After a period of time you get immune to it or at least sufficiently anaesthetised so the stuff that flows from the political front washes over you. I guess it’s the upshot of the lethargy you get after a prolonged shout at the radio………or is it just me? There’s every chance I’ve been labouring under the misapprehension that I was just one in a million who practised this activity………? Your silence is deafening; so, just me then. OK, well, after a bout of these lungular exercises, I get to a point where I think, “Oh, fuck it, no one’s listening anyhow. Nothing changes, nothing becomes better; I’ll be off and play with the train-set.” Then just when I’ve lost the will to convince, along comes William Hague, again, and I revisit the reasons why I write these things to cyber-space.
I suppose I was given something of a fillip when I read Howard Jacobson’s column in the Saturday ‘Independent’ last week. He was espousing a level of punishment for car-driving-stupidity that I wrote about in some great detail about two years ago. Admittedly my rant was about those toss-pot, wankers-with-the-tankers who front “Top Gear” and the lifestyle they inveigle us all to join which seems to revolve around cutting up cars, crashing cars, skidding cars around race-tracks and getting something called “A Stick” to drive them at regular intervals as fast as possible………oh, and involving the one thing that Britain leads the world in producing, air-head celebrities, in the highly innovative pastime of driving a saloon car round the same track as fast as possible (opportunity going begging for a brake expert to do some serious fluid tampering, methinks). Anyhow, Mr Jacobson had arrived at a level of punishments that, if he hadn’t read my Blog, then he’d either conversed with someone who had, or I’ve been the victim of telepathic robbery as our thought processes were remarkably similar; but just remember, you read it here first. Well, I thought, so my nocturnal and sporadic scribing is being read by someone, so I’ll continue on then.
So, there I am, channel-hopping, as you do at 22.30 when you’ve just got in from work, have sat down with a mug of tea and are desperately trying to find something, anything, that doesn’t have twenty-two gob-joys booting a pig’s scrotum around a sheet of grass, when I logged on to a discussion concerning a new film, “This Is England”. Don’t know a lot about it as it’s only just been released in t U.K., although there’s been a fair bit of Pre-Release Placement (nice bit of industry jargon for you there) over the last few days. What I can say? Well, from the chat they had with the film’s director on this programme the movie revolves around a Northern-English working town and its resident skinhead population during the late 1970’s early 1980’s. Anyone who knows about this time in our “Green and Pleasant Land” will know this was the time of the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher and the union problems.
I have to admit that I’m not a big fan of “drama with gritty realism”. We get so much of it on English T.V. these days; soaps (Eastenders, Coronation Street, The Bill) and drama series (Shameless, Sugar Rush and countless other copies) that the palate gets jaded, provided, that is, you could be arsed to watch any of them in the first instance. Those who peddle these programmes will tell us this is real life (not it isn’t, you’re dramatising something from real life; making money off the backs of those who live it) that the great divide between rich and poor is still chasmic (yes, and the money you get from making these series' puts you in which bracket, exactly?) that there are constant and thriving pockets of depravation, brutality, child molestation, prostitution murder and mayhem (yes, I know there are, but I don’t need to be shown these things masking themselves under the cloak of ‘entertainment’. I can read about the real thing, every day, in the newspapers).
I figure the people involved in these programmes all slope off to their Highgate Hovels at the end of a gruelling days filming (gruelling as opposed to……what exactly? Mining for gold in South Africa……no…er……mining for coal in China……er…no…shovelling dung from the desert floor in order to get a fire started before you have to walk the six miles to the nearest well in order to cook the grubs you’ve just dug up which do a poor job of masquerading as this weeks’ “meat meal”…yeah, gruelling, right) and, like eating the testicles of your slain enemy to gain their power and masculinity, they garner their reputations off this dabbling in what they call “the cutting edge” of “gritty drama”…………………sorry, I digress, as usual.
So, there we are discussing this film and who should put in his twopenn’orth but our old mate, William Hague. When asked if he remembers those times (Thatcher, the 70’s and 80’s) he says something along the lines of, “Yes, they were times of great hardship" (not for Hague, Tahtcher and the rewst of her oily government, I'll betcha!) "and Margaret Thatcher was an unpopular leader" (you got that fucker right, Bill!) " but these things had to be changed; we had to improve things………” And that was the tinderbox for this latest tirade.
Only a politician, and probably only a Conservative politician, could brush over that period as “necessary”, try to tell us that what followed was “OK” and that what we have now is “better”. Here was a man allied to a leader who destroyed families, community and hope; a man allied to a government who gifted the Conservative Party business cronies the freedom to take over public companies, run them into the ground, asset-strip them, cut health and safety to the bone, put the public at risk then claim money back from the same government to put the faults they’d created right. A man allied to a government who’s members (forgive the pun) shagged everything that stood still long enough, robbed pension funds, ran insurance fiddles, lied, cheated and bribed their way through the daily business of government, polluted our environment to a degree never before witnessed (all the time making sure that the perpetrators of these deeds – the Conservative Party bank-rollers - went unpunished) and screwed the health service, the fire service, the ambulance service, the coast-guard and the agricultural industry for every cent it could get......... and do you know what, when he came out with this guff, NO-ONE on that panel discussing that film challenged him!!!!!…………
OK, so what’s the conclusion? What’s the message of hope? Well, I think it would be ideal if, two days before the next general election, Margaret Thatcher keels over ‘cos the dancing in the streets that’ll take place when this happens will put paid to ANY chance of a Conservative victory as, like William Hague did to me the other night, it’ll serve as a timely reminder to populace as to just what we unleash when we get any party that has a pedigree like the one mentioned above back into power………Bugger! I think I’ve just spotted the flaw in the plan; that’ll mean the Labour government will get in again……………fuck it!
