A flag hangs outside the perimeter of the Niddrie G8 camp today. Photograph: Neil McIntosh
I've spent part of the day in Niddrie, in the south of Edinburgh, where the giant G8 campsite has been set up at the Jack Kane centre - a sports complex surrounded by lots of playing fields and grass. To some demonstrators' chagrin, it's a long way from the city centre, and not particularly easy to get to, although buses are running to shuttle people into town.
The joke among Edinburgh natives, aware of Niddrie's sometimes tough reputation, is that the high double fence around the site is to keep the locals out, rather than the protestors in. I thought that was slightly unfair but, as one member of the campsite management told me this afternoon, "there's not a city in the world where you'd want to leave all your stuff all day while you were away". Indeed - never mind anger at world poverty, capitalism or George Bush - what might really tip things over the edge would be thousands of marchers returning to find their tents had been swiped.
In reality, the scene at the site is peaceful - there were, at most, 150 tents pitched on the site when I left, with a corner of it devoted to the rather more hardcore, well-travelled marquees of the Dissent group (that's their banner pictured above). The sun was coming out, which was a relief to those concerned this might turn into some kind of political Glastonbury, and a steady stream of people were arriving to claim their pitch.
Organisers have no idea how many might eventually arrive - logic suggests a lot of people may arrive later this afternoon and into the evening - but they have capacity to make the site even bigger, taking it up to 17,000 people, if needs be.
In the meantime the stewards talk about fostering a carnival atmosphere, of the likely need to help drunken guests find their tents at night, and persist in making bad jokes about "happy campers".
