it may seem strange what I feel but I think the social activism bit will be a lot better in 2008.

Already, “normal” people with mainstream/conservative views are changing in some respects, everyone wants eco-friendly stuff in their house, managers at work say “we want to design a new building and data centre and as much of it as possible is to be powered by renewable energy and we want to use local suppliers etc”

at work some congratulate me for riding a bicycle 7 miles each day to the office (whatever the weather) rather than wonder why I don’t use a car, and I’ve noticed loads more people cycling to work recently.

people (at least in East Anglia) are also becoming (even grudgingly) more accepting of those from other races/cultures etc – they’ve got it into their skulls that “these East European/Asian people are here to stay and they work hard, lets all try and work together”

That said it wasn’t originally out of the goodness of peoples hearts but because of pressures such as increased fuel prices, worries over weather etc (floods) making people think about the environment out of self-preservation

for parties I think there will be a lot of changes and they might not look that good but its not that bad.

I think the days of the large illegal raves anywhere in the UK are long gone and not coming back, or even if they do they are not safe. also drugs might become slightly harder to get as the economy shrinks a bit.

Ketamine will definitely become harder to get as HM Revenue and Customs has had words with their counterparts in India. a lot of work from the UK public sector is outsourced to India, so theres a big incentive for the Indian authorities to help make their country a “safe environment for investment” if you get what I mean.

its no good dealers taking the risk of HMP or getting robbed or killed if the punters can’t afford your wares, and I’m talking about party drugs rather than addictive drugs and often when things get tough people just stop taking them…(I saw a couple of similar situations in Reading during the 1990s)

The Police aren’t suddenty going to give up trying to stop raves either and their surveillance and monitoring will become even smarter … (so we have to smarten up)

Also people will have less spare cash so won’t want to risk their rigs on bait parties, where bad shit happens that may lead to stuff being confiscated.

I’ve just realised I read one of raj’s earlier posts as if “everyone is trying to be the man and pigeon” (like a human-bird hybrid strutting about). This actually makes sense with the way some bird-brained so-called party crews carry on, but these are the crews what aren’t gonna survive 2008!

I think therefore there will be less and smaller parties but they may be a bit better!