Monday, April 23, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Arts funding - the level playing field philosphy of the UK
Blogs penned by me are much like constipation really. You spend hours on the word processor, straining and grunting, the rest of the family believing you’re strangling a wart-hog in there but, try as you will, nothing will shift; then you get a shock to the system and, lo and behold, out comes this torrent of calligraphic diarrhoea and although no-one else can stand the smell you feel so relieved to have got it out. Well, figures published recently provided the enema to release the following blockage.................................
For those unfamiliar with this blogsite of mine (Ha! Who am I kidding, that anyone else reads this?) you may not know that I work in theatre here in the UK; that’s not the place where they cut folk open then realise they can’t get back in what they’ve just hauled out you understand, but the place where show-offs gather to entertain the masses (and I use the word “entertain” in its widest possible sense here). In the UK and for many years, the arts in general and theatre in particular have always struggled to gain realistic funding or real fiscal support that would allow them to provide both secure planning and by that end develop centres of artistic excellence in the provinces. To these venues (and as things so often do when you’re living on low-level hand-outs which are coupled with a limited understanding of your plight by those who have the ability to help out..........mainly because these bestowers of largesse all live in London and consider anything north of Watford and west of Guildford to be "foreign") the wolf doesn’t just come padding up to the door but enters through the cat-flap, shits in your wallet and then sets up home in the fridge.
Due to consistent under-funding, and so in their continuing straightened circumstances, many theatres have had to ask for cash injections, one-off loans and such only to be told by those who have their hands on the purse-strings that they must be able to compete in this theatrical jungle of ours, to stand on their own two feet without bleating constantly for extra funding and, if they can’t 'get their shit together' then they should go under……and many of them have. Various actors have felt obliged to support or even start up “Save Our (fill in your own theatre name here)” movements in order to gain sufficient cash to continue even in the reduced circumstances they find themselves in. Amongst these campaigns have been appeals for theatres and places of entertainment that are steeped in the history of the theatrical tradition. Theatres designed by Frank Macham, stages that Garrick and Tree walked on, venues where groundbreaking theatrical movments started off; places of high cultural, social and historic importance that serve as an important centre for recreation, social intercourse and action for the area they are situated in but who's mistake is not being situated in the right place; namely the 'circle of fame' that is central London. In their efforts to gain funding for these struggling provincial ventures, the begging of support from private individuals and local councils, running benefit shows, raffles and hosting appeals to the general public in order to scrape together the £250,000 or so the venue needs in order to stay open have all been tried.
The same can be said for theatre companies, particularly those in the small-scale sector and even more particularly those companies run by, with reference to and consisting mainly or wholly of Black or Asian members. I’m sure I’ll get a massive postbag (?!) telling me I’m wrong here (hope so.........s'lonely here in cyber-moan-land) and you’ll have to check for yourself but, apart from Talawa Theatre (London-based and didn’t they go through some deep shit to get where they are at present) Red Ladder (Leeds-based) and Tara Arts (London-based……again) I’m not so sure there are many other fully professional, black or Asian theatre companies operating in the UK at present. Black Theatre Co-operative, Temba, African People’s Theatre; I think they’ve all gone by the wayside in this supportive, multi-culturalism land of ours. In fact, I believe I'm right in saying that, for a goodly time in the early '90's' there was no professional , Black or Asian theatre company operating anywhere in the UK (certainly not in the small-scale sector at least) all the funding having been withdrawn to those innovative companies that were in operation over the preceding four or so years.
Almost without exception, venues or companies that are in dire circumstances are provincial (outside London) venues, but even in London there have been some casualties, and many are still struggling to maintain their staff and output, er, unless you happen to be the Royal Opera House (ROH) English National Opera (ENO) or Saddlers' Wells Ballet………………… For these venues and companies there is, for some reason, always a ready pot of money to be dished out as soon as the accountants squeal loudly enough; and we’re not talking a piddling £250,000 here, we’re talking millions……………and millions………and millions……. The ROH had a grant of £24.9 million in 2003 and the ENO, after a £41 million refit and an annual subsidy of £13 million had to be bailed out in 2005 with a further £10 million; think that’s a lot; read on. The ROH was only saved from bankruptcy with an increase in their subsidy of £5 million and the ENO has been bailed out (again) with a further £20 million emergency grant (and even then they cut 45 jobs) and is hoping that the Arts Council will bail it out yet again this year after a further £4 million was handed over to stop it going into receivership. Add up those figures; look at the state of regional theatre in the UK today................... then re-read ‘em and weep. Now, you may think I'm being too focused in naming the names above, that it should also be pointed out that, with the Barbican as a multi-function venue in the heart of London, the spending of a further £111 million on building the South Bank Centre, a multi function venue in the heart of London (is there an echo in here?) also deserves mention; well there it is, and yes, it does puzzle somewhat........................ Sorry, I digress; you will be forgiven for thinking, “Well, how the hell does this state of affairs whereby a bottomless pit exists for some but not others not only happen but continue to happen?” For this you have to understand how the large arts and cultural institutions are run in this country.
