(Apologies if this appears twice - still getting the hang of this anonymous stuff. It's taken me nearly a week to get this far... [Hyper2]) This is my first protest report, from my first protest. But, before I start, a tip: sunscreen.

The "What Is Scientology?" exhibition is currently on tour in Britain, and I was interested to see that it was in Bournemouth (on the south coast) for three days. I decided to go and check out what was going on on Saturday 29 July.

I arrived at the Pavilion a little before 10am, and the Scientologists were still setting up. The room they were in was more or less ideal - for my purposes as well as theirs. It was small, at the back of the Pavilion, with a single entrance up a flight of steps, and only a few yards from one of the main pedestrian routes to the beach and the pier. This means that I could stay in a public space, and observe everyone who went in and came out. There was even somewhere to sit.

However, before I started protesting, I thought I'd better get a look at their side of the story. I was picked up almost immediately by a body router, who was initially very pleased that I'd specifically turned up to see the exhibition and had a copy of Dianetics with me. He insisted on escorting me into the exhibition, although I assured him that I'd be fine.

(Are body routing stats counted? That's the only real reason I could think of, as he just pointed me at wall panel #1 and zipped off again.) We'll be meeting him and some of the other body routers later, so let's call him 'A'.

The exhibition itself was just basic-level PR puff, as far as I could see, although their e-meter did look pretty spiffy and high-tech (unless you actually know what it is). When I got to the end, I was approached by a lady, probably in her mid-40's, who asked me what I thought. I said it was fine but it didn't answer my questions. She invited me to ask her. So I asked about the state of "clear", trying to steer her into the perfect recall trap, but she neatly evaded that one. Apparently, auditing also costs as much as you want it to. One of the more senior members, sensing that I was trying to be difficult, wandered over and took over. He was quite short, slightly built, grey, and I'd say about 55 - someone you'd be quite happy to have as a bank manager.

According to grey man, the RPF is a "voluntary training program", procedure R2-45 is "a joke, ha, ha, ha," (he actually said "ha, ha, ha" by the way), and that the fair game doctrine "doesn't really mean anything". Pretty evasive, but standard answers and a pretty good non-confront response. At this point they probably still have me down as a curious punter who's read some stuff on the Internet.

After this, I wandered back down to the main square, and ran into body router 'A' again. He asked me what I thought of the exhibition. I said it didn't give me anything new and it didn't really answer my questions. "What questions?" "Who is Xemu, for example?" At this point, I showed him one of the Xemu leaflets (thanks, Andreas) and he basically wouldn't look at it at all. He said that all of the information I had been given was forged, and that he'd "met these people and they aren't very nice people". After a little more discussion ("Don't you want people to get helped?" "Yes, but I believe your organisation is doing the exact opposite.") he said he had a job to do, and I said that was fine, so we went our separate ways.

At this point, I noted that everyone I had spoken to was polite, considerate and non-threatening. I was beginning to wonder if there wasn't indeed a grain of truth in what he said. After all, I've never met an ex-Scientologist, and although I've read stuff on the net that appears plausible, but how much actual corroboration did I have?

Anyhow, I decided to carry on and made several conscious decisions. First, I would not approach anyone on the way in to the exhibition, or discourage anyone from going in. Second, I would be very careful not to impede the flow of pedestrian traffic. Third, I would stay in one position and not go near their sign, which kept blowing over. And fourth, I wouldn't litter or allow anyone else to litter with my leaflets.

So, about 10:15 I settled down on a wall and accosted people on the way out with a leaflet. I found that the phrase "If you've been to see the exhibition, you'll need one of these. Don't laugh too hard" got the best uptake.

I was quite surprised that I was the only person there protesting. I guess it was a pretty low-key even as far as protests go.

At 11:02, grey man and a guy in a blue shirt appeared on the steps. Blue shirt had a cool camera and a long lens and started taking pictures of me.

I smiled and waved and photographed them in return with my not-so-cool, not-so-long lens Kodak fun camera. They should have some great pictures of me smiling and waving. Very suppressive, I look. Not.

Body router 'A' informed me that they would have to walk along the other side of the walkway to avoid me. I shrugged. They started directing people on the best way to the beach, too - just ignore that tempting looking direct route past me, and cross a busy road and down past the I-Max cinema.

Many people did, and to my surprise none of them got run down by traffic.

As they went up and down, over the rest of the morning I got some cheery smiles from the body routers, although 'A' was a bit dour. He did smile when I gave a leaflet to one group though. "What a waste. They're not English," he said, cheerily. Funny, I didn't detect an accent when they said "Thanks". Oh well, maybe they just speak good English, in which case it's no loss.

