Squatters get comfy in Guy Ritchie’s £6m Fitzroy Square mansion.

[editor]

Tee hee. Squatters have moved into stinking rich movie maker Guy Ritchie’s enormous £6 million mansion, located in London’s upmarket Fitzroy Square.

At least 12 people are thought to have taken over the Grade I-listed house, setting up the Really Free School in protest at rising tuition fees.

I popped by last night but didn't get chance to go in. Anyone been yet?

More: http://www.urban75.org/blog/squatters-take-over-6m-fitzroy-square-mansion-lol/

 

[stethoscope]

Excellent occupy

 

[zenie]

They've been served already though I think.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Fantastic

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

bloody freeloaders

 

[joustmaster]

Was it empty then?

 

[London_Calling]

Is that a trick question?

 

[Yelkcub]

Was it empty then?

No one living in it, but builders active in it until day or two before according to the press.

 

[editor]

No one living in it, but builders active in it until day or two before according to the press.

That's what they say, but I'm not entirely convinced. There doesn't seem to be any builders tools in there from the pics I've seen.

 

[editor]

The chair of trustees from the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association seems rather impressed with their new neighbours:

What The Really Free School has done is take a house that was not being used and created a space where ordinary people could get together and learn from each other and draw attention to the state of education in Britain. Instead, the press focussed laser-like on the fact the house is owned by film maker Guy Ritchie. None of the press reported that the School had previously occupied an empty house in Bloomsbury Square, put on educational events, left peacefully and returned the place undamaged without its owner having to go to court to seek possession. Neither did the press take much interest in the many progressive activities that are taking place in the School in Fitzroy Square.

A BBC reporter took exception to being thrown out when he was rumbled and The Telegraph grumbled about not being let in. Why do the press think they have a right to be inside when they are clearly incapable of reporting facts that are there for all to see or can’t be bothered to look for?

In reporting this news story they have not only done a disservice to the creative and inspiring young men and women who have set up this free school but also to the thousands of people living in Fitzrovia and the many hard-working voluntary organisations which try to relieve poverty and improve the lot of ordinary people.

These young people are a credit to their generation and we would do well, in the short time that they will be in Fitzrovia, to listen to their voices and embrace their enthusiasm for trying to bring about a better society.

http://news.fitzrovia.org.uk/2011/0...eally-free-school-and-contempt-for-the-media/

 

[urbanspaceman]

As I understand it, the consensus here is that it's a correct and amusing act to take over people's houses while they have the builders in, at least in the case of Ritchie's house which is quoted above as being worth £6M. So presumably there must be some lower price limit at which it's no longer admirable to invade someone's house - does anyone know what this price is ?

 

[QueenOfGoths]

As I understand it, the consensus here is that it's a correct and amusing act to take over people's houses while they have the builders in, at least in the case of Ritchie's house which is quoted above as being worth £6M. So presumably there must be some lower price limit at which it's no longer admirable to invade someone's house - does anyone know what this price is ?

I don't think anyone has said that have they?

Most people on the thread, myself included, seem to feel that they have taken over a large space which is currently not being used for any purpose and put it to some good use and purpose.

 

[joustmaster]

If the house was unused, then good for them.
If the house was being renovated, then what a pack of ball bags that need thrashing with sticks

 

[Yelkcub]

I don't think anyone has said that have they?

Most people on the thread, myself included, seem to feel that they have taken over a large space which is currently not being used for any purpose and put it to some good use and purpose.

I think everyone here is a very ready to accept it wasn't being used, as opposed to reports that it was being prepared for use. Personally, I'm sure Guy Ritchie can afford to put up with it for a while, but the question of when it's acceptable and when it isn't, is a valid one. I think I asked before and the criteria seemed fluid, to say the least.

 

[editor]

As I understand it, the consensus here is that it's a correct and amusing act to take over people's houses while they have the builders in, at least in the case of Ritchie's house which is quoted above as being worth £6M. So presumably there must be some lower price limit at which it's no longer admirable to invade someone's house - does anyone know what this price is ?

Guy Richie apparently owns a portfolio of luxury properties around town so he's not exactly homeless at this point, and that building has been empty since May. The Neighbourhood Association have welcomed the squat with open arms, which rather says something too. Perhaps they were fed up with such a huge space lying empty.

Have you bothered to read the squatters site?
http://reallyfreeschool.org/?page_id=2

 

[Dan U]

i heard the BBC guy on the radio talking about getting thrown out. he gave the builders line and when asked was he manhandled out he said something like they were 'posh students, don't be daft'

he did say they were all pretty committed to what they were doing and made reference to it being a satirical kind of protest against the Free Schools concept

no idea if the builders thing is true or not btw

 

[editor]

i heard the BBC guy on the radio talking about getting thrown out. he gave the builders line and when asked was he manhandled out he said something like they were 'posh students, don't be daft'

he did say they were all pretty committed to what they were doing and made reference to it being a satirical kind of protest against the Free Schools concept

It's very much a political act.