When you or I go for a job, an interview process is undertaken in order to ascertain just what our qualifications are; you know, a process designed to find out whether the all-pervading smell of livestock emanating from your application form really is caused by the fact that you live on farm. So, for argument's sake, let's say you do live on farm and are well qualified in the raising of various stock. Fed up with spending most of your day knee-deep in animal excrement and elbow-deep in the various orifices of sick or pregnant beasts, you've decided on a change of direction. Armed with your lifetime's experience on the farm (which is part of the food industry, it has to be said) your three GCSE's and a letter of commendation from your scoutmaster (which states that you once rubbed two boy-scouts together and started a small blaze) you've answered an advert asking for likely candidates to apply for the post of supermarket manager. On this auspicious day, and for a reason known only to the psychologically sick and which requires a deal of fluke and blindness yet to be encountered since Peter Mandelson or Cecil Parkinson were invited back into goverment following various positions of disgrace, you've been asked for an interview at that said supermarket; what chance do you think you'd stand? For reasons laid out below, I'd venture to suggest a lot less than those in similar circumstances but having one of the three listed requirements who are applying for employment within either a government department or in one of the London-centric bastions of the arts, my friend; lets lay it out simply, huh?
Within our government for instance (and yours too, probably) someone can have absolutley no knowledge of, say, theatre, or dance, or how an art gallery is run, beyond the fact that they once went to a play (well, a pantomime anyhow......when they were three) have seen an Andy Wharhol print of a Marylin Monroe original (not the real thing, you understand, but in a book somewhere or other) and attended tap lessons when they were five or six (but gave up after three weeks because it scuffed their new shoes) and yet, simply because they are in government and have happened to be on the right side of the leader of their party, be promoted to Minister for the Arts and Culture. Clearly stated for the mesmerised amongst you, this gives them overall control of all institutions and centres of artistic endeavour; the true culmination of power without knowledge. Crazy, I know, to all but the most perverted or the most stupid, I mean would you give control of a fully armed fighter jet to someone who lent you fiver when you were broke and once flew model aircraft in the local park? How this happens will be explained a little further below, but bear with me for a little longer in order to gain the fuller picture, OK? Now, back to the running of the arts in this country and of the so-called "flagship" venues (their description, not mine) in the UK.
To gain a position of board membership on any of the aforementioned performance venues or on the national council that handles the cash and decides who should get it, how much and how often, indeed, to gain even just entry into the inner sanctum of these "areas of artistic excellence" (their description, not mine) and through this a chance to move on up to C.E.O. of an arts institution you have to have one of four things. Either, 1) The ability, if you wished to commit suicide, of completing this task by jumping off your wallet, or, 2) A uniform of some sort coupled with an ability to shout at new recruits or, 3) To have no chin but an ancestry that goes back forever or, 4) Be able to dress white tie without hiring in. No expertise needed in any of the arts disciplines, just one of the four above.....this is your job interview.
So how come, in this climate of struggling provincial theatre and theatrical production, and if there are these continued fuck-ups of monumental proportions with monotonous regularity requiring the monumental payouts mentioned above, is there this seemingly bottomless well for these “premier” (their description not mine) arts venues and companies? Jesus, come on, pay attention; in any democracy, those who make the laws that govern us also adminsiter them. Their desire to visit the domiciles of the proletariat who, as far as they are concerned still live in dung huts and think art has a letter missing, is as eagerly sought out as would be their drink of a bucket of warm faeces; strange when most of them live in what many consider to be the arsehole of England but there we are, all things are relative. So, with this as their guiding principle, it's fairly obvious that most provincial theatres will continue to struggle; will continue to have to hold a bring-and-buy sale of second-hand clothes every other week in order to maintain their mission of bringing entertainment to the masses in anything like safe conditions, whilst those who insist on buying their chorus 'Armani' suits for the next production of 'Aida' because, for some twisted reason, they think the production will suffer for it if they don't (on a personal note here, my old adage that, "if the audience are looking at the cut of the cloth then the production's a flop", fits this one as well as many others). These institutions will continue to cream off a casual £10 million whenever the fancy takes them for no other reason than they can, and meanwhile those other purveyors of the arts, the ethnic or groundbreaking, the provincial or small-scale players in the game will have to fight and squabble for the crumbs from the big-boy's table................... Does my working-class mentality show in this? Probably; just put it down to a lifetime of watching our inequalities in the arts keep our challeprovincial theatre in its place and pay it scant attention, after all the Arts Council have made a career out of it………………………Now, just ask yourself again why the ROH, ENO and Saddlers Wells keep getting in to deep shit and why, fortuitoulsy, they manage to keep getting bailed out; all becoming clear now? Good.
For those unfamiliar with this blogsite of mine (Ha! Who am I kidding, that anyone else reads this?) you may not know that I work in theatre here in the UK; that’s not the place where they cut folk open then realise they can’t get back in what they’ve just hauled out you understand, but the place where show-offs gather to entertain the masses (and I use the word “entertain” in its widest possible sense here). In the UK and for many years, the arts in general and theatre in particular have always struggled to gain realistic funding or real fiscal support that would allow them to provide both secure planning and by that end develop centres of artistic excellence in the provinces. To these venues (and as things so often do when you’re living on low-level hand-outs which are coupled with a limited understanding of your plight by those who have the ability to help out..........mainly because these bestowers of largesse all live in London and consider anything north of Watford and west of Guildford to be "foreign") the wolf doesn’t just come padding up to the door but enters through the cat-flap, shits in your wallet and then sets up home in the fridge.
