Fairytales of Old England

Christmas in the Age of Austerity

2011-12-15T19:18:00.001Z

One minuteyou're wearing a tea-towel on your head, holding a toy sheep andshouting "While Shepherds Wash Their Socks" as loud aspossible in the school Nativity while wondering a) what the fuckmyrrh is and b) how the fuck you spell it. The next minute you'rewatching your parents hairs turn grey by presenting them with a wishlist taller that you are with no item on it less that £100. I mean,Christmas is obscene. If I'm to be true to my political and moralbeliefs as an anti-capitalist atheist, I should boycott the entirething.

First"BUT" - concerning religion

It's invogue to attack Christianity these days, and it's a very temptingtarget for my generation, having grown up in an age of science,technology and information. However, fundamentalist atheists (ofwhich I know several) drive me more up the wall than evangelists (ofwhich I know few), because while the latter may be idiots, the former arehypocrites. The Christmas Nativity really isn't that harmful. Thevirgin birth is speculative but I maintain that when you're fiveyears old you're more concerned about what kind of pot you put a"myrrh" in, than who Mary might have been special-cuddling.

Christmasfalls four days after the winter solstice and I KNOW that all theChristian festivals fall at the same time as the pagan ones but whyget all possessive? Everybody is celebrating, after all. FatherChristmas himself is part personification of the Christians' goodwilland celebration at the birth of Jesus, and part representation ofOdin riding in to celebrate the rebirth of the sun as the days startgetting longer. We still call Christmas "Yuletide" indirect reference to the winter festivals that pre-date theChristians. Wassailing and carolling go hand in hand too, one wishinga fruitful harvest in the new year, and the other wishing merryChristmas.

Both arecelebrations of rebirth and it strikes me the losers here are theatheists, the non-believers, the smart-arses who are far too groundedto go in for fanciful traditions. Humbug.

Second"BUT" - concerning capitalism

IfI pass a shop playing "Here Comes Santa Claus" and happento catch the lyric, "he doesn't care if you're rich or poorcause he loves you just the same", I may fly into a wild rage.That is a mean lie to tell little children - Santa verymuch does careif you're rich or poor. That's why the kids with big houses and threecars and two parents get better presents that the kids who live inhigh-rises with a bus pass and one parent. Santa is a capitalistconcept. Themore money you invest in Santa, the more gifts he gives you.If you've got no nothing to give him, you'll be lucky if his magicreindeer shit down your chimney.

Mum warned me in advance of an "austerity-themed Christmas",and I had a vision of her carefully distributing a single sproutand five drops of gravy between four of us at the dinner table.Austerity is something that we, as a family, are used to. Mumhas always enforced a despotic regime of frugality and cut-backs. Wedon't do glittering piles of presents, or struggling home withcountless shopping bags, we certainly don't do Santa - Mum felt itwas more worth my while to believe in tight household budgets thanelf factories in the North Pole. The best part about beingused to having nothing is the inclination to share what little onehas. I find consumerism harder to forgive at Christmas thanreligion, but giving gifts is nice, just as giving in general isnice. I've not been able to afford gifts for years but I was once amaster giver of presents: it was gratifying to learn this year that aglow-in-the-dark Lego monster I gave four Christmases ago stillexists on the recipient's bedroom desk.

Even nowthat I'm perpetually skint, I'll always sub my poorer friends forbeer, and I'll always make the arduous journey to the wrong side ofthe river to see my friends who can't afford London transport.Instead of gifts, my housemate and I gave each other a whole dayof good company and window shopping, and a free carol service. Theonly thing we bought was a pack of mince pies that we ate under theChristmas tree in Trafalgar Square.

So, torecap. If I am to remain true to my political and moral beliefs as ananti-capitalist atheist, I should boycott Christmas. But I likeChristmas, and I am able to get over the Christianity and the orgy ofconsumerism:

"BECAUSE"

Christmasdoesn't have to be about Jesus, or gift-giving. Anyone who's read AChristmas Carol byCharles Dickens, or wept into their mince-pies watching It'sa Wonderful Life,or knows about the Christmas truce in the trenches of northern Francein 1914 knows what Christmas is about ... the inherent goodnessof human beings. Anybody who can't understand thatdoesn't deserve a Merry Christmas from me.

Occupied

2011-12-15T19:17:00.000Z

A few points about #occupylsx in response to some negative comments on Twitter:

First of all, they are occupying St. Paul's churchyard because:
a) the original intention was to occupy Paternoster Square (around the corner) but the landlord took an injunction again them.
b) the canon Giles Fraser welcomed the protesters lasts Saturday, and in fact while I was visiting yesterday another reverend from the cathedral said the management's decision to withdraw support did NOT have the backing of the cathedral rank and file.
c) what's the point in having a protest if nobody can see you?

Second, another question asked is how can they afford to camp in the streets for a week (this was something I asked myself before I visited)
a) many of the occupiers are students who are paying the state £9000 per year for education that should be free, they are only bunking off lessons.
b) a number of occupiers are pensioners, they are just freezing to death in the streets rather than their homes.
c) I spoke to several people who HAVE been going to work, then occupying at weekends or at night. The camp is a community where the load is shared, be it housekeeping or educating.

What are they protesting against?
a) this is a spin off from the Occupy Wall Street protests in NYC, which are reactions against corporate greed and corporate tax avoidance in the midst of global economic crisis and crippling austerity measures.
b) UK specifically, there is an aspect of anti-cut and anti-austerity protest. You cannot expect the economy to grow if you take away the jobs, the wages and the capital of the consumers.
c) a reaction against obscene bonuses for bankers and no accountability for the banking crisis.

What is the alternative?
a) if the major corporate tax avoiders paid their taxes there would be no national deficit.
b) if the bankers returned their bonuses there would be no national deficit.
c) if the government invested more in jobs than in nuclear weapons, the economy would grow.

On a purely personal level, I believe that protest in it's own right is worthwhile. There are still parts of he world where you can be killed for having opinions contrary to the ruling party. We are lucky enough NOT to fear persecution for our beliefs, and so in solidarity with those that do, I feel it is a duty - more than a privilege or a right - a duty to protest.

It Was An Event Sociologial

2011-09-14T00:18:00.001+01:00

Infamous London riots of the past have occurred with a single purpose in mind: Brixton (all three) and Tottenham 1985 were reactions to racism in the police; the Poll Tax Riots were targeted at Thatcher's government; even the unrest in March was confined to bank and high street tax avoiders. What was disconcerting about the riots of July 2011 was that there was no specific target; they were widespread, impulsive, and constantly moving. The police cannot be criticised for not predicting this behaviour - the fact is that nobody saw it coming.

On an individual level, the riots may not have been politically motivated. In the words of Lacombe from Close Encounters:

"This is a small group of people who have shared a vision in common. It is still a mystery to me why they are here. Even they do not know why ... it is an event sociological"

I refuse to believe that it was random criminality. For some reason these kids grew up with no consideration for themselves or their homes, in a world where possession and wealth were the most important things in existence, where the individual must always put himself first. Pourquoi? Why?

To blame the riots solely on the cuts to benefits and public services is opportunistic of the left, but the fact remains that police numbers and youth centres are being cut across the nation and this is hitting the most deprived parts of England very hard. Haringey, Southwark, Lewisham, Croydon - these are all very poor and troubled councils that have been dealt tremendous blows by Cameron's fuck-the-poor axe. Still everyday we read more and more about executive bonuses, fraudulent MPs expenses, back-scratching and arse-licking at highest levels of government, business and entertainment. This injustice filters down and even if a single looter or arsonist cannot articulate his reasoning it cannot be wondered that he has no respect for those around him if those with power, with responsibility, the ones from whom we take example, behave with exactly the same lack of conscience. The only difference is that a politician wears a jacket and tie, rather than a baseball cap and trackies.

