I used to hate being in mobs, temporary seas of people - found the momentum of a thousand feet unnerving, like an act of bodily betrayal. But there's a thrill in giving up to the thrum and pulse of base emotion, in being part of something greater and lesser, moving without thinking, direction passing along without words. Remember how in 2000, S11 meant something different - in the age before terrorism, there was rebellion brewing against the neoliberal/neoconservative brand of globalisation and 10,000 people gathered to protest the World Economic Forum, a talkfest of less importance than the WTO, but hey, still worth an anticapitalist carnival. A semi-tourist like most other people, I walked around Crown, picketed by linked arms and the stench of young idealistic sweat (it's got a certain tang to it, a little acrid, a little sour - the thrill that dips in and out of fear). A little moment: the main entrance was filled with the keenest, who chanted no-one in, no-one out and swayed and eyed the police regiments warily. Without warning, a man burst from the crowd and charged the line, arms swimming freestyle through the protestors and the line sank inwards a little, giving under the onslaught of one - and then, a tiny electric pulse, a surge and the man is thrown back, hair and eyes wild, out of control and he shouts something incomprehensible and then again, clearer: "I came from fucking Warrigal to play the pokies and I fucking want to get in."

Amused, detached I walked on, sipping on my waterbottle, smiling at everyone - a family day. We crossed the Yarra away from the casino, ready for a break and then it happened - people started running, one or two and shouting rose up and people appeared and swelled and coursed along and there I was, away from my friends, in it, in this alliance of movement, which sped around and down, off the road, behind Melbourne's World Trade Centre and the mob poured out, fast through the narrow corridors and slowing as we entered open space, like water and there in the middle of a nothing place was a bus full of WEF delegates about to try a sneaky entrance (at least, that's what I think they were) and no security and the mob paused, one, two, ten seconds, milling before the decision was made (who by?) and we engulfed the bus and linked arms, even me, who shies away from confrontation, two deep and chanted and we were a living thing, rough arms tugging at mine, the sweat coming out of all of us. For a time we were there, alone, without confrontation and a little energy dissipated and embarrassment seeped into me (what was I doing here?) and I wanted to relinquish this thing, slink away but my arms were tight and I was needed and thirty, forty, fifty police appeared silently and stood in front of us. "Let go of each other and step away" - a demand, repeated perhaps twice before they moved in to tear us loose and the sight of these anonymous leathery people was terrifying. Then it all became a flurry and shrill shouting erupted and all I caught was glimpses of people wrenched apart from each other before the face of my personal nemesis swam into view. One of the police, a burly man, decided I was his target - perhaps he didn't like my face - and he grabbed me, tore me free and got me in a headlock and I was beyond all care, no mind left, just a tumble of blurry impressions like my memory of being on a swing when I was three - sky, police, smell of his jacket, ground - somehow I took him down and we fell heavily and I ducked away somehow and he was gone and so was I, away. It was only later I realised I was bleeding a fair bit. Later still that I realised I'd been photographed, selected by an editor, put in The Australian and sent all round the country as evidence of civil dissent, the protestor who really wasn't. I've got a tiny scar as a testament. But I still don't know how I got there, or who made the decision.