‘I recently learned about the 1960s-era anarcho-touristic group Scramble!, which used to provide visitors to London with false maps in order to confuse them. Likewise, Scramble!rs would visit, say, Paris, equipped with a map of Istanbul. Why, you ask? ”Tourism was a function of capitalist control whose system had to be subverted,” ex-Scramble!r Piotr Jozefow told the London Review of Books:’ Boston Globe

Peter Green’s discussion of ancient maps (LRB, 21 February) reminded me of an anarcho-tourist grouping from the late 1960s with which I was briefly involved. The idea behind Scramble! (the title was suggested by its Scottish founding member, the concrete poet and printmaker Greg Ross) was that tourism was a function of capitalist control whose systems had to be subverted. Not only that, but the corporate city with its directions and signposts was an expression of chartered space which had to be broken down. Not content with pointing visitors to London in wrong directions, Scramble! produced deliberately confusing maps. These might be made of bread or of toothpicks inserted into assemblages of steel wool and masticated paper. The most effective at outright confusion were simply maps of cities different from those we happened to be in at the time. Thus a visit to Paris would require a plan of Istanbul. With these tactics we attempted to deprogramme ourselves of the urban knowledge that any city-dweller or casual visitor would deem essential. We failed, needless to say, but had a lot of fun baffling ourselves as well as tourists. LRB (Letters, Vol. 24 No. 6, 21 March 2002)