However, life goes on. In Southwark, we are so used to being forgotten and neglected by Westminster that we have learned to look after ourselves and will continue to survive by doing so. It will take more than one riot to bury Peckham. We have an incredibly strong community spirit here - for every rioter on Monday, there were a dozen cleaners-up on Tuesday morning. What might hurt us, however, is the criminalisation of a vast chunk of our community's youth.

Breaking shop windows, throwing rocks and police, petty theft are all crimes, but do they really warrant a long prison term? Especially when most of the offenders are kids? Four months inside for inciting riots on Facebook that never actually happened - that's not right. A large proportion of those appearing before magistrates following the riots already had criminal convictions and prison terms to their name: a two month stretch isn't going to faze or reform them. They will be warm, safe and well-fed for a few weeks and won't have to spend a penny. And where better for a lad with nothing to lose than prison to learn the 'benefits' of a criminal lifestyle from some real hardnuts?

Another proposal has been to evict them and take their benefits away (making the rather rude assumption that council housed and benefit claimant = looter). Again, this seems counter-intuitive. By taking money from somebody who steals, you give them greater incentive to steal more. By evicting them from their council homes and putting them on the streets, they are compelled to beg, mug or home-break. Even by moving them to another area, you are moving the problem rather than resolving it while disrupting the family and hardening their feelings towards you. I watched this happen on the council estate I grew up on - you just end up with itinerant groups of troublemakers moving from one block to another.

The Daily-Mail-knee-jerk reaction by the papers and public (largely public living OUTSIDE London's trouble-spots) was frankly terrifying. I'm sorry, what? Fire rubber bullets at children? Bring back national service and teach an aggressive teenager to use a gun? There were casualties, of course - the pensioner in Ealing, and the three shopkeepers in Birmingham - but otherwise nobody was seriously hurt. Army? The press would have us believe that it was dangerous to leave the house, that we were engulfed in a civil war. This is really is a situation where I feel the need to say - if you weren't there, shut up. Baghdad - that's a dangerous place. Tripoli. The West Bank. These are all places where it's not safe to be. Peckham's Rye Lane is three streets away from me and I felt safe. This is the poorest constituency in London and one of the most deprived in the UK. As much as I love it, it is rough as fuck here, but a sense of perspective is required. These were not armed insurgents, they were bored kids. If the schools had been in and if it had rained, I doubt anything would have happened.

Of course, the political response would be: what's your alternative? How would you punish these miscreants?

Tag them. Give them curfews (and actually enforce them). Make them repay the value of what they stole and destroyed. Put them on community works projects. Educate and train them in practical, physical, transferable skills. Above all, keep them occupied, don't let them get BORED. These people are still young and malleable, and are surely entitled to a chance at changing their ways. Throwing them in prison is as good as giving up on them. As long ago as 1969 Elvis Presley was singing "In The Ghetto" with words to the same effect. It's 2011 now, and Peckham is the ghetto, and lads are still being allowed to grow up hungry, angry and abandoned.

Mobility Scoot-By

2011-05-28T20:30:00.002+01:00

I'm not a very good political activist. I don't like to disturb people, I'm afraid of looking uninformed, I'm afraid that people will be horrid to me, and I'm lazy. But I do like being surrounded by thousands of noisy, like-minded people - things like gigs, festivals, rallies and demonstrations. I'm a noob on the protester front, but I'm firmly convinced it's the most fun one can have while being tremendously angry.

The Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival happens on the second weekend of July and we all set up camp, listen to speeches, dance, get drunk, get high, get sunburnt and go home again feeling all warm inside. I went with my local Labour group on the March for the Alternative on March 26th and broke bread (and Penguins) with strangers, danced with the RMT brass band, ran into Alan Rickman, booed merrily at the gates of Downing Street, went to the pub and ended up sleeping on a sofa in Bethnal Green. On May 11th, a group of disability charities led the Hardest Hit march through London and I was adopted by a family from Notts. who ended up on TV and got swept up in a strange but fantastic discussion about police brutality against protesters.

My mother - hardened demonstrator of the Vietnam era - text me on May 11th to ask how the police were behaving. I said that the whole event went off without incident, largely because we eight thousand disabled protesters and carers could probably take the police and then some. Our arsenal did contain hundreds of trained dogs, fleets of skilled wheelchair manoeuverers, and a crack squad of mobility scooters.

But seriously.

A few days before the Hardest Hit march, a jury returned a verdict of "unlawful killing" regarding the death of Ian Tomlinson. This verdict is, on the one hand, terrifying - a policeman killed somebody and the Met tried to cover it up. My parents taught me not to blindly trust the police and I always thought that was hippie claptrap, that they were referring to a police force of bygone days. Even so, they managed to instil in me a creeping dislike of the police that the Ian Tomlinson verdict threw into relief for me. Despite having met several lovely coppers, I re-read some reports about suspect police actions and I got more and more creeped out:

In 1975, eleven people known as the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven (one of whom was 52 and died, innocent, in prison) were charged and imprisoned for alleged activities with the IRA, including bomb-making and murder. The Four were released in 1989, and the Seven in 1991 after it emerged that the police had tortured the prisoners, withheld evidence that would have cleared them and fabricated evidence to incriminate them.
In 1981, as an attempt to cut down street crime in Brixton, the Met launched Operation Swamp 81 which gave plainclothes police officers the right to stop and search anybody on the street who they suspected of doing something unlawful - they were known as the "sus" laws. The police abused this power, stopping over 1000 people over a five day period and driving tensions between police and locals to breaking point. On April 10th, 1981 the first Brixton riot began.
In 1985, police burst into the home of Cherry Groce in search of her son. He wasn't there, but Cherry was shot in the spine and wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. Her shooting sparked the second Brixton riot. Many hundreds attended her funeral last week, paying their respects to the lady and keeping the issue of brutality and institutional racism in the police force at the front of everybody's mind.
Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993 and until now, nobody has been brought to trial for it, largely due to corruption and negligence by the Metropolitan police.
Jean Charles de Menezes was shot by police in Stockwell tube in the aftermath of the July 7th bombings for no reason. Nobody from the Met has been held accountable.
During the March for the Alternative, independent legal observers shot this video of a policewoman lying to the idiots occupying Fortnum and Mason.
This video shot from a BBC helicopter apparently shows an agent provocateur passing through police lines during breakaway protests the same day.

And so the fact that justice prevailed in the Ian Tomlinson case is a breakthrough for those who seek transparency within the police force, and for those who intend to keep taking to the streets in protest against the government. We are privileged in this country to be allowed the freedom to protest. When you consider that protesters are losing their lives in countries across North Africa and the Middle East, and are disappearing without explanation in China and Burma, we should not only embrace the opportunity to protest, but we should see it as our obligation.

A lot of people say that protesting doesn't achieve anything, and in the first place I disagree, and in the second I saw that's not always the point. The Civil Rights Movement in America is a great example of protest working, as is Gandhi's civil disobedience campaign to eject the British from India. Protest doesn't work these days because we don't protest enough. One day of marching just doesn't cut it, we need to evoke the Greenham Common spirit and keep nagging, keep shouting, keep demonstrating, keep protesting.

Variations on a Stroganoff

2011-03-07T21:55:00.030Z

I'm reading an amazing book and am very furious with the government, but today I want to talk about My Dinner. My approach to cooking is to consider what is going to go off in the fridge soonest, everything else works around that key question. Tonight it was yoghurt, and as luck would have it, I have a recipe for Porcini mushroom stroganoff that I found on back of a Yeo Valley Greek Yoghurt pot at a party.

The recipe called for a bunch of things I don't have and can't be bothered to find. These are the ingredients to feed four according to Yeo Valley, with my annotations.

