FOOTNOTES Journal-ista Howard Scott finds out what the locals do in Barcelona when the Sagrada Familia is shut, and discovers a secret about pasta that you won't find in The Anarchist's Cookbook. Photographs from the Barcelona streets by Andy Turvey

The smell of sulphur, a helicopter buzzing overhead, shopkeepers pulling up their shutters, anxious faces poking out of restaurants; amused on-lookers leaving their bar stools - cautiously crowding at the bar entrances. Was it over? The lines had been drawn that morning, policemen had cordoned off the street at each block and intersection. They'd stood their ground in lines but couldn't advance against a barrage of pelted garbage, bottles and stones, I'd seen that much, but they were too late in their manoeuvres and looked ridiculous for it now. Wheelie bins had been overturned and cars pulled out behind the rioters to block the police pursuit. So, the cops had only managed to draw up barriers and obstacles against each other. One group of riot police were at one end of the street looking down through the shoppers at another group hiding behind their shields, nervous and curious as lab mice. Somehow, too, the anarchists had evaded the helicopters; they'd become invisible inside their lair.

Where were the anarchists? The police had become the aftermath of a spectacle and so were attracting attention from everyone who walked this way trying to work out what had happened. Funnily enough, most of the police seemed to be doing the same thing. Apparently the rioters had arrived, turned over the peace and quiet reality of Calle de Gracias, one of Barcelona's more commercial streets, and then just disappeared. I went inside a bookshop I hadn't noticed before. It was owned by an Irishman who was playing Chris Morris sketches on his computer very loudly.

"What's happening outside?" He asked me.
"Think some neo-Nazi demonstration has kicked off."
"I thought it was the anarchists," he said.
"Oh. They looked like Blackshirts."
"That would have been the riot police."

I'd been at the beach all day, trying to decide whether to go check my e-mails, get some food downtown, go and see friends in Saria or head for Gracia, I'd got perplexed in my hungover state and jumped off the Metro at Fontana by mistake. Thinking nothing of the helicopter directly above I turned the corner into the main street and was confronted by a stampede. Riot police were pouring out of vans, people were ducking into doorways; old women watched the melee from their balconies. The rioters were at their most extreme at that instant, the point when I happened to walk onto it all with Lou Reed singing, "I am tired, I am weary, I could sleep for a thousand years", in my headphones. The Velvets came off straight away so I could take in the whole shebang. Windows of banks and fast food joints were being kicked in, a group of anarch-kids ducked up the street past me, hugging the wall and trying to get away from the trouble. On seeing them a group of onlookers panicked and backed into - of all places - McDonalds. By now though the anarcists were just trying to get away. A girl had blood over her face but looked as if she didn't know or care. I turned back to the commotion. When I looked back up the street to see if they'd got through the police at that end, they'd completely disappeared. They'd managed to get away unnoticed.

I hadn't eaten all day and I wanted to get to a cafe halfwaydown the street. I could see the anarchists were caught between two sets of police but with most of Barcelona being on a grid system they had options. Bottles were being hurled down the road so I walked through the police line and down the street. I ducked into my cafe where they seemed oblivious to the bother outside, and ordered penne pasta with peppercorns, artichokes and salmon. Takeaway. I didn't want to miss a thing. The boss ran in and said to his alarmed staff that a helicopter was coming down into the street and started putting the shutters up. Espera. I headed out. The rioters were giving it some. Mostly kids, they looked like the anti-globalization lot. People were hiding in shop doorways. I walked directly towards the action, thinking both 'Shit, I'm wearing pretty much the same gear as this lot' and also 'Go on, have it.' There was glee on most people's faces watching, concern on the shopkeepers. I felt like a cow, grazing on my pasta and watching the action going down. Suddenly, the rioters spontaneously broke off and ran as one through the streets. The police (Spanish police seem to me to be the laziest types of bullies, picking on immigrants selling cans of beer while in the backstreets tourists are getting mugged or girls are getting lured into prostitution by the Barca Mafia) just stood in their numbers and waited for all sign of the rioters to disappear from the streets.