type person that Mark had been arrested for wearing official dome uniform, which sounded a bit odd. It was confirmed that they had been removed from the dome and as we had no more things to do we decided to leave as well. We headed off to the exit and spotted the crew outside, but didn't leave as we were hanging around for a few stragglers. We noticed that a couple of the security folk were standing near us and their numbers were gradually increasing. Then a handful of police joined them, but we were just standing there nattering.  Finally one of them cam up to us and said "Right, everybody's leaving now" at which point we asked "Why, what have we done?".

After 10 minutes of arguing when they refused to tell us why we were being ejected, indeed they said they didn't have to have a reason, we left anyway. They actually threatened to remove us forcibly at one point, which was nice.

Anyway, we (the millennium 11) were also escorted from the premises, so we went and told everyone buying tickets that if they misbehaved and got thrown out, they would get their money back and advised them that it was a complete waste of time and money anyway.

One final photo shoot and we dispersed to meet up again the following night for the recording of the show, most of us having blagged our way onto the guest list anyway.

Mark's message to Tony Blair

At the end of the show Mark pointed out that Tony Blair had said that the dome was the first paragraph of labour's next term in office.  As Mark pointed out: "Tony, you'd better have a f**king good second paragraph, man!"

All in all it was "One amazing day"!


Home CEWAP Mark Thomas 18:30 Club GM Food Car Cats Links		One Amazing Day

		Saturday 5th February 2000 was the day when Mark and the crew at Vera invited a bunch of folk for a day out with a difference. The first I knew about where were going was when I got a message saying to meet up at 10:00 am outside North Greenwich tube station. We were going to the dome!

Disbelief

	Actually this was quite unreal as we'd always sworn we were never going to go for the obvious reasons, but this opportunity was too good to miss and as it turned out we got our money back anyway (read on to find out why)!

Meeting up

We met outside North Greenwich tube station though a lot of people turned up late due to the fact that the Jubilee line signals weren't working so lots of us spent up to an hour doing a journey that should take 15 minutes! We milled about a bit, met up with old friends and a made a few new ones, including some MT mailing list members. We were given the entrance fee and an itinerary (see picture below) and we all bought tickets and made our way into the dome. The first thing that struck me on walking up to the entrance was how little of the dome you could actually see. It was very unimpressive from ground level, though once you got inside you got a much better impression of how huge it is, especially from within the central arena. I have to admit I was very impressed with the dome itself as a engineering feat. After going inside some of the zones, it soon became apparent that it really is not worth the entrance fee. The content of the dome is sadly lacking.

Yellow stickies

Our first meeting spot was in the "Work Zone", which is really dire. The only vaguely interesting thing in there is a massive table football table (about 30 players per side), but even that was badly thought out as the ball never seemed to get anywhere near the goals, it just shuffled back and fro in the centre of the table. This results in the score being nearly always 0-0! We'd been handed yellow sticky notes and pens and while we weren't 100% sure what these were for it soon became apparent. On rounding one corner there is a huge wall with lots of sticky notes behind glass, so some of us started writing our own notes out and adding them to the wall. It was surprising how difficult it was to spot that they weren't under the glass like the others and I was amazed that the staff in there didn't spot us. Mark and the film crews eventually turned up (by that point we'd got bored and started sticking them up on other displays) and added a couple of pocketsful of notes to the wall. I reckon in total we probably had about 60 notes up there.

Meet the generals

Next stop was the Mind zone, sponsored by BAE Systems and Marconi, where a group of people from CAAT, dressed up as generals started asking questions about where all the weapons were and doing various demonstrations of the capabilities of Hawk jets, etc, gathering a bit of a crowd in the process.

McUnions

Bugger these TV types don't half move fast. One minute we were all loitering around "home planet", the next we were all legging it down to the nearest McDonalds (about 1/5th of a dome revolution away) where leaflets and posters and sticker badges were handed out and the McDonalds staff were asked questions about their wages and the rules on Trade Union membership. A lovely lady called Barbie was there. She had been sacked by her company for joining a Trade Union!

