Remember Judge Nutmeg from Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out? I do. Fondly. He was a comedy embodiment of the mob’s unholy howl. A practitioner of ‘hang ‘em high’ justice. That’ll learn them. And he was right of course. Because thrashing the living daylights out of someone will really prevent crime and engender a sense of respect for our flawless neo-liberal socio-economic model won’t it?
Really, it’s hilarious. All of society’s institutions exposed as thoroughly corrupt, self-serving and dissolute (the banks, parliament, the media, the police). Yet still the moral outrage is directed downwards. That is not to advocate opportunistic thuggery that destroys people’s lives – tragically in the most literal sense in some extreme cases. Rather it’s to suggest we use recent events to form a ‘big picture’ response to the way we’re being daily penetrated by rampant consumerism, individualism and the erratic reactionary mayhem of the market.

I say that as an arch hypocrite of course. On a personal and professional level I’m locked in a death kiss with commercialism. It’s a tonguing I’d gladly forego. Sadly mammon is simultaneously yanking my lead. And right now I have not the strength of character to turn round and bite it square on the nose. Instead I plan to embrace the absurdist revolution of the Situationist International.

In light of recent civic unrest in Merry England, Colin Montgomery proposes a bucolic response...

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Mona Lisa moustache

It’s like this. For a long time I’ve been a fan of the Surrealist movement in all its forms. That included the notion of poking the eye of society’s hierarchies and conventions in a silly way – painting a copy of the Mona Lisa, but with a moustache, producing eye-ball slicing cinema that stokes the ire of fascists – that kind of thing.

Often their surreal zeal would spill over into less savoury incidents – kicking away the stick of a blind man for example. But on the whole they shied away from looting and murder. Even if they did fancy a spot of wanton ramraiding, there weren’t many branches of Dixons in Paris back then. They may have been tempted to kick in the window of a fromagerie. But being surrealists they would probably affect a wheel of brie as a hat, hardly selfish consumerism gone wild.

Anyway, back to situationism – in particular the Debordist strain perhaps best encapsulated by Rene Vienet’s famous graffito ‘The beach beneath the street’ daubed on Paris walls during les evenements de mai 68. Back then revolutionaries threw cobblestones at the Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité. That’s too much like hard work.

No instead of throwing rocks, I plan to throw some edibles into a hamper and picnic my way to a state of revolutionary bliss. That may seem like a cop out to some of the militant types out there. But believe me, it’s no picnic. Well, actually it is a picnic. But you get my drift. There’s more to al-fresco dining protest than meets the eye. Get it wrong and someone might think you’re a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Quite literally. Success rests on ingredients, location and rug.

A slice of tongue
To some boater sporting types, picnics are a triumph of bourgeois hegemony. They’re way off the mark. What could be more vital, more socialist, more egalitarian than sharing your choice of finger food with the world? Particularly if you eschew the running dog imperialist cucumber sandwich in favour of a hunk of orange Scottish cheddar wedged into a margarine lathered well-fired roll.

The alternative to dairy is a slice of tongue. Or tripe. Anything offal-based really. Prime cuts are flagrantly materialistic and show a gluttonous disrespect for our bovine comrades who have bravely sacrificed themselves to further the cause.

Sarnie choice is of course just one of the planks of this long overdue challenge to the status quo. Your choice of rug must be negotiated very carefully.

Traditional tartan could leave you open to accusations of counter-revolutionary Caledonianism. Pristine white may imply a Tsarist yearning for the ‘white’ Cossack resistance to the glorious events of October 17. While a bold patterned retro print suggests a crypto-phalangist desire to enslave the working man in nostalgia. Go for a plain pillar-box red and you won’t go wrong.

Which brings us to the prickly issue of location. By prickly I don’t mean making sure you steer clear of jaggy nettles. I mean making sure your picnic protest is a potent one in its establishment goading visibility.
Set your hamper down on the roof of a ministerial Jaguar. Better still; insist on the right to picnic outside the foreign embassy of your choice to raise the plight of the great disenfranchised in this perverse political experiment that is the coalition. But for the ultimate situationist coup, try hosting your picnic in the middle of the leader column of the Daily Mail.
The latter may require some mental and metaphysical gymnastics. But now is not the time to quibble about tangible realities imposed upon us by ruling elite. Now is the time to sit quietly on a rug in mute protest at the ideologically intransigent short-termism corroding what it means to be alive in Britain today.