~~3/4 dried Porcini mushrooms~~ (the fuck are those? Forget that bit)
2tbsp olive oil (one splash)
1 (little red) onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1lb mixed mushrooms, sliced (a generous handful of chestnuts)
1tsp smoked paprika (don't have, didn't see housemate's pot until food over)
5tbsp white wine (don't have. Wait! Do have! Leftover from Tim's visit and kind of turning into vinegar. Smells funny, probably fine for cooking)
1tsp balsamic vinegar
2 heaped tsp cornflour (borrowed from housemate)
~~1tsp vegetable bouillon powder~~ (the fuck is that? Veg Oxo will do)
1tsp Worcestershire sauce
5 1/2oz Yeo Valley Organic Greek Style Yoghurt (two big spoons of actual Greek yoghurt from Greek man in Greek greengrocer)
~~2tbsp fresh parsley, chopped~~ (don't have, can't be arsed)

Extras:
A big handful of diced chicken breast
A very big handful of baby leaf spinach

The first thing the recipe called for was to make a stock out of the Porcini mushrooms ... Yeah. I had to skip that bit.

I fried the onion and garlic in olive oil until they browned, then cooked the chicken until it was all white and then threw in the mushrooms. Poured in the balsamic vinegar and the wine, gave it all a good mix up and left it on a low heat. It was smelling good (that's generally how I test the progress of my food, we don't have a timer).

Next I had to mix the Worcestershire sauce, the Oxo cube and the cornflour together before putting it all in the pan. This was The Tricky Bit. How, I thought, can ONE tsp of Worcestershire sauce dissolve TWO tsps of cornflour and a vegetable Oxo? How? I was about the toss the recipe aside and go all mad professor, but recalled the last time I tried to to do The Tricky Bit without a guide ... No. Mixed it up as per recipe and stirred it into the rest of the mix, which thickened up pretty swiftly. This was where I'm supposed to add the mushroom stock I skipped early. Whoops. I put a splash of water in the mug I used to mix the Worcestershire sauce, cornflour and Oxo and poured that in, simultaneously rinsing the mixing mug!

Dolloped two big spoonfuls of Greek yoghurt into the pan and mixed it all in. Nearly finished, but not very aesthetically pleasing, it was all white and cream. To finished off, put in the spinach and stirred until it does that amazing shrinking thing that spinach does. Left to bubble while I cooked up some pasta to bulk it out.

Et voila! Quick, easy, minimal washing up (even less if you do it as you go along - I still don't understand why so few people understand this concept, saves so much work) and best of all, dead tasty.

Libraries, in short, are genius.

2011-02-06T11:26:00.005Z

When we first moved to Wales we lived on the top floor of a low-rise council flat block. As a kid, I thought it was pretty cool cause you could see a long way and being on the top floor meant you were the best. From our bedroom window of number 96 Tre Telynog, Sarah and I could see the mobile library coming and we would then go down three flights of dark smelly stairs (there was no lift - interesting, considering many of our neighbours were elderly), through the wide open security door, cross the "high fenced community gravel area with washing lines in" and climb aboard the library which was AWESOME. You could borrow toys as well as books and the bloke who drove the library was always happy. When we moved out of the council flat and up the hill into the council house, we were able to use the tiny local library/portacabin. Going into secondary school there was another major feature the school library and local library had that we didn't have at home - free access to the Internet!

The community that the mobile library and the tiny local satellite library served comprise precisely the kind of people who need such a service: the disadvantaged, the elderly and the young. Libraries don't just provide books and Internet to people who might not be able to afford them at home, but they are also a part of the community. Many have regular events and bookclubs for children, for young Mums, for old folks, for disabled people. They are often tied in with schools in an effort to get kids reading. They can help people find information on anything from genealogy to job-hunting. They've always got a dodgy section on local history and if you're lucky, some will have foreign language sections too. Libraries, in short, are genius.

But they are also funded by local government, and so here comes the politics. Unless you've been living in a shoe, you'll know that the Tory-led coaliton ... oh, who are we kidding ... the Conservative government has issued local councils with an order to limit their spending (this is a clever move because it makes the councils look bad, rather than the ministers who snatched their funding away). Councils have the unenviable task of deciding which essential services are the least essential and libraries are in the firing line. But don't worry, bookworms! As Dave says "we're all in this together"! And while people in the monetarily poor but geographically hefty London Borough of Lewisham fight to save 5 of their 12 libraries, they can take comfort knowing that the toffs of teeny Kensington and Chelsea are doing the same. If only. As far as I can discover, RBKC don't have any libraries on the block and the residents are too busy celebrating the shrinking of the Congestion Charge Zone to care anyway.

I did some digging to find out the scale of cuts demanded of London Boroughs and discovered something unsurprisingly Orwellian: we're all in this together, but some of us are more in it than others. And for those of us not in it, our school years bore no resemblance to fucking High School Musical. This map from the Londonist shows the percentage cut each borough will endure, and the unfairness is actually laughable until you remember the people in whose hands we've placed our country. Then it's not so funny.

The darkest red shows cuts of over 8% occurring in, for example, Southwark. Lighter reds and orange show less harsh cuts in places like Kensington. This is despite Southwark being much poorer but with a population of almost twice the size. No Tory could convince me that this is not an ideological, or even racist move. The boroughs hit hardest are characterised by low incomes, high crime rates, huge housing estates a marked percentage of ethnic minorities. Those less affected are affluent, white and in the case of the City of London, the demesne of the bankers who got us into this mess in the first place. The contrast is nothing short of sickening. Why do our hospitals and schools have to suffer while they renew their BUPA membership and pack their kids off to Harrow and Eton? Why do we have to go without respite for carers, nurseries, meals-on-wheels for old folks, libraries, and even police officers when they've all got 4x4s and a second home in the West Country?

If we're all in this together, then shouldn't the responsibility been spread just a little more evenly? Unless we're not all this this together after all ...

I agree with Boris!

2010-11-17T23:39:00.003Z

David Cameron insists that the cuts this party is making are not being made for ideological reasons, but that they are necessary for saving the country from Communists or dragons or whatever it is we're supposed to be afraid of these days. Bullshit. But I don't think he's lying or being misleading here, I think he's just being an idiot. We have two parties in this country (and a handful of opportunist liars) and what sets them apart is their ideology. The Tories' sweeping changes to the way our country works are nothing if not ideological. Why is Dave so keen to downplay the very ideology he must believe in, as a Tory MP? Just like 'progressive Conservatism', claiming the Condems actions are not ideological is a contradiction in terms.

It would be stupid to suggest that all Tories are evil (even though they are). As much as the image gratifies me, I don't believe that David Cameron and Iain Duncan-Smith stay up into the small hours taking it in turns to bugger a willing Nick Clegg while gleefully raising glasses of Champers to the news of thousands of poor people losing their jobs and the benefits. I don't believe they do that. I do believe that they are part of an age-old Tory ideology which involves the rich and privileged being in charge, with no understanding of how the common, poor man actually lives.

Conservatism is chiefly concerned with making money and preserving a white, middle-class, Christian status quo. That's what all these cuts are about. All the talk of reforming policies, encouraged fairness, removing waste is just a dressed up way of saying 'saving money'. For this reason, the moneyed, or those with aspirations to be better and moneyed tend to lean towards Conservatism. Throughout history, the rich are the ones with the power, the ones who make the rules. These rules are often concerned with self-preservation and neglect the poor (therefore powerless) masses. Though things have modernised, the basic Conservative ideology remains the same. In the current political scene, it manifests in £9000 per year tuition fees and cuts to benefits. The former keeps the poor out of university, while the latter keeps the poor on low incomes with limited means. The two combined result in the rich getting first and best choice for education, housing and employment while the poor remain oppressed and powerless. This is self-preservation; this is Tory ideology.

Though it pains me to say it, I agree with Boris Johnson; David Cameron is socially cleansing the cities.

Do Not Underestimate The Determination Of A Quiet Man

2010-10-23T18:16:00.002+01:00

I find it funny and kind of fascinating when I encounter somebody who looks and behaves exactly like a particular animal. I have one friend, for example, who IS a koala bear in man form. When I was reading the news this morning, I encountered an article concerning Iain Duncan Smith and I was reminded powerfully of a snake, or a crocodile, or one of those other cold-blooded creatures that waits in the dark and the damp for some unsuspecting creature to happen by. He did, after all, proudly announce himself to be a quiet man. A determined, quiet man.