Homeless camp

Apparently you're not allowed to camp in the tent (or be camp on the Number 10 website!), but the next bit of fun to be had was when a crowd of homeless looking people set up camp between the legs of the body zone in a location that was carefully chosen not to obstruct anything, any walkways or the like and also that it was right alongside the main queue for the body zone to maximise impact. By this point security were having apoplexy, especially "Blowjob" Pictured right) our favourite security person, who looks like he was a recipient of some bizarre reverse liposuction experiment. Mark and the rest of us were in full flow by now, all helping out and providing maximum cover for the campaigners and assisting with the building of the camp, including attempting to attach the tent to the body zone itself with masking tape. Helen gave her copy of the "Big Issue" to one of the campaigners after I had unsuccessfully attempted to sell it to Blowjob. Mark had a very interesting debate with chief security officers about how long the homeless people could stay there with a variety of answers. Finally the press officer appeared and was asked the same question. Despite being warned by Mark that he was walking into it he proceeded to be most helpful, but still didn't come up with a full answer. I think were still waiting for him to get back to us on that one.

Spelling it out

The final stunt was held in the main arena where Mark had gathered a few dancers just before the main 2:30 show and they'd managed to sneak onto the main stage in the arena while Mark was diverting the attention of the security guards. They were all wearing T-shirts with a single large letter on them and when they arranged themselves on the stage and opened their jackets to reveal the T-shirts it read: £800M QUID FOR BIG TENT SEEMS CRAP. The Millennium Dome being the huge world-wide attraction that it is, it was also necessary to convey the message in French, German and Italian by cleverly reshuffling the line of people so that it read the following: £800M POUR CETTE MERDE £800M FUR DIESE SCHEIBE £800M PER QUESTO MERDRE Mark was approached by a visitor at this point who enquired "are you responsible for this?". When he replied "yes" the visitor said "best bloody thing I've seen here!" which sort of sums it all up really. And at that point they all got thrown out of the Millennium experience. We actually missed this as we were waiting at the designated meeting place outside the Faith zone. We'd been clocked by another group of security guards who were wondering what we were up to and as such I guess we provided a useful diversion. One of the funniest moments of the day occurred here as a couple of folk decided to have some fun with the security staff that were lined up across the entrance to the zone. At one point they just legged it past the security guards into the Faith zone and then split up and ran different ways. About 4 guards chased after them, lost them and they just ran out the back and joined us again at the front a few minutes later.

Ejected!

After we'd hung around for a bit we were told by a security type person that Mark had been arrested for wearing official dome uniform, which sounded a bit odd. It was confirmed that they had been removed from the dome and as we had no more things to do we decided to leave as well. We headed off to the exit and spotted the crew outside, but didn't leave as we were hanging around for a few stragglers. We noticed that a couple of the security folk were standing near us and their numbers were gradually increasing. Then a handful of police joined them, but we were just standing there nattering. Finally one of them cam up to us and said "Right, everybody's leaving now" at which point we asked "Why, what have we done?". After 10 minutes of arguing when they refused to tell us why we were being ejected, indeed they said they didn't have to have a reason, we left anyway. They actually threatened to remove us forcibly at one point, which was nice. Anyway, we (the millennium 11) were also escorted from the premises, so we went and told everyone buying tickets that if they misbehaved and got thrown out, they would get their money back and advised them that it was a complete waste of time and money anyway. One final photo shoot and we dispersed to meet up again the following night for the recording of the show, most of us having blagged our way onto the guest list anyway.

Mark's message to Tony Blair

At the end of the show Mark pointed out that Tony Blair had said that the dome was the first paragraph of labour's next term in office. As Mark pointed out: "Tony, you'd better have a fking good second paragraph, man!" All in all it was** "One amazing day"!