And you thought school was a repressive means of social control, forced by the state onto resisting children refusing to acquiesce to the domestication of the human species.

What is becoming the annual opencast bash on Michael Heseltine’s back lawn took place on Sunday 20th October where, before dawn, sixty ex-miners and environmental activists marched silently through a Northamptonshire Village and into the grounds of Thenford Hall, the Deputy Prime Minister’s luxury retreat.

In the early hours of Wednesday 18th October the Wandsworth Eco-Village in London, an ecologically sustainable land squat that has been going since May this year, could have been mistaken for an army assault course with a full scale invasion underway.

Numbers resisting the construction of the Newbury Bypass have dwindled with thirty people having now been injuncted off the route.

On Tuesday 12th November, the Lloyds And Midland Boycott campaign (LAMB) decided that ‘the listening bank’ needed a hearing aid, so paid a visit to the Head office of the Midland Bank.

Updates, briefs and bulletins from EF! and other direct action.

Two hundred of McDonalds UK stores were leafleted during October as part of the second Day of Solidarity With McDonalds Workers, and the twelfth World Day of Action Against McDonalds.

On Saturday 2nd November people from all over came to Faslane Peace Camp ready to confront the nuclear menace.

On 31st October Oxford had a Halloween Street Party.

Following an initial meeting on 26th October a new network has been set up in Somerset.

In North America an aboriginal group from the Ma Kominsing Anishinawbeg tribe has admitted they blew up a bridge in Ontario’s Temagai Wilderness.

On 31st July North Somerset planning committee voted to let Pioneer Aggregates expand their Drunkard Quarry by a further twenty acres into Ashton Court, a public park for the people of Bristol, not something for exploitation by transnational companies.

On 5th November the main gate into the Copex Arms Fair at Sandown Park, Esher, was completely closed for the day, forcing attending vehicles into a side gate and through a large police cordon.

In mid-November, fourteen people from the UK travelled to Italy to be part of a global gathering of farmers, campaigners and activists.

On November 29th the first shipment containing genetically manipulated soya beans made it’s way into Liverpool Docks, only to be stopped by Greenpeace activists.

Upcoming dates on the direct action calendar.

The observant amongst you will have noticed that this is a combined November/December Action Update.

Wednesday 20th November saw the Brighton crew squat the Old Courthouse, that was originally squatted two years ago, to use as a venue for the Direct Action Conference due to happen on Saturday 23rd.

The impending eviction of the anti-road camps, resisting the construction of the A30 road in Devon, that could have happened from any date after the 14th October, has not yet happened.

Another successful Reclaim the Streets in Manchester on the 19th October saw a chunk of Oxford Road declared a temporary car free zone.

The Northern Earth First! Gathering went well with workshops on genetic engineering, the Job Seekers Allowance, International Networking, Manchester Airport’s second runway, dealing with the media, Naburn Woods, Bingley, herbal first aid, no shop day, Russland Beeches and the like.

The A320 road widening and straightening scheme will cut a new route through a wood and wet grassland.

November 4-10 saw a week of anti-Shell actions to commemorate the execution of the Ogoni activists a year earlier.

It seems that there were in fact two No Shop days.

'A movement that does not support its prisoners is moving nowhere.