Due to consistent under-funding, and so in their continuing straightened circumstances, many theatres have had to ask for cash injections, one-off loans and such only to be told by those who have their hands on the purse-strings that they must be able to compete in this theatrical jungle of ours, to stand on their own two feet without bleating constantly for extra funding and, if they can’t 'get their shit together' then they should go under……and many of them have. Various actors have felt obliged to support or even start up “Save Our (fill in your own theatre name here)” movements in order to gain sufficient cash to continue even in the reduced circumstances they find themselves in. Amongst these campaigns have been appeals for theatres and places of entertainment that are steeped in the history of the theatrical tradition. Theatres designed by Frank Macham, stages that Garrick and Tree walked on, venues where groundbreaking theatrical movments started off; places of high cultural, social and historic importance that serve as an important centre for recreation, social intercourse and action for the area they are situated in but who's mistake is not being situated in the right place; namely the 'circle of fame' that is central London. In their efforts to gain funding for these struggling provincial ventures, the begging of support from private individuals and local councils, running benefit shows, raffles and hosting appeals to the general public in order to scrape together the £250,000 or so the venue needs in order to stay open have all been tried.
The same can be said for theatre companies, particularly those in the small-scale sector and even more particularly those companies run by, with reference to and consisting mainly or wholly of Black or Asian members. I’m sure I’ll get a massive postbag (?!) telling me I’m wrong here (hope so.........s'lonely here in cyber-moan-land) and you’ll have to check for yourself but, apart from Talawa Theatre (London-based and didn’t they go through some deep shit to get where they are at present) Red Ladder (Leeds-based) and Tara Arts (London-based……again) I’m not so sure there are many other fully professional, black or Asian theatre companies operating in the UK at present. Black Theatre Co-operative, Temba, African People’s Theatre; I think they’ve all gone by the wayside in this supportive, multi-culturalism land of ours. In fact, I believe I'm right in saying that, for a goodly time in the early '90's' there was no professional , Black or Asian theatre company operating anywhere in the UK (certainly not in the small-scale sector at least) all the funding having been withdrawn to those innovative companies that were in operation over the preceding four or so years.
Almost without exception, venues or companies that are in dire circumstances are provincial (outside London) venues, but even in London there have been some casualties, and many are still struggling to maintain their staff and output, er, unless you happen to be the Royal Opera House (ROH) English National Opera (ENO) or Saddlers' Wells Ballet………………… For these venues and companies there is, for some reason, always a ready pot of money to be dished out as soon as the accountants squeal loudly enough; and we’re not talking a piddling £250,000 here, we’re talking millions……………and millions………and millions……. The ROH had a grant of £24.9 million in 2003 and the ENO, after a £41 million refit and an annual subsidy of £13 million had to be bailed out in 2005 with a further £10 million; think that’s a lot; read on. The ROH was only saved from bankruptcy with an increase in their subsidy of £5 million and the ENO has been bailed out (again) with a further £20 million emergency grant (and even then they cut 45 jobs) and is hoping that the Arts Council will bail it out yet again this year after a further £4 million was handed over to stop it going into receivership. Add up those figures; look at the state of regional theatre in the UK today................... then re-read ‘em and weep. Now, you may think I'm being too focused in naming the names above, that it should also be pointed out that, with the Barbican as a multi-function venue in the heart of London, the spending of a further £111 million on building the South Bank Centre, a multi function venue in the heart of London (is there an echo in here?) also deserves mention; well there it is, and yes, it does puzzle somewhat........................ Sorry, I digress; you will be forgiven for thinking, “Well, how the hell does this state of affairs whereby a bottomless pit exists for some but not others not only happen but continue to happen?” For this you have to understand how the large arts and cultural institutions are run in this country.
When you or I go for a job, an interview process is undertaken in order to ascertain just what our qualifications are; you know, a process designed to find out whether the all-pervading smell of livestock emanating from your application form really is caused by the fact that you live on farm. So, for argument's sake, let's say you do live on farm and are well qualified in the raising of various stock. Fed up with spending most of your day knee-deep in animal excrement and elbow-deep in the various orifices of sick or pregnant beasts, you've decided on a change of direction. Armed with your lifetime's experience on the farm (which is part of the food industry, it has to be said) your three GCSE's and a letter of commendation from your scoutmaster (which states that you once rubbed two boy-scouts together and started a small blaze) you've answered an advert asking for likely candidates to apply for the post of supermarket manager. On this auspicious day, and for a reason known only to the psychologically sick and which requires a deal of fluke and blindness yet to be encountered since Peter Mandelson or Cecil Parkinson were invited back into goverment following various positions of disgrace, you've been asked for an interview at that said supermarket; what chance do you think you'd stand? For reasons laid out below, I'd venture to suggest a lot less than those in similar circumstances but having one of the three listed requirements who are applying for employment within either a government department or in one of the London-centric bastions of the arts, my friend; lets lay it out simply, huh?
Within our government for instance (and yours too, probably) someone can have absolutley no knowledge of, say, theatre, or dance, or how an art gallery is run, beyond the fact that they once went to a play (well, a pantomime anyhow......when they were three) have seen an Andy Wharhol print of a Marylin Monroe original (not the real thing, you understand, but in a book somewhere or other) and attended tap lessons when they were five or six (but gave up after three weeks because it scuffed their new shoes) and yet, simply because they are in government and have happened to be on the right side of the leader of their party, be promoted to Minister for the Arts and Culture. Clearly stated for the mesmerised amongst you, this gives them overall control of all institutions and centres of artistic endeavour; the true culmination of power without knowledge. Crazy, I know, to all but the most perverted or the most stupid, I mean would you give control of a fully armed fighter jet to someone who lent you fiver when you were broke and once flew model aircraft in the local park? How this happens will be explained a little further below, but bear with me for a little longer in order to gain the fuller picture, OK? Now, back to the running of the arts in this country and of the so-called "flagship" venues (their description, not mine) in the UK.
