Under other circumstances, this might have been amusing. I had just arrived in the city and had already met a couple of nice people; this guy was the only person I met on my recent travels I didn’t like. Apart from that plausible taxi driver in Paris who took me on the tourist route. I was going to apply for a chargeback on my debit card but you have to jump through hoops for that, and there is no guarantee you will get it.
Returning to our aggressive plod, normally I wouldn’t have walked away from this but was uncertain of the law and couldn’t risk him either seizing my phone or arresting me which would probably have made me miss my connection the following day.
In 2015, Spain introduced a Draconian piece of legislation prohibiting filming the police known as the gag law. Obviously, the civil liberties lobby didn’t like that and there has been pushback, but the law is currently ambiguous, and possession is nine points of it, especially when it applies to mobile phones.
For the record, I don’t they were doing anything wrong; the suspect was clearly resisting arrest and I saw something really weird that indicated he may have needed some sort of medical treatment.
I did consider filing an official complaint, but like a chargeback request on my debit card, it would almost certainly go nowhere. Below are links to two fairly recent videos I made which include filming the police in action. They may not approve of the first but they will certainly approve of the second.
An ad hoc interview with a homeless man in Sydenham:
https://thedarkman.substack.com/p/an-ad-hoc-interview-with-a-homeless-204
An update on homelessness in Sydenham:
https://thedarkman.substack.com/p/an-update-on-homelessness-in-sydenham
Link to the entire body of my published work:
https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/links.html
The Planned ERASURE Of The Natives Of These Islands:
https://archive.org/details/the-planned-erasure
The Evolution Of No-Platform:
https://archive.org/details/the-evolution-of-no-platform-enhanced-volume
The Great Free Speech Experiment:
https://archive.org/details/the-great-free-speech-experiment
Trump And Mosley — Parallels And Dissimilarities:
https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/wikinut/wikinut-trump-parallels-and-dissimilarities.html
What Came Before Repressive Tolerance
https://theduran.com/what-came-before-repressive-tolerance/
Link to the entire body of my published work:
https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/links.html
Buy me a coffee:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ITMA
PayPal donations:
tsthatmanagain[AT]yahoo.com
If “Chestnuts” sounds extremely simply that is because it is the first piece of music I ever composed, circa 1979. It was written on the acoustic guitar at Chestnut Avenue, Leeds. The jazz musician Xero Slingsby lived in the same house for a time. I found out a year or two ago that he had died young.
This recording was arranged and performed by Diana Bliss in March 2026. Better late than never!
A much earlier recording played (badly) by me on the guitar can be found here:
“Transsanity”
https://archive.org/details/transsanity-enhanced
&
“Fight Like A Girl”
https://vennerroad.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/fight-like-girl.html
“Should Women Box Men? Should Women Box At All? ”
https://thedarkman.substack.com/p/should-women-box-men-should-women
Link to the entire body of my published work:
https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/links.html
Buy me a coffee:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ITMA
PayPal donations:
itsthatmanagain[AT]yahoo.com
A slight clarification, Blenheim Square is the name the so-called developers have given this project. The shopping centre is actually called the Blenheim Centre. It also housed the Wilko store which closed sometime ago, and today I noticed the card shop CARD FACTORY had closed. Not that there is much call for cards nowadays.
The square outside the Blenheim Centre is called Empire Square.
This video was uploaded to YouTube on January 7, 2026.
Link to the entire body of my published work:
https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/links.html
Buy me a coffee:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/ITMA
PayPal donations:
tsthatmanagain[AT]yahoo.com
A photograph of Alexander Baron delivering THE TRUTH ABOUT PORNOGRAPHY at David Parry’s meeting. A later recording and transcript can be found at this link:
https://archive.org/details/the-truth-about-pornography
