Crowds observe the minute's
silence in central Edinburgh.
Photograph: Gabrielle Procter
Pierced only by the sound of police helicopters, anti-poverty campaigners have succeeded in getting the crowd at the Edinburgh rally to be very noisy. Then very quiet. And then very noisy again.
After a practice silence (marred only by samba bands) the clock ticked down on big screens to 3pm with chants to cancel third world debt and make trade fair. At three, the word "SILENCE" flashed on the big screens.
But it took a while for everyone to follow. Out of the thousands in the Meadows, an open space on the edge of the city centre, a man with a pink mohican was determined to be different and kept sounding the siren through the silence he had sounded at the chants. It took a considerable amount of swearing from his neighbours and the intervention of two stewards to shut him up.
The rest of the minute was quiet. The "SILENCE" then switched to "NOISE" like the walk/don't walk signs on New York traffic lights and there was shouting again. Billy Bragg, who took the stage, called it an "incredible amount of noise" and said the 120,000 on the white T-shirt march would have heard it as they went about forming a human white band around the city.
The latest word from the organisers on the march is that anyone who wants to join it should be prepared for a long wait. "It's like the welly-queue at Glastonbury times a hundred," explained Bragg.
We will bring you a sound clip of the noise and the silence later.