To gain a position of board membership on any of the aforementioned performance venues or on the national council that handles the cash and decides who should get it, how much and how often, indeed, to gain even just entry into the inner sanctum of these "areas of artistic excellence" (their description, not mine) and through this a chance to move on up to C.E.O. of an arts institution you have to have one of four things. Either, 1) The ability, if you wished to commit suicide, of completing this task by jumping off your wallet, or, 2) A uniform of some sort coupled with an ability to shout at new recruits or, 3) To have no chin but an ancestry that goes back forever or, 4) Be able to dress white tie without hiring in. No expertise needed in any of the arts disciplines, just one of the four above.....this is your job interview.
So how come, in this climate of struggling provincial theatre and theatrical production, and if there are these continued fuck-ups of monumental proportions with monotonous regularity requiring the monumental payouts mentioned above, is there this seemingly bottomless well for these “premier” (their description not mine) arts venues and companies? Jesus, come on, pay attention; in any democracy, those who make the laws that govern us also adminsiter them. Their desire to visit the domiciles of the proletariat who, as far as they are concerned still live in dung huts and think art has a letter missing, is as eagerly sought out as would be their drink of a bucket of warm faeces; strange when most of them live in what many consider to be the arsehole of England but there we are, all things are relative. So, with this as their guiding principle, it's fairly obvious that most provincial theatres will continue to struggle; will continue to have to hold a bring-and-buy sale of second-hand clothes every other week in order to maintain their mission of bringing entertainment to the masses in anything like safe conditions, whilst those who insist on buying their chorus 'Armani' suits for the next production of 'Aida' because, for some twisted reason, they think the production will suffer for it if they don't (on a personal note here, my old adage that, "if the audience are looking at the cut of the cloth then the production's a flop", fits this one as well as many others). These institutions will continue to cream off a casual £10 million whenever the fancy takes them for no other reason than they can, and meanwhile those other purveyors of the arts, the ethnic or groundbreaking, the provincial or small-scale players in the game will have to fight and squabble for the crumbs from the big-boy's table................... Does my working-class mentality show in this? Probably; just put it down to a lifetime of watching our inequalities in the arts keep our challeprovincial theatre in its place and pay it scant attention, after all the Arts Council have made a career out of it………………………Now, just ask yourself again why the ROH, ENO and Saddlers Wells keep getting in to deep shit and why, fortuitoulsy, they manage to keep getting bailed out; all becoming clear now? Good.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Big Brother - Fashion Shop for the Socially Challenged
Sorry about the delay in dropping a line to all you avid readers, I’ve been swapping my broadband supplier (from BT to Talk-Talk…………don’t ask, I’m still suffering from third degree angst burns) and these things I write take a little thought too.
Considered the fall-out from the Big Brother experience and considered a considered reply would be worthwhile, if only to assuage my own feelings on the matter; Jade…………………what a mess, huh? And even when things were going from bad to worse she didn’t know when to stop digging, and her manipulators didn’t know how to handle her lack of perception except through deceit.
That she was being briefed from outside by her Channel Four masters (and her agent/publicist too) became obvious, even to the most unobservant half-wit…… Obvious that Jade was remarkably well briefed when she entered the diary room prior to her being voted off when leaving the house, and even more so when we saw how fully prepared she was for the lack of public attendance these evictions normally provoke; unfazed when crossing the bridge with Davina McCall to just the echo of her own footfall. But, even though she had been fed information by those who are making money on her back, the media people and agents who are creaming her for a fast buck prior to moving on, she was neither a sufficiently intelligent vehicle for their priming nor the surprised but willing receptacle for our public admonition.
Right now, and probably over the past X weeks, her image crew (small shareholders in Jade Inc. to you and I) have probably been working feverish overtime in order to get Jade back on track; get her seen at the window of her home in a tired and emotional state; send her off to India in sackcloth and ashes (designed by Versace, obviously); get her to appear in something on telly that makes Big Brother look positively intellectual and where she can show her caring side (probably Fortune) and above all get her tits out somewhere in the tabloids ‘cos when all else fails in the British psyche a good pair of knockers will go a long way to a person’s rehabilitation in the public’s eyes. But that’s the obvious; the standard menu for the average punter, it’s when we turn over the stones of our own consciences that we find the hardest truths; but first lets start out by destroying a “pub fact” shall we?
It isn’t snobbery to judge Jade’s behaviour by the concepts and understandings of what is generally considered to be “society”. Those who say so are adrift in a classified sea of misunderstanding. You don’t look down on people because of their background but because of their behaviour. Eating with your mouth closed isn’t an act of the privileged classes it’s a signal of care and awareness of yourself and others.
You have to get deeper than that, try harder to sweep away the detritus of failed politics, and to hold Jade Goody up as a beacon in this travesty of failure and cruelty by politicians is to do her and her ilk the greatest disservice. To have people turning out like her is the crime; to hold her up as an icon is a greater one. All those who want to achieve and be like her should do so with the ability to conduct themselves with self-control, with articulate dignity, with an ability to complete at least one sentence in five without peppering it with a “fuck” every third word.
It isn’t contempt for the working class, its contempt for those members of any class who behave in a crass and grotesque manner; who offend and then, through their lack of social intelligence, re-offend the basic manners of civil society. It isn’t because its Jade, it’s because it’s wrong; her background is blighted with a lack of social responsibility, full of selfish irresponsibility and that’s not an excuse for such behaviour.
