A very wet day in East Grinstead. Not quite as wet as the opening day of the London "Ideal Morgue" but very wet indeed. Nonetheless, about fifteen suppressives turned up in the centre of East Grinstead before heading out to the gates of Saint Hill to picket the arrival of the cult supporters for the IAS event. Things have definitely improved, picketing-wise, as the cult has beautified the area opposite the entrance by installing a row of six-inch by four-inch wooden beams, narrow-end up. This gave us all a nice firm platform to stand on, no need to get our feet wet in the mud at the side of the narrow busy road as used to happen in the past. I would like to thank the Scientologists who installed this helpful feature. What will we get next year, comfy chairs, free coffee, plasma screens?

As befits the "International Association of Suckers", there were cars going in from Germany and Belgium, and a coach each from Germany, the Czech Republic, Italy and France, plus three stretch limos, but what was most noticeable was a stream of coaches coming in and going out empty. Is this going to be Miscavige's latest boast of growth: "More coaches at an IAS event than ever before"?

We had a "COB is an SP" banner. Tony was in fine form on the load-hailer greeting the arrivals with reminders to have their cheque-books and credit cards ready. People leaving were told that they needed to hurry to the nearest ATM to draw out cash, or David Miscavige would be very angry.

In addition to the money wasted on empty coaches, they had spent a lot of money hiring a private security firm. Scientology obviously can't scrape up enough Scientologists to keep COB safe. Tony asked why the security guards didn't have hats or umbrellas as they stood drenched in the downpour. They looked sheepish, as in standing around in the open, getting very wet.

After picketing for five hours, we moved to a nearby hostelry.