This particular quiet man who is now Secretary of State for Works and Pensions, sat smiling on Wednesday as Gideon announced the butt-rape of public services and the welfare system. The same quiet man more recently than Wednesday thought it would be wise to evoke Norman Tebbit's classic sensitivity and tell 'stagnant' towns like my own Merthyr Tydfil to 'get on the bus' and find a job. I'm disgusted at how insensitive and blind that statement it. It was the Tory party that caused Merthyr and the surrounding towns to stagnate in the first place. Furthermore, the public services are one of the biggest employers in these ex-industrial areas and with the many thousands of public service job cuts looming, it will be the same poor and struggling people, from the same poor, struggling communities that are tossed out on the street. Rather than address the stagnation, IDS' schemes are going to deepen it, reinforce it and guarantee the continuation of poverty and misery that has dogged by town since Thatcher.

In addition to this, IDS' statement made me wonder if any of Cameron's cabinet have ever left London. Has IDS, Gideon or Camerclegg ever tried getting a bus to anywhere in the Valleys? Let us consider this made up person who we will call Dai. Dai lives in the lovely village of Penderyn which is about 9 or 10 miles out of Aberdare. Dai and Myfanwy cannot afford a car since Dai lost his job at the pit, so they get buses everywhere. Dai cannot find a job in Aberdare or any of the surrounding villages, but IDS told him to 'get on a bus' and find one in Cardiff, which is after all, only an hour's train ride and those posh Londoners do commutes like that every day. Dai applies for some nine-to-five jobs in the city, but there are none of those buses that IDS talks about in Penderyn until 8am! At 8.35 he arrives in Aberdare and heads to the train station where there are ... wait for it ... TWO trains an hour to Cardiff. Dai's gets on the 8.51 and arrives in Cardiff at 9.54. Then he has to walk to his office, which is another 20 minutes away. So Dai cannot physically get to work any earlier than 10.30 unless he grows wings. To make up the time lost in the morning, Dai leaves the office at 6.30 rather than 5. He gets the 19.11 train back to Aberdare, where he is just in time for the last bus home, and arrives back in Penderyn at 21.12. His children are already in bed and Myfanwy has left his dinner in the oven. Unfortunately, they don't see much of each other anymore.

Here's my idea: Cameron and all his Tory mates should be billeted in houses (preferably on council estates) across South Wales and the North for three months where they must get a job, pay their rent and bills and try to form some kind of social life. Conditions: they can only travel on public transport, they are not allowed to earn any more than minimum wage, they may not use any private services for healthcare etc., and, just for fun, they must also look after two young children at the same.

Then they might have a right to tell me that 'we're all in this together'.

The Oath of Mutual Protection

2010-09-10T22:47:00.007+01:00

Money speaks for money, the Devil for his own

Who comes to speak for the skin and the bone?

What comfort to the widow, a light to the child?

There is power in a union.

The unions have been in all over the news lately. Unison have been loudly critical of the coalition government's threat to public service jobs. The RMT and TSSA are leading a series of strikes on the London Underground this autumn in protest to job cuts by Transport for London. And now, with the announced plan to privatise the Royal Mail, it will not be long before the CWU start making their voice heard too. And of course, union support played a big part in Ed Miliband's election as Labour leader. All reports on union actions are negative. They are ritually demonised by the media and hated by our Tory leaders to the extent that Joe Public has learned to hate them too, for no good reason. Not so long ago, union membership was something to be proud of, but to say one is a unionist now is to face derision and condescension. I was trying to fathom why this is and like a bolt from the blue, I remembered what Billy Bragg sang at Tolpuddle in July: there is power in a union.

The established rich, the politicians and the media are relatively safe because most of the discontent, working people who might march against them are scattered and solitary. Now if somebody, or some organisation, was to unite them, they could be a real threat to the system. They can bring this country to it's knees, and so in the interest of preserving their power and their salaries, those at the top must keep their discontented subjects disorganised. The establishment are terrified of the massive power that unions contain.

There is, however, a deeper rot threatening the strength of unions: the endemic greed and laziness that my generation languish in. We were born in a world where the Tories had been carefully teaching us that every man existed for himself and that community was dead, with the result that people are more concerned for themselves and their wallet than for their fellow human beings. Therefore, a Londoner doesn't care why the LU workers are striking, all they care about is that their train is late, making them late for work, etc.. People don't care enough about each other to want a union.

So, what are they for? Trade unions are basically a way for workers to protect their fellows, their wages and their jobs from potentially unscrupulous bosses. That's not to assume that all employers will fuck you over, but trade unions can protect you from those that do. They fight for fair wages, for safe working environments and against job cuts. September's strike on the Tube, regardless of what uninformed and lazy commentators might say, had nothing to do with money. London Underground workers were dismayed at the loss of 800 ticket office jobs across the network, leaving stations unmanned and less safe. Since no amount of negotiations had saved the jobs and livelihoods of these men and women, their fellows protested in the most effective way: strike. And the sloppy, sensationalist media called the LU staff selfish and out of touch. When did it become old-fashioned to stick up for yourself? When did it become selfish to stick up for your fellow man?

Isn't that what we're always taught, as children? To share, to help others who are less able to help themselves? When I was little, my favourite programme on TV was The Animals of Farthing Wood. That is red propaganda if ever I saw it. Their home is destroyed by humans and so they set out on a dangerous journey to a nature reserve. However, they first of all swear the Oath of Mutual Protection, to look after each other and never leave anybody behind on their journey, to put the safety of all the other animals before their own. That's the main theme of the book, and they bloody do it. They feed each other, carry each other and fight for each other from cover to cover.

In the real grown-up world though, apparently that's stupid. Far too selfish. Far too old-fashioned. We should all keep our heads down, look after ourselves, pay our taxes and die without ever trying to change or improve the world for anyone but ourselves.

It's alright for the Wurzels

2010-06-24T23:06:00.007+01:00

I am not a prospective politician or economist. I'm not even much of a cider drinker. While I am politically and socially aware, I harbour no aspirations in those quarters. Yet when my government, who work for me and is paid by me, start attacking those closest to me, I'm not going to stay quiet. While the issues I have regarding disability and care are personal, they are not issues unique to me and my family. There are literally millions of carers in this country who are generally forgotten about and underrepresented so while I speak for myself, I suspect that I'm not alone in my thoughts. So, Mr. Osborne.

VAT - Mr. Osborne has successfully avoided raises taxes on our incomes! Hooray! The Wurzels won't see a tax on their cider! Hooray! We will, however find taxes raised on almost everything we spend our incomes on instead. Everybody pays VAT. It's the same rate whether you're a millionaire or in the dole queue. This is unfair because the poor pay more as a percentage of their income than the rich, but I guess it is a good way to encourage saving. People wishing to avoid the increase in taxes on goods and services will have to forego the odd meal out, give up chocolate, put on another jumper if they can't afford to call out a man to fix the heating ... ahem. Yet our society is consumer driven. We are blasted by advertising everywhere we go, on TV, on billboards, on buses, in magazines - so when Mrs. Public goes to the shops with her daughter who just saw an ad on TV for an amazing toy that all her friends have got what's Mum supposed to say? "Sorry, dear, but since Mr. Osborne put the VAT up, that's really out of our budget, see what you can make from this potato". The point here is that everything except the bare essentials (and who decides what's 'essential'?) is about to get more expensive. Rather than ask those who can pay more to pay more, Mr. Osborne's actions will strike the poorest first and hardest. Let's consider some of the those poor.