 

[Superdupastupor]

jesus the Fitzrovia NA is going dangerously off message

 

[editor]

The Sun has the important scoop on this:

Neighbours include SPANDAU BALLET star GARY KEMP.

 

[editor]

Today's events at the squat:

14:00 – 16:00 French lesson for activists and anarchists

14:00 – 15:00 New Structures for New Learning

15:00 – 16:00 Alexander Technique
Method for improving your health by taking care of your posture – understanding the correlation between mind and body.

15:30 – 16:30 Participatory economics: from resisting cuts to a bossless economy

16:00 – 17:00 Local Radical History Walk
Discover Fitzrovia’s radical past on a walking talk with Mike. Meet at the King and Queen pub, corner of Cleveland st and Foley st, or some of us will be walking from the freeschool.

16:00 – 17:00 Hands-on County Court Experience

16:30 – 17:30 Quantum weirdness for non-physicists
with Paul Henson

17:30 – 19:00 DIY PRINT: how to layout zines ready for reso print
A workshop on making your own zines. We will look at ways to lay out using either paper and scissors or Adobe Indesign or whichever design software we have to hand.

This is a skillshare I used to work at footprint workers co-op and currently of threadme co-op and it’ll be craptastic.

19:00 – 20:00 street talk, awareness & mc-in’
come learn some current slang innit.

19:00 – 20:00 DINNER

19:30 – 20:30 Reading Group – The Wretched of the Earth (Sartre introduction)
Reading group on Sartre’s introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth.

The text is available here:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1961/preface.htm

In future sessions, we hope to read the whole thing (tba).

19:30 – 20:30 Yorkway FreeSchool 1970
Fiona’s experiences of the FreeSchool she used to run in the 70′s, how it was done, why it ended and what was so special about it.

20:00 – 21:00 Jazz Workshop + Jamm Session
Jazz Workshop run by Jonah Lipton, London Jazz and Hip-Hop artist. Followed by a Jamm session.
If you’d like to take part, please bring an instrument!

20:30 – 21:30 FreeSchool & FreeSchool
A reading of Little Platoons, a play written around the new Tory “Freeschool” concept. Discussion follows.

20:30 – 21:30 Madonna and the third world order
A light hearted seminar on the changing roles of women, and media, as exemplified by Madonna, and a question mark for her role in the continuing real ” new world order”….media manipulation. There will be a slide show to accompany, and a discussion afterwards.

21:30 – 22:00 Nomad’s Life – Mongolia
Short film screening of nomic life in Mongolia.
Tsaantan 7min, Eagle Hunter 6min

Sure beats watching a Guy Ritchie film.

 

[Dan U]

lol @ 20.30

 

[WWWeed]

I go through Fitzroy square everyday and been watching this unfold!

I don't think they will be there more much longer as apparently Guy Ritchie's lawyers have presented legal documents ordering them to appear in court.

 

[editor]

I like.

The housing was terrible. When the men came back from service and found their wives sleeping in these subway shelters and weeks went on, they took over the Savoy Hotel and became squatters. It was the best hotel in London at the time. The working people rallied around them. They went to these big hotels and the servicemen would let down buckets on ropes and we all put what bits of food we had in them. They occupied those hotels for ages. The authorities were petrified. They thought it was going to be Bolshevism or something. The squatting went on spasmodically for about six months. Then they put up prefabricated houses. They built them in one day. Every available construction worker was busy putting up these houses.

[Studs Terkel interviewing Jean Wood about her experiences in London during the Second World War in ""The Good War": An Oral History of World War Two (1984)" ]

 

[Onket]

19:00 – 20:00 street talk, awareness & mc-in’
come learn some current slang innit.

Unmissable.

 

[editor]

Unmissable.

Still more fun than a Guy Ritchie film!

 

[ExtraRefined]

The housing was terrible. When the men came back from service and found their wives sleeping in these subway shelters and weeks went on, they took over the Savoy Hotel and became squatters. It was the best hotel in London at the time. The working people rallied around them. They went to these big hotels and the servicemen would let down buckets on ropes and we all put what bits of food we had in them. They occupied those hotels for ages. The authorities were petrified. They thought it was going to be Bolshevism or something. The squatting went on spasmodically for about six months. Then they put up prefabricated houses. They built them in one day. Every available construction worker was busy putting up these houses.

[Studs Terkel interviewing Jean Wood about her experiences in London during the Second World War in ""The Good War": An Oral History of World War Two (1984)" ]

I like.

What, so they're squatting because we haven't built over Burgess Park with prefabs?

 

[editor]

What, so they're squatting because we haven't built over Burgess Park with prefabs?

I rather liked the example of the support given by the community to the Savoy squatters, and noted that it has some parallels with the way that the chair of trustees from the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Association has publicly supported the squatters too.

I do hope that clears it up for you.

 

[Dan U]

Unmissable.

will you ever answer my pm

 

[Onket]

I don't want to answer without giving it the attention it deserves.

Apologies.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Still more fun than a Guy Ritchie film!

I'd rather squat in Dennis Ritchie's beard than watch one more second of Guy Ritchie's Revover