Glasgow's Buchanan Street got a homely makeover last week as the annual May Day celebration street party took place. Sofas, free food and music from Jumblesale sounds were present for the afternoon.

The traditional Buchanan Street meeting place saw a reasonable turnout considering the mid-week date and showery weather. Preparations and publicity for this year's event had begun far in advance of 2007's and a series of open planning meetings had been held in the run-up, these were weekly in April.

Free food was laid out on the "real" street furniture, banners hung from the lamposts and infostalls set up. All the while, police intelligence gathering teams hung around filming people engaged in subversive chat and picnicking.

Around 1:30 a van arrived carrying more furniture and a sound system. Our brave police sprang into action, videoing the dangerous subversives unloading their cargo, while they tried to come up with a reason to complain. "That's a double yellow line, you better move on". "You can't take that up there," (indicating the fuel for the generator). Once unloaded the van drove off under police escort, though apparently no help was offered in finding it a parking space.

For the next two hours there was tunes, food and what hippies call "good vibes". No windows smashed, no coppers bashed but all still apparently worthy of many feet of digital video tape for Strathclyde's Red-and-Black-Watch. The police commander still appears to have trouble grasping separation of responsibilities, repeatedly questioning the (very static) soundsystem as to the destination of the march. At one point he had a mild tantrum at the impossibility of getting an answer to his question from people who didn't have anything to do with what he wanted to know.

Nevertheless, people did decide to move off in the direction of Kelvingrove Park (again) around about 4 o'clock. There was dancing and drumming at the park and Buchanan Street was cleared of all the furniture.

There will be a meeting to discuss May Day and anarchist activity in Glasgow this Saturday (10th May) at the Phoenix Centre.