The discussion at the theatre where I work revolved around whether she would in fact be alive come the end of 2007 and this wasn’t one of vindictive relish but a genuine concern for what media and agents have created and that she lacks the intellect to see. When you walk into the lions den of celebrity you’d better know damn sure why you are there (Shilpa Shetty should have done a little more research, methinks) and Jade is and was singularly poorly furnished for such an adventure. Her upbringing suggests she is an eminently suitable case for therapy not for manipulation and social confrontation. The Channel Four bosses and particularly those involved in the casting of Big Brother knew that. They threw her into that melting pot precisely because she’d make “good telly”. The destruction of individuals is their role and it’s what we want to see; it’s our national blood sport; give it a year, maybe eighteen months and we’ll be watching people kill other people on telly for our game-show entertainment; it’s a racing certainty.
The ability to talk, to discuss, to reason is an essential part of everyday contact with our fellow human beings. We must have the mechanisms in place that allow us to meander and converse our way through the labyrinth of social, conversational signals that allow us to arrive at a viewpoint which is acceptable to those involved in the discussion. We need to negotiate skilfully, to reason soundly, to have the awareness not to overstep the bounds of personal propriety and, if we do to know how to draw back; and above all to know when and how to compromise. With so many people today, and sadly this does include a larger than average amount of what have been whimsically referred to over the years as “the underclass”, is that these skills are totally lacking. They move from divided opinion to open warfare in an instant, go from ask-you to fuck-you and miss out all the bits in the middle. All those skills of diplomacy and discussion, reasoning and deferment have gone.
The deeply worrying thing is that the more socially aware people in this country breed less, limit their families and have the skills handed down to them to care for those children they do have. Those in the underclass have more children; demand the life of the role models of the day and lack the self-discipline and the education required to be strong parents, to be able to guide their children in socially responsible ways. The hedonism that we went through since that arch-bitch Thatcher told us there was no such thing as community (built on a platform of suspicion and mistrust planted by tosser American psychiatrists that the gainers of power saw as their ticket to riches) has been the building bricks of this rampage to self. But we didn’t all fall for it; we didn’t have to fall for it. Those with the intellect saw through it all and made their own way, the others just followed the lead that led to the next Prada handbag.
The outcome of the Big Brother debacle seems to be that Mr and Mrs General Public have finally switched off the light on this playroom filled with under-educated hedonists and are looking further than the reflection in their Police sunglasses. I hope so for, if not, this leaves us with the inevitable end-game; of greater numbers of social and educational miss-fits and as we all know, we should never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large numbers.
Considered the fall-out from the Big Brother experience and considered a considered reply would be worthwhile, if only to assuage my own feelings on the matter; Jade…………………what a mess, huh? And even when things were going from bad to worse she didn’t know when to stop digging, and her manipulators didn’t know how to handle her lack of perception except through deceit.
That she was being briefed from outside by her Channel Four masters (and her agent/publicist too) became obvious, even to the most unobservant half-wit…… Obvious that Jade was remarkably well briefed when she entered the diary room prior to her being voted off when leaving the house, and even more so when we saw how fully prepared she was for the lack of public attendance these evictions normally provoke; unfazed when crossing the bridge with Davina McCall to just the echo of her own footfall. But, even though she had been fed information by those who are making money on her back, the media people and agents who are creaming her for a fast buck prior to moving on, she was neither a sufficiently intelligent vehicle for their priming nor the surprised but willing receptacle for our public admonition.
Right now, and probably over the past X weeks, her image crew (small shareholders in Jade Inc. to you and I) have probably been working feverish overtime in order to get Jade back on track; get her seen at the window of her home in a tired and emotional state; send her off to India in sackcloth and ashes (designed by Versace, obviously); get her to appear in something on telly that makes Big Brother look positively intellectual and where she can show her caring side (probably Fortune) and above all get her tits out somewhere in the tabloids ‘cos when all else fails in the British psyche a good pair of knockers will go a long way to a person’s rehabilitation in the public’s eyes. But that’s the obvious; the standard menu for the average punter, it’s when we turn over the stones of our own consciences that we find the hardest truths; but first lets start out by destroying a “pub fact” shall we?
It isn’t snobbery to judge Jade’s behaviour by the concepts and understandings of what is generally considered to be “society”. Those who say so are adrift in a classified sea of misunderstanding. You don’t look down on people because of their background but because of their behaviour. Eating with your mouth closed isn’t an act of the privileged classes it’s a signal of care and awareness of yourself and others.
You have to get deeper than that, try harder to sweep away the detritus of failed politics, and to hold Jade Goody up as a beacon in this travesty of failure and cruelty by politicians is to do her and her ilk the greatest disservice. To have people turning out like her is the crime; to hold her up as an icon is a greater one. All those who want to achieve and be like her should do so with the ability to conduct themselves with self-control, with articulate dignity, with an ability to complete at least one sentence in five without peppering it with a “fuck” every third word.
It isn’t contempt for the working class, its contempt for those members of any class who behave in a crass and grotesque manner; who offend and then, through their lack of social intelligence, re-offend the basic manners of civil society. It isn’t because its Jade, it’s because it’s wrong; her background is blighted with a lack of social responsibility, full of selfish irresponsibility and that’s not an excuse for such behaviour.