All went pretty well for the rest of the morning. One family, who were clearly pretty incredulous anyway, actually stopped and chatted with me at around midday. I told them about bait-and-switch, Fair Game and the cost of auditing, and pointed them at www.xenu.net for more information. The son, who was about 16 or 17, looked quite interested.

At around 12:40, the bus arrived - big blue 20-year old double decker with half-open top and snazzy new paint job. People came out holding clusters of balloons, so I took a photo - an ideal caption would be "Is Kodak Gold film sensitive to Body Thetans?" Well, it made me laugh.

With the bus came a larger contingent of body routers, so I started seeing a lot more leaflets around and quite a few more people being routed into the exhibition, after what had been a pretty dull hour or so.

At this point I also noted down "The body routers are all quite polite, actually. They smile and wave as they go by. ... Not really what I was lead to expect at all. I'm being handled very gently indeed. ... If this changes, I'll let you know."

Grey Man went out to lunch. I said hi and smiled, but he cast his eyes down and scurried past.

At 1:20, I had my first direct intervention by a body router. Let's call him 'B'. I'd had a few smiles and raised eyebrow exchanges with him over the last couple of hours, so I had him down as friendly. On the way out of the exhibition, I tried to give a leaflet to two girls, and he told them they didn't need it. He then tried to snatch it out of my hand, tearing it in the process. When I tried to ask the girls again whether they wanted to decide if they got a leaflet, he got between me and them and angrily told me that he had been having a conversation, actually. This was fair enough, I suppose, and the girls weren't that interested anyway, but it probably put them off a bit.

So, the nice, polite body routers are beginning to show their true colours, it would seem. Resolution five, then. Don't break up conversations between bodies and their routers, in or out. The bus goes by, performing a medley of popular hits.

I had an idea for future protests - perhaps people would take protesters more seriously if we had a body-router-type uniform (shorts, polo shirt, baseball cap). Not black vs. their white, though. Say a nice blue. The caps could have "SP" on them in big letters.

At this point I went to lunch and got back about 20 minutes later, around 2:15. Very quiet for a while.

At 2:40, a leaflet is intercepted from some people going down to the beach by body router 'C' on his way up with a bunch of about 6 people. He screws it up, sneers at me, and throws it into the busy road. I inform him that this is littering and is punishable by a fine. He ignores me. I brave the traffic to retrieve it - after all, I want to keep Bournemouth tidy.

Soon , body router 'C' reappears, and comes up to me. In a very tone 40 sort of voice, he loudly informs me "Be assured of this. We will find out what crimes you are guilty of. And you will go to prison for them." After all the soft handling all day, I was totally flabbergasted. All I could say was the exceedingly lame "Thank you very much." And I only got a picture of the back of his head. And I wasn't rolling tape on my dictaphone. Arse. I did consider asking him to repeat this for the tape when he came back again, but though better of it. Only later did I think of the rejoinder for this one - "I haven't committed any crimes, but I've definitely got YOU for littering."

I found out the reason for a phenomenon I've been worried about all day.

People are coming past, looking up at the exhibition hall, pointing, and then moving on. I overheard one group, and they were, in fact, pointing at a poster for "Cannon and Ball's Comedy Spectacular", which is in the same line of sight. Nice to see the relative importance of the two is so well perceived by the general public.

At this point, I decided to leave. First, I was getting sunburned, as the day was considerably nicer than I was expecting. Second. with no backup, I wasn't not sure I wanted to deal with another tone 40 body router, especially if things went a bit quiet and it was just us. This is also the reason for the anonymity, in case you hadn't already guessed.

I went back down to the main square, where I wanted to see body router 'A', but he was talking to someone. Since I didn't want to be accused of putting people off, I waited. Meanwhile, despite frantic eye signals from another one who recognised me, I was approached by a new, female body router. I informed her that, for the majority of the course of the protest, "these guys" have been polite and courteous, right up until 'C' threatened me. She seemed incredulous. At that point, I said, "I now believe the critics.

Goodbye," and turned on my heel and left.

Well, that's it. Total leaflets disposed of: 28, of which 2 visibly destroyed and some other intercepted. Once I get the photos developed, I'll post them to A.B.S.

I hope it was interesting to hear what a first protest feels like. I'll probably pop up again at some protests, although it's not going to be a full-time thing for me.

Oh, and trust me on the sunscreen. I look like a tomato.

"One-Eyed Jim"

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