Questions for Neal, Gabriel and Sid

Jane sent a series of questions for the children by email. Gary asked them at the Institute, on the 17thMarch 2013, 13:07 after having f lmed Anti-Oedipus shots in Everton Park.

Jane If there hadn’t been the Institute, what would you have missed? Neal We probably wouldn’t have been to COP15 and all that. We wouldn’t have slow travelled. I wouldn’t know what anarchism was... I would have thought anarchism was just extreme violence. I wouldn’t have known what communism was... Gabriel I would have missed my personality and I would have missed the inner me and, I wouldn’t be so brave going on, I wouldn’t... I would get dead nervous going on stage if it wasn’t for the Institute. Sid I wouldn’t know who Jesus was. Gary What’s Jesus got to do with the Institute? Sid He’s guiding our way and is the king of our babies. Gabriel We would never have met Jane Trowell and would never have been answering these questions. Neal We, yeah, wouldn’t have had to put up with your (Gary’s) weird friends. Gabriel I know they’re so annoying. Sid If the Institute didn’t, if it wasn’t true I’d never met Neal. Neal We wouldn’t have been on that canal barge. Gabriel It was boss wasn’t it! Neal No! Sid We wouldn’t have any friends. Neal Maybe I wouldn’t have met the school friends, coz you wanted us to go to a left-wing school. We wouldn’t be in this house, coz we needed a room for the Institute. We gave the Institute a room and a name, a hope and a dream. And a purpose and a faith and we gave it hospitality. Sid And we gave it sexy boobies. Jane What do you think Lena and Gary have enjoyed about the Institute? Neal Oh, ho! Bossing us about! Sid Bossing us in the computer suite. Gabriel Watching us grow up to follow their left-wing example. Neal Oh my God! All that Derrida and Levinas! Sid Oh my God what’s it called?

Gabriel Why don’t we make a video message? It’s easier? Sid T ey love the Institute and they want to marry it. Gabriel Slow travelling. Neal No, no, remember they had that big argument when we were slow travelling? Gabriel Oh yeah. Neal I don’t think they enjoyed that. T ey probably enjoyed imagining what the Institute would be like, but realising they are not that successful. Gabriel T ey stride on to victory. Neal In brackets, ‘defeat’. Sid I thought they loved it when it f rst came. Gabriel T ey got an excuse to watch these boring f lms and talk about philosophy... erm... which I think they’re just doing that to annoy us. Jane What’s been dif cult about the Institute? Can you think of a time you weren’t happy about it? Neal When we had to go to the Arnolf ni on our birthday...that was sort of crap. Gabriel I thought we lived on that barge? Neal No. no. One hundred days before that. Gabriel After discovering that no matter how hard you try, how eager you get, you hardly make a dif erence. Neal When we had to waste our weekend on some sort of protest. Gabriel When was that? Neal I swear, it was like... Sid When Neal lost his key. Gabriel No Sid, that was the astronomy thing. Sid I don’t know when. Neal How about when we had to walk for ages, going to cities to do protests? Sid Oh horrible, for f ve hours! Gabriel I know, I’m starting to regret the Institute with these bad memories. Sid Why is it raining? Gabriel Coz God’s peeing. Sid When we had that massive walk and my legs were killing. Gabriel T at wasn’t the Institute. Neal When we were walking in Wales in the forest? Gabriel Yeah. Sid I mean, I mean, for hours, FOR HOURS. Neal No, that was Plas Caerdeon in Wales... giving out f iers in London was a bit embarrassing.. ‘take this...take this... it’s the Free University of Liverpool’

Gabriel T en we got on the telly with some woman talking about ‘the Free University of Manchester; and I said ‘just screw you’... Neal You didn’t say that directly...’just screw you’... imagine saying that? Gabriel Ha ha ha! Sid T at girl that we... whatever her name is... she go to Gabriel, ‘Hey love, Hey love’ and she said, ‘Can you get your Dad?’ and she said ‘Because we are doing the Free Uni in Manchester’... Gabriel Sid you just killed that! Sid And Dad said, ‘Can I kiss you on the lips...?’ Jane What’s your best memory of doing Institute things? Gabriel Can we do a memory of what’s not yet made or is that just illegal? Going on that boat to Denmark! T at was boss! Neal T e food, the food on that boat! And there was this navigation thing that showed where we were. Gabriel And there was that clown, magician, who went the same school as you Dad! Neal And remember there was Tom and Jerry on that boat? Going on that boat was boss. And that clown who was in your school. Gabriel And that boat was one of my prof le pictures on facebook. Neal T en, when we went to that place in Denmark we had to wait forever in that queue. Sid erm... Gabriel Emergence Summit! It was boss those eco-homes were boss where we stayed. Neal Oh I wasn’t there. It was good when me and mum went to Newcastle. Sid Oh that was fun in Croatia! Gabriel We never did Institute stuf in Croatia. Sid I went there with Louie and Mum and... Gabriel Louie named you Sid, didn’t she? Sid Yes. Gabriel Oh wait, I’ve got something... oh no it’s gone. Neal T e trains and UpperCrust and all of that. T e Marco Polo boat. T at was alright. To Rijeka then Rijeka to Zagreb, Zagreb, Budapest, Budapest, Munich, Munich Paris, Paris London and London to Liverpool. Dad, was that correct? Gabriel Emergence Summit. T e song writing was sick. Sid When Neal lost his key, that was so funny, hilarious...you were like ‘where’s me key, where’s me key?’ Jane How much do you think your friends would like to organise an Institute in their house with their families? Neal Not a chance. All the kids in Blue Coat are for David Cameron and that. All of them are training to be bankers and whatnot, investors and businessmen and all that.

Gabriel I remember once in school when a picture of David Cameron came up and Mr Allen went, no Mr Stewart went, ‘Who’s that?’ And Mr Allen said ‘Well that’s just out lovely prime minister, sir’. And then everyone in the class went ‘Eeeh, I hate him’ (David Cameron, not Mr Allen).... some of mine, like 75% of my friends would be like ‘ Oh yeah, I’m up for this’ then the other 25% would be like ‘Oh, what? I’m scared, I might get put in prison’. Sid I thought they would love to - like a 1000, one thousand percent. Neal Some of the people may want to set up their own business institute enterprises or whatever they are called, but not Institutes like this one. T e dif erence is that ours isn’t like right wing where poor people are staying poor and rich people are getting richer.

T en they all went of to watch the telly.