The discussion at the theatre where I work revolved around whether she would in fact be alive come the end of 2007 and this wasn’t one of vindictive relish but a genuine concern for what media and agents have created and that she lacks the intellect to see. When you walk into the lions den of celebrity you’d better know damn sure why you are there (Shilpa Shetty should have done a little more research, methinks) and Jade is and was singularly poorly furnished for such an adventure. Her upbringing suggests she is an eminently suitable case for therapy not for manipulation and social confrontation. The Channel Four bosses and particularly those involved in the casting of Big Brother knew that. They threw her into that melting pot precisely because she’d make “good telly”. The destruction of individuals is their role and it’s what we want to see; it’s our national blood sport; give it a year, maybe eighteen months and we’ll be watching people kill other people on telly for our game-show entertainment; it’s a racing certainty.
The ability to talk, to discuss, to reason is an essential part of everyday contact with our fellow human beings. We must have the mechanisms in place that allow us to meander and converse our way through the labyrinth of social, conversational signals that allow us to arrive at a viewpoint which is acceptable to those involved in the discussion. We need to negotiate skilfully, to reason soundly, to have the awareness not to overstep the bounds of personal propriety and, if we do to know how to draw back; and above all to know when and how to compromise. With so many people today, and sadly this does include a larger than average amount of what have been whimsically referred to over the years as “the underclass”, is that these skills are totally lacking. They move from divided opinion to open warfare in an instant, go from ask-you to fuck-you and miss out all the bits in the middle. All those skills of diplomacy and discussion, reasoning and deferment have gone.
The deeply worrying thing is that the more socially aware people in this country breed less, limit their families and have the skills handed down to them to care for those children they do have. Those in the underclass have more children; demand the life of the role models of the day and lack the self-discipline and the education required to be strong parents, to be able to guide their children in socially responsible ways. The hedonism that we went through since that arch-bitch Thatcher told us there was no such thing as community (built on a platform of suspicion and mistrust planted by tosser American psychiatrists that the gainers of power saw as their ticket to riches) has been the building bricks of this rampage to self. But we didn’t all fall for it; we didn’t have to fall for it. Those with the intellect saw through it all and made their own way, the others just followed the lead that led to the next Prada handbag.
The outcome of the Big Brother debacle seems to be that Mr and Mrs General Public have finally switched off the light on this playroom filled with under-educated hedonists and are looking further than the reflection in their Police sunglasses. I hope so for, if not, this leaves us with the inevitable end-game; of greater numbers of social and educational miss-fits and as we all know, we should never underestimate the power of very stupid people in large numbers.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Education is a fiscal right.................
As you've probably guessed, those of you that stumble across these missives of mine, this is not a "daily blog"! There's a lot to be said for lengthy breaks between blogs; the down side is that most people think you've died (some may think that's an upside, but, hey, every silver lining has a cloud) the real upside is that the bitterest fruits of my imaginings remain stuck on the branches of my mind........sorry, waxing lyrical there, I won't do it again, promise. Suffice it to say that it takes a lot to get me to write stuff; I think on events much the same as everyone else does and I figure you have enough of your own dilemmas and daily annoyances to cope with than to have them crumpled up with my waste-paper-jottings. However, there are times...........
I think it's because I have a stunted development when it comes to socialism that the change and debate that's accompanied the new rules concerning school of choice in the good ol' U of K has finally ignited my ire and brought me back to the Blog. No, relax, I'm not going to sound off about the state of our kids' education or the plethora of new rules and regs that teachers have had to put up with, my beef is a far more wide ranging one than that. You will, however, have to put up with some background information otherwise all my international readers (?) will be totally mystified by what follows and, along with most others, think these are the ravings of a self-delusional lunatic............erm.......think I might have just shot myself in the foot there..........
The latest scam our Labour government has come up with concerns the filling of places in secondary schools (12-18 age group for those of you reading from foreign climes). As with any education system there are good schools and not so good schools and many of the rich and well-positioned members of our "fair and equal" society clocked on to the fact that 1) the poor people's children were getting places at the good schools simply because they lived in the catchment area (i.e. near to) of those good schools and so were being turned out as well educated and potentially high-achieving members of our society and 2) their children were not getting this advantagous start in life because the school they lived near resembled a mid-eighties Beiruit back street where the pupils were being turned out as poorly educated orang-utans. This must have filled them with real alarm; I mean, fancy the outcome? All of sudden these snot-nosed little urchins were being better educated than the chinless wonders of commuter-belt parents; with that as a stepping stone who knows what might happen? They could find that their darling little Tarquin deQuincey-Ryan, who's father is "something in the city" and big in gilts, is having to take orders from Bert Smith, who's father is something in the gutter but big in whippets; that would never do! So these new-money people decided to turn things to their advantage and stifle this threatened social upheaval by using the tried and tested methods that had stood them in good stead and on the throats of the lower classes for centuries; they bought their way into the game and had the lower orders sent off for lack of spondulics. Finding out where the achieving schools were they paid over the odds for properties that would put them in the succeeding-school's catchment area thereby pricing the riff-raff out of the market and claiming the area as their own. This created an exclusive school property for these dollar-snobs and ensured that it would continue to be their kids that were handing out any whippings that would undoubtably be needed in order to keep the lower orders in order.............if you see what I mean.