Disabled Living Allowance - I've always thought there was something socially sacred about the disabled, along with children, the elderly and the sick. The most hated people in society are those who attack these people, so maybe Mr. Osborne should stand alongside false meter readers and the Moors Murderers? Or is that a bit Daily Mail? A bit extreme? Is it? People who claim DLA haven't just got a bad back and fancy some time off work, they are severely disabled. Some do work, many want to but don't get sufficient support in job-hunting, and some just cannot. They aren't fraudsters; many don't have the capacity to commit fraud. We have cared for Sarah for 24 years. Every day we have to deal with the fact that she is a burden on the state, a drain on the public pocket. I find it degrading and insensitive for David Cameron, who had a disabled child of his own, to now ask millions of people to PROVE that they are disabled as if it's something to be ashamed of, to reinforce the stigma that already exists over aspies, and Downsies and mongoloids. Good work there, Tory.

The Department of Works and Pensions estimate that 0.5% of over 3million DLA claims are fraudulent and to weed out this small proportion of people, all DLA claimants will now be subject to medical testing. OK, so what will this testing involve? DLA comes in two components: mobility and care. To qualify for the full whack, the claimant must required 24-hour care and have severe mobility problems (ie. be wheelchair or bed bound). Most claimants have invisible disabilities (like autism) so I want to know if Mr. Osborne's assessors will deem her ability to walk equal to her ability to work. Furthermore, DLA is an example of a 'gateway benefit'. Mum's Carer's Allowance is directly tied to Sarah's DLA, so if that benefit is decreased, so are all our others. For families that depend on benefits, this is a very real concern. And another thing - how will Mr. Osborne pay for the medical professionals, assessors, the stationary and tranportation required to test 3million people of whom, as I said, only 0.5% are thought to be fakers?

Cuts to local government - Rhondda-Cynon-Taff Carers Support group have taken Mum to a botanical garden in Carmarthen today. Good if you have a passing interest in flowers, which my mother does - happy days. The support group is the only thing of it's kind in Aberdare that I know of and while they don't offer amazing opportunities - a day trip here, a painting class there - they do exist. It is funded by RCT council. Our Social Services, however, are somewhat put upon because our town has all the issues that come with deprivation - mass unemployment, domestic abuse, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and buckets of mental health problems. As well as all of this, Social Services are also expected to look after the disabled and their carers. Nationwide, councils are being forced to put social care first in the ConDem cuts firing line and I wonder at the wisdom of taking funding away from councils like RCT, who are barely containing local problems as it is. Again, this is not a unique situation. Look at Haringey here in London, nationally reviled as the council responsible for the deaths of Victoria Climbié and Peter Connelly because of inadequate social care. And the ConDems want to take more money off them?

Of course, Camerclegg will tell you it's phase one in the Big Society. Lovely volunteers with purely altruistic thoughts will hurry to the rescue of disabled people everywhere! They will work for free (presumably, considering horribly poor most disabled families are) and before we know it everyone will be happy and middle-class with two children, two cars, a mortgage and an ISA! Hooray! Does Mr. Osborne truly believe that in the greed-ridden society fostered by the great Thatcher herself, that all these people with their own homes and jobs to look after and with no monetary incentive are going to volunteer their time for the disabled, the sick and the old? I wonder if Camerclegg have ever been out of the city. Here in London we're spoilt for choice for accessible voluntary groups, but they just don't exist out in the sticks. So with no volunteers and no social services the disabled are left house bound while the elderly die quietly in their homes or clog up hospital beds.

To conclude then:

Everything is going to get more expensive.
DLA claimants and their families are facing slashes to their incomes when everything is about to get more expensive.
Councils are having to cut back on social care, leaving the disabled to fend for themselves at a time when their incomes are being reduced and everything is getting more expensive.

I really wouldn't mind paying more for a pint of cider to avoid this. So roll on the ConDem budget. And what with Andrew Lansley clearing the way for the privatisation of the NHS (an overstatement I'll admit, but one I won't back down on), should be a good year for Tories, cider drinkers and masochists.

Additional reading from The Guardian

And CarersUK (the budget response is second on the list)

Reasons to Vote Labour, One, Two Three!

2010-05-05T22:11:00.009+01:00

Aside from that the phrase can be slotted neatly over Ian Dury's 'Reasons to be Cheerful', there are a number of very good reasons to vote Labour, or at least to vote against the Conservative Party.

Here are some lovely things that Labour governments brought us: the National Health Service (created by Nye Bevan, left), universal suffrage, winter fuel allowance, 2012 Olympics, free state education up to 18 years of age, fox hunting ban, Sure Start children's centres, state pensions, civil partnerships, national minimum wage, child benefits, trade unions, council housing ...

And here are some less lovely things that the Conservatives dreamed up: non-income assessed Council Tax, top-up fees for nurseries, housing associations, sponsored 'academy' schools, privatisation of state services, selling off of core industries resulting in mass unemployment, the right for B&Bs to turns away gay couples, tax breaks for owners of estates worth over £2million, isolation from Europe that will weaken Britain's economic stability ...

And now two personal reasons for voting against David Cameron's Conservatives.

1. I grew up on a council estate (lovingly called 'The Site' by locals) in an ex-mining town called Aberdare in the South Wales valleys. My feelings towards Aberdare are complicated; I hate what it is, the husk that it became after Thatcher was through with it, but I am so proud of what it once was and how hard it fought. The best story to illustrate is that of Tower Colliery, the oldest and last deep mine in the country, located just outside the village of Hirwaun in Aberdare. During the Miner's Strike of 1984/5, Tower was one of those scheduled for closure by the Conservatives who chose to import cheaper coal from apartheid South Africa instead. After demonstrations and protests from the miners, which included raising the red flag over the colliery and a pit sit-in organised by our Labour MP Ann Clwyd, the closure went ahead on April 22nd 1994. However, the miners weren't to be so easily defeated. They pledged thousands of pounds of their own money and bought back the mine, returning to work in January 1995 and keeping the mine running until 2008.

Everybody in Aberdare was connected to Tower. It gave jobs to the men, warmth to the houses and was a symbol to the community. And the Conservatives were happy to destroy it. They left our town with high unemployment and crime, low pass rates at GCSE and A-Level, and a deep-set feeling of apathy and depression. It is only since Labour that things have steadily improved, and I will not see our progress hindered or reversed by the Conservatives. For the sake of Aberdare alone, they must not be allowed to govern again.

2. My sister has severe autism. Even the Tory party can't be blamed for that. But I have this strange notion that those given power by the people, chosen by the people, answerable to the people, should work in the best interests of the people. Now my Mum has given up her entire life for Sarah. She can't work, or pursue any hobby because of the demands from Sarah. Of the 168 hours in a week, day and night, Mum is responsible for her for 134 of them. For this, she is granted a Carer's Allowance of £53.10 a week, breaking down to 39p an hour. I find this slightly unfair, considering a nurse offers a patient round the clock care and earns an, albeit small, but living wage. According to the Conservatives, Mum's claim for Carer's Allowance makes her a scrounger. They want to 'devolve' and downsize social services and the budgets available to carers ie. they want the carers to look after themselves. According to Cameron's 'Big Society' ideal, people will volunteer to come and help Mum look after Sarah, out of a sense of community spirit and moral obligation. Refer then, to point one. There is no sense of community in our town; the Conservatives saw to that.

Labour would like to present to you ... the National Care Service. It's like the National Health Service, but for the elderly, the sick, the vulnerable and the disabled. End of. Labour win.

Rain Man

2009-09-04T23:23:00.004+01:00

Rain Man (Theatre Royal, Bath, 4.9.2009)

This evening's show is Dan Gordon's adaptation of the 1988 movie starring Tom Cruise as a self obsessed con-man Charlie Babbitt who goes to his estranged father's funeral in Cincinatti, Ohio, to find he's been left with a lovely 1949 Buick and a rosebush. The $12million fortune has instead passed to Charlie's older autistic brother Raymond played by Dustin Hoffman. Feeling cheated and intending to gain custody of Raymond and therefore access to the Babbitt fortune, Charlie abducts his brother from his care home and takes him back to Los Angeles. Thus ensues a road trip (Ray won't fly) in which Charlie starts to realise the importance of loyalty and love over money.

