[Ewan here: In the first of many Whatley Wednesdays — a new feature here at SMS Text News — the Whatleydude (aka the uber connected James Whatley) explores the medium and life of mobile. This week he participated in a real life gun shoot out at the Tate Modern Museum in London (a shoot out with fingers, no less).]
Here’s the Whatleydude overview:
The Date: 17/11/07
The Time: 14:00
The Place: Tate Modern
The Event: Flash Mob Finger Gun Shoot Out! (See facebook event)
Your friendly neighbourhood Whatley went undercover at the weekend and took part in his FIRST EVER (shocking – I know) Flash Mob event.
This is how it panned out…
12:00 – Alarm goes off, suffering man flu.. shall I go? Shall I not?
12:05 – Twitter comes in from my mate Ben: “Anyone who doesn’t go today is a loser”
12:10 – Practice gun poses in the mirror:
12:11 – I realise I’m 27yrs old and if I’ve made it this far and I still need to practice my gun poses in the mirror then there’s clearly something wrong with me.
13:10 – Packing my best Matrix poses I head off into London
13:55 – After fighting weekend trains and tubes I finally sprint into the main turbine room of the Tate Modern just in time for… Nothing.
Nothing at all.
No inconspicuous looking gunfighters, no shifty looking sharpshooters, no nothing.
Just a bunch of people milling around a giant crack in the floor (this apparent encroachment on every day health and safety standards is ‘art’ would you believe?).
I look around some more, I spy my friend Jay, he too is looking around for more ‘Finger Gunners’.
And still we find nothing.
13:59 – Suddenly become aware of a lot of people wearing sunglasses… Jay reminds me that this was part of ‘the uniform’. This I was unaware of.. Fortunately I just so happen to ALWAYS carry my SunnyGs so we don our specs… and we wait.
14:05 – By now the tension is unbearable. There quite frankly a LOT of people hovering around all wearing shades and giving sideways glances in all directions (but mainly… sideways).
We ALL know we’re here to shoot each other.. We ALL know why we’re ALL wearing sunglasses.. and yet we ALL know we have to wait for ‘The Signal’.
14:08 – The Signal!
Two girls. Both dressed in black, wearing red ties, appear in our midst. Spreading out we watch… AND THEN THEY DRAW!
Suddenly what looked like just a bunch of hollywood stars wondering around the Tate turns into an audition for the next John Woo film… Finger Guns are drawn… Stares are met… Breaths are held… until…
BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!!!
And in seconds it’s all over… Too soon..
We came, we shot, we died:
Then we.. er.. kinda got up.. and went on our merry way!
Cue much bemusement from tourists, museum goers and security guards alike.
Hehehe…
And the Whatley Verdict? Awesome. Bring on the next one.
Any SMSTextNews Readers Flashmobbed before? Would love to hear your story…
🙂
Here’s a Youtube of the event:
PS – In case you are interested – the next planned event is here – bring ammo – I’ll see you there.
For the record:
At the time of writing I was 27.
At the time of publishing I am 28.
Ahem.
Awesome fun dude, yet I feel compelled to explain that I really cannot advocate alcohol, drugs or insanity, but have found they always worked for me.
Drink up and have a great birthday, 28 year olds dude. 28 year olds . . .
Wish I’d been there to witness the madness – and take part in it.
Have fun at the next one 😛
pointless. sick. stupid. waste of time.
I do hope this mature blog for grown ups is not going to become full of this rubbish.
Oh dear. Mature person, you must lead a great life. Devoid of laughter, entertainment or anything resembling happiness.
Did it hurt when they surgically removed your sense of humour?
“aka the uber connected James Whatley”
Did you really just refer to yourself in the third person and say you were ‘uber-connected’?
…. flashmobbing looks fun.. but hmmm..
Hey njar,
Ewan seems to have changed the author credit at the top from his name to mine, which is cool but now it looks like the whole thing looks is mine when in fact I didn’t write the intro part – that’s Ewan’s – my bit starts at the date, time, place etc…
And anyway – ‘Uber-Connected’? Me? Hah!
As if James Whatley would ever say such a thing…
😉
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