Burn The Shard Part 1
20th November 2017
Is it hot in here or is it just me?
The JAMS are cutting it fine with their latest caper, giving the Lucky 49 about 72 hours’ notice that they’d snagged a pair of tickets to Burn The Shard Part 1. As I start writing this, I’ve just had an email from Bido Lito! promising the draw will be made at noon today. So, I’ll pause here for an hour and… fingers crossed.
12.00 on the dot and—HUZZAH! Email received. I’m in. A ticket confirmed, with a vague instruction to expect further details on Wednesday telling me where to meet at 7pm in London. That’s it. That’s all we get.
From the state of the Facebook groups I think I might’ve been one of the first to know. Cue frantic refreshing elsewhere, a few excited posts starting to pop up as names trickle out. I’m mostly just relieved my pre-emptive train and hotel booking won’t go to waste. Luck of the draw or quiet hand of fate, I’ll take it.
Like everyone else, I’ve been rereading 2023 ahead of Thursday—never a chore, but this time with an extra layer of paranoia. Every line could be a clue, every reference a trap. And with the Dead Perch Menace apparently set to quiz us, I’ve been revising like it’s finals week. Don’t be surprised if you spot me on the day muttering over flashcards like a panicked contestant on Mastermind.
So yes, good news for me. Not much else to add until Wednesday’s email lands. To those who got tickets: see you in the Smoke. To those who didn’t: watch the feeds, or start negotiating your plus-ones for spare kidneys.
21st November 2017
Two days to go and the fog finally clears: this is a product launch. A glorified product launch, in the best possible JAMS way.
This time the focus is the audiobook of 2023, narrated by Daisy Eris Campbell, complete with poster and 7″ single (CONTAINS NO MUSIC!). Two teaser trailers dropped with the announcement, so yes, flash forward to me hauling yet another armful of merch back home on Friday morning.
Back to 2023. It’s amazing how many possibilities it holds for Thursday. London streets, pubs, warehouses, marches—it’s all in there. Which of them will bleed into Burn The Shard? Impossible to say. Shall we speculate wildly anyway?
Sure. Let’s rashly predict we somehow end up at the Shard itself. Unlikely, of course. That area is locked down tighter than Fort Knox, and besides, it’s south of the river. We’d need to cross a bridge en masse, which doesn’t exactly scream “permitted event”. Still, the image of standing north of the Thames with the Shard looming in view is too good not to daydream about.
Draw a rough circle of an hour’s walk from the Shard (north side) and you get plenty of interesting territory. Clerkenwell, for instance—home to the L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, a known ally in JAMS activity. Right on the border of that radius. A tidy, poetic base, no?
All pure speculation of course. Tomorrow the promised instructions land and all will be revealed. And yet—why is it that waiting a single day feels so unbearable when it’s them? Whatever the reason, I’ll enjoy these final hours of armchair detective work while I can.