Director Robin Herford took a lot of risks in this production, such as casting an actor best known as Tony from Men Behaving Badly as Raymond Babbitt. Neil Morrissey made a brave attempt at this role; not only was he in the shadow of Dustin Hoffman's outstanding performance in the 1988 film, but must also have been aware that many people in the audience, myself included, will have first hand experience of autism and will be watching him very closely. I found Morrissey a little inconsistent. He portrayed Ray's anxiety at being shouted at and panic at being touched very well, but also seemed keen to get a laugh out of Ray's autistic obsessions. When he lists air disasters to show Charlie that he's scared of flying, Ray gets hysterical and starts shouting about terrorists and Osama Bin Laden, and I felt this was irrelevant to the story and a cheap way to get a laugh out of the crazy guy who doesn't know what he's saying.

However, Ray is just one part of this story, the other being Oliver Chris' Charlie Babbitt, who was fantastic and certainly propped up Morrissey's Ray. By the interval the audience thoroughly hates him, and yet when the curtain falls you are almost crying. There are several snappy exchanges between the brothers lifted straight from Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass' original screenplay that are very well used and successfully give the idea that Charlie is no where near Ray's plane of thought; most memorable is the point where Charlie is arguing with his girlfriend and shouts "I'm not using him! Am I using you, Ray?" to which Ray responds with his usual "Yeah". Chris flawlessly portrays the clash of frustration and confusion with love and devotion that every carer goes through every day. All this emotion is shown in the scene when Charlie teaches Ray to dance in Las Vegas. Despite being gruff, sleazy and awkward, we start to see an inkling of affection in Charlie that helps to forgive all his mistreatment of Ray.

Herford and his adapting playwright Dan Gordon seemed keen to faithfully recreate the film, yet in this recreation the production sometimes stumbles. We find out very early on that Ray memorises lists and whole sequences from TV, and repeats an obscure vaudeville sketch called 'Who's On First' when he gets nervous. It seemed awkward that Dan Gordon chose to retain 'Who's On First', but replaced some of Ray's favourite TV shows like Wapner with Judge Judy. Though Gordon is clearly trying to show that Ray's story could be as much one of 2009 as it was of 1988, the references seemed clumsy. The stage is divided by movable screens, and while it's certainly effective in resetting the stage, the colours and affect they have seem very eighties.

To conclude then, this show very nearly hit the nail on the head. The balance between the brothers was spot on, and if I found that Morrissey's portrayal of autism was sometimes, for lack of a better word, theatrical, it was probably due more to my over-exposure to autism rather than any defect in Morrissey's understanding. The only negative point is that I would like to have seen Dan Gordon either stick rigidly to the cultural setting of the film, or shift the whole story to modern day Britain; if it was the intention of the producers to raise awareness of autism, perhaps it would have been pertinent to give the story a relevant, modern setting. This is a personal opinion however, and I doubt it would have mattered to most of the audience.

Most importantly, this play was made honestly and lovingly and never tried to preach or make out that autistic people are gifted or have miraculous knowledge of a strange truth or purity (a claim some parents will try to make of their disabled kids). At the risk of blurring the play and the film together, I would really recommend Rain Man to anybody interested in autism and autistic families. It explains the condition and gives examples of the some of the strange and challenging ways it manifests in very accessible examples, but also demonstrates the fact that just because your son, daughter, sibling, whoever, is autistic, it's not the end of the world and some truly bizarre and beautiful events can come out of it.

Burma VJ

2009-08-07T22:58:00.002+01:00

Burma VJ - 14.7.2009, Little Theatre Cinema, Bath

It is complete coincidence that I'm listening to Neil Young while I'm thinking about Burma VJ. He's singing about people shuffling their feet and sleeping in their shoes, and it put me strongly in mind of the Co-operative's representative who introduced the film at the live telecast to Picturehouse cinemas nationwide. He told us that 'Joshua', the film's narrator, lives in hiding in Burma, and so real is the threat to his life that he sleeps in his trainers in case he needs to run for it. Following this introduction was a powerful exposure of the Burmese world that documented both the brutality of the ruling regime, and also the fight the Burmese people have inside them.

Burma VJ is made up of various bits of footage that Joshua and his team of video journalists (VJs), many of whom are now prisoners of conscience in Burma, took during the Saffron Revolution of 2007 in which the Buddhist monks went on strike. All these VJs worked for Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) and smuggled their handicam footage out of the country either via the Internet, or by trusted couriers to the organisation's headquarters in Oslo - doing this involves immense personal risk. During the Saffron Revolution, the DVB decided it was too much of a risk for Joshua to stay in Rangoon and so he directed his team of VJs from neighbouring Thailand. He has since returned to Burma following the fracture of his 2007 team, but lives in hiding.

The film is not only an exposure of the brutality of the military junta in Burma, but is also a concise history of the country. This is greatly needed at foreign journalists are not welcome in the country, and anyone caught with a camera runs the risk of arrest or even death, as the film reveals. I knew very little about the country so I found Joshua's narration that places the 2007 revolt into context very helpful. He explains about the 1988 protest in which around 3000 people were shot by the military, and the plight of Aung Sun Suu Kyi, Burma's elected leader who has been under house arrest for 14 years. He even talks about the DVB's future plans, assuring the audience that the VJs will continue to risk their lives to raise awareness about their country. Joshua himself was a guest at this live telecast, and his message to viewers was "don't forget about Burma".

Burma VJ was not the result of expensive studios and slick production teams, as the long list of sponsors and supporters at the start of the film will show, but its presentation in no way suffers. Narration, music, recorded telephone conversations, reconstructions of Joshua's Thai hideout and the VJs' all important footage is skillfully juggled to created a coherent and striking account. All of these elements build up to a wonderful moment at the height of the monks' walk-out where we see the streets, windows and rooftops lined with people clapping and cheering for the monks and protesters. The screen goes blank and the junta announces that gatherings of five or more on the streets are forbidden, and yet the next morning the VJ leans out of his window and counts as one, two, three, four, five ... six! people meet on a corner and begin marching. They are soon joined by more and the cameraman says "there are lots of them!", on the phone to Joshua - the combination of excitement and fear is palpable.

This is where the beauty of the film lies - it shows us terror alongside hope. In a different pair of hands, Burma VJ could have been image after image of horror with a basic message of 'look at this, it's bad'. This would be a waste of time, and a waste fo the VJs' efforts, because everybody knows that a military rule is bad news for the people. What Burma needs and what this film achieves is to realise that it is always worth fighting. The VJs' footage is broadcast back into Burma, so people can see for themselves what international news agencies are saying about their country. The people of Burma are fighting back, be they students, members of the DVB or monks, and they do so in full knowledge that their lives and liberty are forfeit by their actions. Another moment that struck me was when the monks threw themselves between a VJ and a government thug when only seconds before they were reticent about talking to him. At the risk of sounding cliché, these truly are the bravest people.

As far as what we can do to helps, it's all about spreading the word, about using the freedom of speech and information that we enjoy in this country to learn about Burma and tell other people in turn. Those who want to do more can donate to the DVB and join the boycott of Burma and those who invest in it, such as Chevron, Mitsubishi and Toyota. What must be remembered is that the junta is unelected and hated by the people it controls. The more exposure it gets, the more international pressure it will feel and the more confidence the people of Burma will have to stand up to their enemy. What is really remarkable about Burma VJ that makes it different from other polemic political films I've seen, is that one leaves the cinema angry, but with a sense that things can change and the smallest thing we do can help.

Don't Believe Everything You Read

2009-04-23T22:21:00.000+01:00

I had a grumpy old man moment on the 10 this morning. I picked up a Metro from a vacant seat and started reading all about Alistair Darling's super exciting budget speech. A few seconds later I threw it down in anger. I'm not an economist, I don't know how to reverse a recession, but I do know how to write a factual, unbiased report to inform Average Joe about the world. This morning's Metro however, read more like the Daily Mail than the cheap (read 'free') and cheerful paper that usually lines the bus aisle.