To stop this happening, our "level playing field government" have instigated a lottery system. This will mean that, once the school has taken up all of the local clientele a lottery system will be instigated for the remaining places; you know, put all the names in a drum, give it a shake and draw until all the positions are full; can you believe this? This is a government of adults, or so we are led to believe, and this is the upshot of their 15 years of considered ruminations on how to tackle the obvious shortcomings of school places in the UK............by turning it into a lottery? And they really think this will stop the moneyed-classes from gaining what they see as righfully theirs. Jesus, it'll just mean they'll have to offer bigger bribes to the schools in order to get their sprogs to the best ones, that's all. They've already begun by getting this "equality" government to allow them to sponsor schools..................takes some believing doesn't it, that they expect us to believe our children will get a good, well balanced education from a school funded, in the main, by a multi-national conglomerate that sells "stuff" to the masses? Have bears had their first porta-loo delivered yet? I don't fuckin' think so! That new oven for the kitchen, that new set of football strips, that collection of Shakespeare books for the new library? You want it then toe the line, buster or we'll move down the road and steal all your good teachers for that new school! All the major supermarkets do it with the chosen customers they find. Like those precious, small wine-makers the supermarket predators move in, get several small artisan winemakers to join together, modernise the process, pump it up, buy all the produce at low prices then cancel the buy-off when something else or fashion takes their fancy and leave the massively overproducing vinery with no market to sell to; the Labour party are doing it, they called them loans and dole out knighthoods, do you think the lucre-laddies won't follow suit? The one thing new money has remembered are Mr Coward's immortal words; "Camp Freddie, everybody in the world is bent".
What we have now, then, is a lottery, basically a gamble to get a good education for your children that will be bent, bribed and bullied by the Ferrari fathers and four-wheel driving cash cows who transport their offspring the four-hundred yards to school each day. As far as these models of citizenship are concerned good eduction isn't a socialist principle, it's a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other, so don't look to them to cut you break.
I think it's because I have a stunted development when it comes to socialism that the change and debate that's accompanied the new rules concerning school of choice in the good ol' U of K has finally ignited my ire and brought me back to the Blog. No, relax, I'm not going to sound off about the state of our kids' education or the plethora of new rules and regs that teachers have had to put up with, my beef is a far more wide ranging one than that. You will, however, have to put up with some background information otherwise all my international readers (?) will be totally mystified by what follows and, along with most others, think these are the ravings of a self-delusional lunatic............erm.......think I might have just shot myself in the foot there..........
The latest scam our Labour government has come up with concerns the filling of places in secondary schools (12-18 age group for those of you reading from foreign climes). As with any education system there are good schools and not so good schools and many of the rich and well-positioned members of our "fair and equal" society clocked on to the fact that 1) the poor people's children were getting places at the good schools simply because they lived in the catchment area (i.e. near to) of those good schools and so were being turned out as well educated and potentially high-achieving members of our society and 2) their children were not getting this advantagous start in life because the school they lived near resembled a mid-eighties Beiruit back street where the pupils were being turned out as poorly educated orang-utans. This must have filled them with real alarm; I mean, fancy the outcome? All of sudden these snot-nosed little urchins were being better educated than the chinless wonders of commuter-belt parents; with that as a stepping stone who knows what might happen? They could find that their darling little Tarquin deQuincey-Ryan, who's father is "something in the city" and big in gilts, is having to take orders from Bert Smith, who's father is something in the gutter but big in whippets; that would never do! So these new-money people decided to turn things to their advantage and stifle this threatened social upheaval by using the tried and tested methods that had stood them in good stead and on the throats of the lower classes for centuries; they bought their way into the game and had the lower orders sent off for lack of spondulics. Finding out where the achieving schools were they paid over the odds for properties that would put them in the succeeding-school's catchment area thereby pricing the riff-raff out of the market and claiming the area as their own. This created an exclusive school property for these dollar-snobs and ensured that it would continue to be their kids that were handing out any whippings that would undoubtably be needed in order to keep the lower orders in order.............if you see what I mean.
To stop this happening, our "level playing field government" have instigated a lottery system. This will mean that, once the school has taken up all of the local clientele a lottery system will be instigated for the remaining places; you know, put all the names in a drum, give it a shake and draw until all the positions are full; can you believe this? This is a government of adults, or so we are led to believe, and this is the upshot of their 15 years of considered ruminations on how to tackle the obvious shortcomings of school places in the UK............by turning it into a lottery? And they really think this will stop the moneyed-classes from gaining what they see as righfully theirs. Jesus, it'll just mean they'll have to offer bigger bribes to the schools in order to get their sprogs to the best ones, that's all. They've already begun by getting this "equality" government to allow them to sponsor schools..................takes some believing doesn't it, that they expect us to believe our children will get a good, well balanced education from a school funded, in the main, by a multi-national conglomerate that sells "stuff" to the masses? Have bears had their first porta-loo delivered yet? I don't fuckin' think so! That new oven for the kitchen, that new set of football strips, that collection of Shakespeare books for the new library? You want it then toe the line, buster or we'll move down the road and steal all your good teachers for that new school! All the major supermarkets do it with the chosen customers they find. Like those precious, small wine-makers the supermarket predators move in, get several small artisan winemakers to join together, modernise the process, pump it up, buy all the produce at low prices then cancel the buy-off when something else or fashion takes their fancy and leave the massively overproducing vinery with no market to sell to; the Labour party are doing it, they called them loans and dole out knighthoods, do you think the lucre-laddies won't follow suit? The one thing new money has remembered are Mr Coward's immortal words; "Camp Freddie, everybody in the world is bent".
What we have now, then, is a lottery, basically a gamble to get a good education for your children that will be bent, bribed and bullied by the Ferrari fathers and four-wheel driving cash cows who transport their offspring the four-hundred yards to school each day. As far as these models of citizenship are concerned good eduction isn't a socialist principle, it's a commodity that can be bought and sold like any other, so don't look to them to cut you break.
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