December 23, 2005
Christmas comes but once a year
And so does London’s annual Pillow Fight Club. OK, OK I know I'm late posting this... I actually wrote most of it on 23rd December, but went away before hitting the publish button and then I spent half of last week helping with the Crisis Open Christmas (blog on its way imminently).
2005's festive bash-up moved from Trafalgar Square to Covent Garden, next to Santa’s Grotto. It wasn't long before the Piazza was filled with feathers 
I didn’t spot too many of my chums from the previous year (Paul smashed his heels in the summer, which I accept as a reasonable excuse even though he did manage Santacon the previous weekend). Not to worry though, because a group of people from Last Thursday showed up and displayed a very healthy lack of dignity or adult behaviour.
Hats off to Steve (seen here in a brown jacket)
who laid in to all and sundry as soon as chaos broke out on the stroke of 18:47 (don’t ask me, PFC always kicks off at unusual times). Come to think of it, given the ferocity with which Steve was beating people up 
perhaps heads off is more appropriate than hats off. He kept going for a good fifteen minutes, which was far longer than I managed – mind you, I was keen to test the camera on my new Handspring Treo.
When he returned to the side to regain his breath, Steve’s lovely wife Kay
not to be out done, despite having just got off a long-haul flight (from Thailand?) grabbed his pillow and charged into the fray. Occasionally we could see the flash of her white coat as she did her best to decapitate all who dared to stand in her way. Mind you, even someone as dangerous as Kay couldn't escape being on the end of the occasional walloping. 
I reckon that I gave at least as good as I got, even though I didn't last as long as I did last year. 
that's me with the brown leather jacket giving it some (and before anyone feels the need to point out how much weight I've put on, I'd like to observe that I was wearing five layers...).
Once again I demonstrated a combination of agility and unreserved brutality in the thick of battle 
Craig adopted a style that was far more energy-efficient, using all of his height (a mere 6 foot 8 inches), he would occasionally bring his pillow down on the heads of any unsuspecting battler who caught his attention. Here is Craig bashing Steve: 
the bubble came from Santa's Grotto and has nothing to do with Steve...
Once again, the whole affair was good-humoured and the tourists looked on with bewildered expressions. You’d think that several hundred people suddenly pulling out pillows and bashing each other was not a normal way to behave.
Nicely exhausted, we slipped away to the mulled wine stand from where we did see some of the security guards from the nearby pubs trying to corral pillow fighters away from Santa’s grotto, but they realised that they didn’t really have much of a chance of controlling the mob. Best let them get on with it, so they did.
Special thanks to Leanne 
who observed that we were “definitely the oldest people” taking part!
Who wants to grow up anyway?
Post Script 23rd January 2006:
Several people have asked me (offline) whether the Pillow Fight Club is an example of 'Flash Mobbing'. Well, I just found a reference to London's December 2005 pillow fight in Wikipedia's entry on the subject, so I suppose the answer is yes!
Posted by dompannell at December 23, 2005 11:20 AM | TrackBack