What got to me were the comments on Gordon Brown's facial expressions during Mr. Darling's speech. The Metro seems to find it unacceptable that the Prime Minister should scratch his eyebrow, or chew his fingernails while his chancellor delivers a doom and gloom speech. They chose a picture that seemed to show him nodding off and declared "the shame of it". The same article accused Mr. Brown of "bamboozling" taxpayers and chose some of David Cameron's more sensational statements and huge sums dreamed up by number crunchers with nothing better to do to back themselves up. OK, Metro, how about instead of jumping on the Brown-baiting band wagon, you give us the news? I don't place bitching in the same category as reporting.

I'm not ashamed that Mr. Brown got a bit bored listening to Mr. Darling - whenever somebody says "recession", I switch off. Announcing that every man, woman and child in Britain is £23,000 in debt doesn't phase me either - by the time I graduate I will owe the best part of £25,000 to various places, including the government and the banks. Every homeowner, every credit card holder, in the country is in debt. And as for David Cameron's statement about how we will be clawing our way out of poverty for the next ten years because of the recession (which, incidentally, is not entirely Gordon Brown's fault) - I was raised in a ex-mining town that hasn't known the meaning (or spelling) of 'prosperity' since dear Thatcher ripped out any heart it had, so I don't think an smarmy Etonian can really inform me much about poverty.

What frightens me about reading this article in the Metro is that it's a free paper that normal people read on the way to work or school. I consider myself an intelligent person who isn't too easily led: I know how to choose the people who represent me in parliament, and I know even more about how to look after my bank balance. However, for those who only read the headlines, or those who believe whatever the papers say, it paints a one-sided, Hellish picture of Mr. Brown as a cocky thief. I would say that they only wrote this article to sell papers - but the Metro is free! This is scare-mongering for the sake of it. The article read like something out of the Daily Mail, and the sources were chosen specifically for their shock factor. I've been taught to read between the lines - but what about those who don't?

This is not isolated of course, nor is it a recent phenomenon, but I still finding it frightening. Who informs us if not the newspapers? And if we are uninformed, how can we choose the right government to help us?

Pay Attention To Me

2009-04-16T00:46:00.001+01:00

I'm not judging anybody today, I'm running some errands.

First, the title. I was looking for some song that referred to books or the stage without putting much effort in and lifted this from Bob Dylan's 'Mr. Tambourine Man'. My first choice was 'play a song for me' from the same song, but this was too generic. I feel the current title puts across, albeit in a flouncy way, that this blog is about anything I consider to have vague traces of skipping reels and rhymes. Perhaps I will change it.

Second, some advertising. Go to and listen to some music here and do spread the word if you enjoy it.

Third, self-promotion. Follow me on Twitter (hannah_burton)!

Othello

2009-04-15T00:19:00.000+01:00

Othello (Theatre Royal, Bath, 14.4.2009)

I'm munching on a Maryland cookie and listening to Bob Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour while working out what to say about the performance of Othello I saw this evening. Bob's starting with Albert King singing 'Born Under A Bad Sign'. Perhaps Othello and Desdemona would enjoy this tune.

Othello tells the story of the Moor of Venice and his wife, married in secret, who are plotted against and destroyed by the wicked Iago. The great thing about Shakespeare being so old is that he's open to 400 years of interpretation. The sympathy in this production seems to lie mostly with Othello himself who contrasts strongly with Desdemona his ditsy wife, Cassio the drunken lieutenant, and the busy-body Emilia. That said, Desdemona's plea for life towards the end of the play sent a shiver through the theatre as the audience members around me all leaned forward some, myself included, almost afraid to watch what was coming next.

Tackling Othello as his first piece of stage Shakespeare is brave of Lenny Henry, and something he carries off courageously. He is a big man, to the point that he sometimes appears a little awkward and conspicuous, and yet this works to his advantage when he accuses Desdemona or endures the abuse from Brabanzio. Henry successfully uses his physical presence to portray both a proud general and a tormented, 'betrayed' husband. Henry's delivery of Shakespeare's lines is very good and his sharp bantering with Iago is excellent, though the clarity is sometimes lost with longer speeches. He seems to adopt an 'important speech' pose: chin up, chest out, arms outstretched and I found this a little distracting. His final speech in Desdemona's bedroom is, however, heart-wrenching.

Luckily for Henry, he also has a great Desdemona and Iago to perform opposite. Jessica Harris is physically Henry's opposite and, being tiny, the violence she suffers is shocking. She portrays Desdemona as young and naive and I truly believed that she was terrified of Othello by the end of the play. Conrad Nelson's Iago was equally excellent. As brave as Lenny Henry is to take on the Moor of Venice, I was just as impressed that Nelson kept up his twisted, malevolent persona right to the end of the play and laughs at Emilia's death. Iago is one of my favourite characters from Shakespeare, and before the play began I was afraid that Iago would become a flouncing villain like Laurence Olivier's Richard III, but Nelson was wonderfully poisonous and skulking.

The play was performed in modern dress and all the cast (bar Henry) had Yorkshire accents. I had my doubts about an Othello from Dudley but I feel the accents made the play more accessible. I've seen too many productions of Shakespeare where the cast get caught up in rolling their Rs and being actORs and forget they are telling a story. This production seemed real and though I know the story, I don't imagine it would be that hard for a newbie to follow. The set was gloomy and sparse, featuring oversized doors and a balcony with the only set pieces being war plans and Desdemona's bed, but I felt this was a good idea, as it focused the audience's attention on the characters.

The only part of the production that seemed odd were the musical interludes. While Iago is encouraging Cassio to drink he engages him in a drinking song with a band coming out of the wings to join in. This worked for me, because it helped put across the idea of Iago being pally one minute and treacherous the next, however it made Cassio appear a bit of an idiot and I found myself wondering why on Earth Othello would make this fool his second in command. Desdemona also sings a song shortly before dismissing Emilia from her bedroom, and this didn't work for me. I've praised this production for its acessibility and a portrayal of real emotion yet I could not agree that a woman awaiting her death would be singing. Harris is not a bad singer, it was not unpleasant at all, but it did seem to jar and push the sympathy a little too far. Harris' pleas and screams were enough.

Bob's finishing up now, so I should too. Hmm, he's reading from Macbeth. In short then, a brave production of Othello which was a real success for Lenny Henry. Barrie Rutter directs an accessible and gripping interpretation of a very tragic play that can only really be faulted for the greenness of its leading man, and his performance had little fault at all.

The Tempest

2009-04-09T17:13:00.001+01:00

The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Bath, 8.4.2009)

The Tempest is open to many interpretations and I have always enjoyed the idea that it is a self-aware story of the stage. Another popular interpretation, and the one favoured by Janice Honeyman in this production, is that The Tempest is a comment on colonial England. Honeyman has responded to this idea by bringing an African flavour to play, making it lively and colourful, like Shakespeare meets 'The Lion King'.

As I left the theatre on April 8th I was listening to what other audience members said and two comments that stuck with me were (from a posh old dear) "oh, it makes much more sense now" and (from a posher, older dear) "well, aside from Sher, I think the cast was quite weak". Let's start with the first comment.

The stage was clearly made to look African - the ground was a sandy colour and in the background was a tree that the musicians sat behind and the puppeteers and cast members climbed all over. The puppeteers resembled animals in their costumes and movements and in the sounds they made. The outstanding Ariel was made up like a tribesman. Credit is due to the designers of this production, as no half measures were taken in putting Honeyman's interpretation across to the audience visually. And she remained true to her vision as the story progressed. The focus was wholly upon Caliban and Ariel who were revealed to me as once noble characters who were mistreated by invaders to their lands. This was refreshing, as I've seen too much of Caliban portrayed as a bitter creep and Ariel as a camp boy in a gold loincloth. Honeyman allows the audience to see the story from the other side, from the point of view of the mistreated 'savage', rather than the 'noble' lords. Even the epilogue, in which the player traditionally speaks to the audience and ask for their applause, is directed at Caliban. Prospero's plea for our indulgence to set him free is directed at Caliban, and comes across as an apology and a miserable request for forgiveness.

