G8 stooshie

From the Guardian newsblog, one of the more sensible (and more informative) reports about what is happening in Auchterarder:

"Most of the protesters are from the anti-globalisation or anti-capitalist movements, but the locals, who stand outside their front doors and watch and sometimes wave to the incomers, are more firmly behind the Make Poverty History campaign.
A Global Village Cafe in the grounds of Auchterarder parish church was opened yesterday by a Tanzanian bishop. In keeping with the African theme of the summit, it is home to chickens, a water pump and a goat in an attempt to recreate the atmosphere of one of the continent's villages. The cafe sells bottles of half a litre of local water ("local water from local people" reads the label). Every penny of the 99p it costs goes towards buying water pumps for three Ethiopian villages.
Ian Gourlay, one of a group of eight townspeople organising the cafe, which is like a village fete at which the only coffee on offer is free trade, said the Auchterarder residents were apprehensive about the arrival of the G8 leaders and demonstrators, but less fearful than some were claiming.
"The vast majority are philosophical about it. Most people feel it is an opportunity for this town - the opportunity of demonstrating as a local community that we care about just trade, about the eradication of debt and the doubling of aid. We've been inundated by local people saying that. There is concern, but there is also balance.
"This is not a town that is shutting up shop. We'll be pleased when it is over but it is also fun. You've no idea what it's like having an archbishop open your cafe when you are a small parish church. We feel communities around the world should do more than say politicians should sort it out, but if the G8 don't do it they will have wasted the best opportunity they ever had."
Auchterarder is filling up now. Some of the shops are boarded up, but the ones that are have "welcome" plastered to wood in some of the languages the visitors might speak: bienvenue, bienvenido, wilkommen and fáilte. The next few days will decide whether it was the boards or the greetings that were the most fitting."