By Ewan MacLeod in Whatley Wednesday — Nov 21, 2007

Whatley becomes a Flashmobbing gun slinger

[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: