“When they kick at your front door, how you gonna go?”

God bless former Clash bassist Paul Simonon. I’ve always considered him to be one of the coolest motherfuckers alive and this only elevates my opinion of him even further into the stratosphere: According to an article in today’s Guardian, Simonon recently spent time as an “undercover” activist on board the MV Esperanza, one of the ships of the Greenpeace fleet, working as a cook, and apparently quite a good one, too:

Simonon was one of 18 activists arrested in June, after the Esperanza launched speedboats at the Leiv Eriksson oil rig off the coast of Greenland. Greenpeace was protesting against the Arctic rig, whose owners had allegedly refused to disclose their oil-spill disaster plan. “It’s obvious why Cairn [Energy] won’t tell the world how it would clean up a BP-style oil spill here in the Arctic, and that’s because it can’t be done,” campaigner Ben Ayliffe explained at the time.

“We stormed the oil rig,” Simonon said. “They said if you don’t get off … we’re going to phone the authorities in Greenland and say you’ve hijacked the oil rig, and the police will come and arrest you. And that’s pretty much what happened.”

According to Greenpeace, Simonon joined the mission weeks before. He first approached the group’s UK action coordinator Frank Heweston, asking if he could “make a stand against Arctic oil drilling” by becoming part of a ship’s crew. Heweston agreed on the condition that Simonon go undercover. “Paul the assistant cook” was embraced by his peers, recalled third mate Martti Leinonen, as a “quiet, humble and funny guy”. “He worked really hard, cooking even on Sundays, which is usually the cook’s day off.”

After the Esperanza protesters were arrested, Simonon spent two weeks in a cell – still keeping his identity a secret. “The food was so bad, we finally got the guards to agree to let Paul cook,” Leinonen said. “He makes excellent vegetarian food.”

Although he is no longer a member of the Esperanza crew, Simonon paid tribute to his former associates at a gig earlier this week. Together with Damon Albarn and the rest of the Good, the Bad and the Queen, Simonon performed for Greenpeace supporters on the deck of the Rainbow Warrior II, moored in the Thames.

The man is a total bad-ass. I love this story!
 

 
Some live concert footage of The Good, The Bad & The Queen performing on the Rainbow Warrior II a few days ago:
 

 
Thank you Henry Baum!