So what of the second comment? As I've already said, Honeyman's direction was sympathetic towards the islanders, and to this extent the lords, even Prospero, were made to look foolish. Sometimes, too foolish. The lords who were ship-wrecked on the island were forgetable, and I was quite bored by their dawdling and wanted to get back to Prospero's magic tricks. Ferdinand was equally unremarkable. I realise that these characters were purposefully ridiculous, but it didn't work properly for me and seemed that the minor characters had been forgotten about as the relationship between Prospero and Caliban was explored. What unsettled me most was the two drunkards that Caliban befriended. This production wanted me to pity Caliban, but when I saw him put his trust in two idiots that were from time to time irritating, I questioned his judgement and lost sympathy for him. This was frustrating, because John Kani put so much gravity and anger into Caliban that jarred with the young drunks. The minor performances were not bad, however, and I would say to the very old dear that Sher and Kani just hogged the spotlight a little.

As I said regarding Othello, Shakespeare has the wonderful benefit of hindsight. To his audience, England was gloriously expanding but modern theatre-goers have seen the effects of such expansion. This performance of The Tempest was an RSC effort in conjunction with the Baxter Theatre Centre from South Africa, a nation perhaps more aware than others of the mess that European colonialism caused. This production chose that aspect of the play and stuck to it and though some characters were left behind, the audience enjoyed two hours of colourful action that made 'a lot more sense' than some tangents one can take with a play with so many levels.

Waiting for Godot

2009-04-04T23:10:00.000+01:00

Waiting for Godot (Theatre Royal, 1.4.2009)

"Gandalf and Jean-Luc bringing Sam Beckett to Baff? I'm in!" - this was my thought when chance brought the Royal's what's-on to my hands back in November '08. Needless to say, Gandalf was nowhere to be seen in Ian McKellen's Estragon (Gogo), and there was none of Captain Picard in Patrick Stewart's Vladimir (Didi). The Telegraph described this as a "once-in-a-lifetime theatrical event", and so I could only gape when my friend gave up his ticket in favour of a gig in Bristol. Waiting for Godot tells the story of two tramps, Estragon and Vladimir who spend their time joking, weeping, contemplating suicide, discussing the Bible while waiting for Godot, a man who never shows up. They are interupted twice by Pozzo, a pompous man who, though lordly, seems to have lost his way and his slave Lucky, bullied by Pozzo and led around by a rope round his neck.

This is the first piece of theatre I've seen with such an accomplished cast and crew and such challenging material, and it was a fantastic experience. Sean Mathias' direction pays great attention to the detail of Beckett's stage directions. There was always something to look at, which I consider an achievement on such a sparse stage. During Pozzo's rambles and monologues, Gogo and Didi were always doing something, pulling faces, whispering, the characters didn't falter for a second.

The actors' performances gave that perfect balance needed for Beckett, where it's just funny enough to keep the audience from crying at the bleak world he portrays. Act II starts with Stewart like a vaudevillian, dancing and singing songs that are funny until you realise he can't remember the words. McKellen's Gogo is a vulnerable, grumpy old man who bites back at Didi's every attempt to cheer them up, "We are happy. What do we do now that we are happy?". Despite their arguments and constant threats of "going", they are still together and this camaraderie was a striking part of the production.

There are fewer laughs with Pozzo and Lucky. Simon Callow's Pozzo wears a colourful outfit and gives a larger-than-life performance in Act I. There is also an incredible poignancy in Act II when he says, "they give birth astride of a grave". As he stares out at the audience with his blind eyes, we see the sadness beneath his clownish appearance. Ronald Pickup's Lucky is outstanding. Spending the majority of the play in silence, he relies on his physical presence to portray a world-weariness and sorrow at being enslaved to Pozzo. When Didi comments that "he's crying", a shiver ran through the audience, and Lucky's single, hysterical monologue kept us rapt and caused tumultuous applause in the house.

Mathias has capitalised on his cast's familiarity with the stage, with Beckett and above all, with each other and offered the audience a lot of laughs while never loosing sight of the desperation beneath the surface. Waiting for Godot is subject to many interpretations, but I take from this play the importance of not wasting one's life. For me, Godot is not death or God, but that dream that will never be realised without some kind of effort. I find it a little ironic, and perhaps hopeful, that the production team behind Waiting for Godot has in no way wasted their time. Didi and Gogo may have spent decades wasting their time and waiting for Godot, but Stewart and McKellen are back to what they do best.

Jon Richardson

2009-03-24T20:52:00.001Z

Jon Richardson in Dogmatic (Ustinov, 21.3.2009)

Like most people, I am given to bouts of cynicism and misery. Sometimes it really does feel like everything is against us and we'd be better off getting back into bed and waiting for it to go away. Generally, however, I try to be friendly and look for sunshine wherever I am. It can be difficult to do that when confronted with an all out cynical misanthrope, and during Jon Richardson's standup I did get the occasional urge to give him a hug and tell him that things really are OK.

That's not to say he wasn't funny. The gig was hilarious, and because his humour is based on very commonplace things like train journeys and problem housemates he was easy to empathise with. He may be a grumpy old man, but he's a young grumpy old man, and he reminded me of some very good friends I have who just happen to be miserable too. In amongst the sorrow, there was some wonderful, cuddly humour; this is a man who holidayed alone, climbing hills in the Peak Distric, with the Lord of the Rings soundtrack on his iPod and a backpack full of cheese and wine.

This vulnerability is what I loved most about Jon Richardson. He isn't intimidating in anyway, and his banter with the audience is as much self-deprecating as it is insulting. Whenever he complains he does so affectionately if resignedly, and I never felt in the wrong or threatened, though I am the typical unpredictable and cheerful person that would drive Jon Richardson mad. So long as you don't spend too much time worrying about if he really is happy living alone in Swindon, you're guaranteed a giggle.

Hard Hearted Hannah and Other Stories

2009-03-19T23:32:00.000Z

Hard-Hearted Hannah and Other Stories by Cartoon de Salvo (Ustinov, Bath, 19.3.2009)

I'll be completely honest, I went to see this because my name is Hannah and one of my housemates once sang about a 'hard-hearted Hannah, the queen of Savannah' after I complained that nobody writes songs about Hannahs. The promise of improv-theatre and musical numbers set alarm bells ringing in my head, but I ignored them because it's My Name. And I'm glad that I did. Each of Cartoon de Salvo's shows is completely unscripted, taking ideas from the audience and creating a fully rounded story from them that lasts just over an hour. This evening's performance concerned The Flying Mandolins (this blogger's suggestion) and featured musical performances by the three castmembers.

Any audience member craving continuity would be lost at this gig, as character names were forgotten and an argument sprung up over who would play Nan, but I found this only added to the freshness of the show. Watching the performer's eyes as they dreamed up the next move was a delight. After testing the water for a while, one felt a strange triumph when Brian Logan laid across three chairs, fist outstretched, to 'practise' for his human cannonball routine. From there it was clear where the story was going, it was just up to the performers to make us believe.

Most remarkable of all, I cared about these utterly improvised characters and the story had some true poignancy about it. One could forget that a seventeen year old girl was played by a bearded man and truly empathise with her by the end of the show. Alex Murdoch's 'sound effects' during a scene on a beach were amusing at first, but soon began to create some real atmosphere too. It seems you can take an audience to a different level with just a bit of imagination and guts, as well as by dragging them down the same path time and time again.

I'm sure a lot of this depends on the originality of your audience. When the cast asked the audience to think of a name for tonight's performance, the silence in the room reminded me of those seminars where the tutor wants your opinion on a book you didn't read. Bath's polite, conservative, theatre-goers didn't seem to warm to the idea of 'audience participation' and so we got a tragic play with comedic moments. Given that some of the earlier titles included Alien Robots Take Over The World, it seems that Hard Hearted Hannah is a bit of pot luck, but always a lot of fun.

Cartoon de Salvo
Theatre Royal, Bath