Any media reporting bloodshed at this year's annual Knit In Public Day Treasure Hunt/Knit Bingo are grossly exaggerated.
Okay, needles were drawn, 10 paces taken and accusations of cheating were flung across the table laden with flapjacks and brownies, but the Meandering Catwalkers held their ground. OUR SCARF, which took five hours of knitting while simultaneously walking through crowded London streets, avoiding various assorted football supporters, Italian tourists, the royal family (her maj's birthday so they came out to wave at the plebs), Coldstream Guards (and don't ask them if they get hot in those bearskin hats ... they do ... and they're sick of people asking), naked cyclists (it was International Naked Cycle Day as well), route masters, black cabs, tourist rickshaws, buskers and bollards, WAS THE LONGEST!
In honour of triple yarn over lace knitting ... noone specified which stitch we had to use ... that will be one bottle of wine to the outranked, outsider, 'whiff of the colonial about them' team, ta muchly (goes some way to making up for the German mauling in the World Cup last night), along with a saucer of smug satisfaction.
And if you ever wondered where 'stitch and bitch' got it's name ....
Monday, 14 June 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
Ambient London
Shunned, the second level cello class at the Mary Ward Adult Education Centre is exiled into the wilderness (along with all the rest of the string ensemble). Banished by the neighbours no longer able to put up with two hours of practice each week and neo-liberal education that would rather have 30 language students than 5 cellists taking up a classroom. I'm blaming the violins ... two years worth of lessons and still they can't hit high C without scaring away cats and potential students.
Noise leaks. My back neighbours sit outside on a warm summer evening and laugh. Across the road reggae pumps into the street from an open loft window. It competes with Alicia Keys and Cheryl Cole downstairs (you can always tell when X Factor is back on TV as the teenagers gather to practice their dreams of stardom ... a practice which feels vaguely familiar). Kids toss coins and kick their ball ... thump ... doof ... Mr Chopin's piano and Mrs Boccherini's violin are practicing somewhere in the street. The Mary Ward String Ensemble, for now, will be silent.
Noise leaks. My back neighbours sit outside on a warm summer evening and laugh. Across the road reggae pumps into the street from an open loft window. It competes with Alicia Keys and Cheryl Cole downstairs (you can always tell when X Factor is back on TV as the teenagers gather to practice their dreams of stardom ... a practice which feels vaguely familiar). Kids toss coins and kick their ball ... thump ... doof ... Mr Chopin's piano and Mrs Boccherini's violin are practicing somewhere in the street. The Mary Ward String Ensemble, for now, will be silent.
Friday, 23 April 2010
The Politics of Managing Uncivil Change
The possibility of a backlash against mainstream politics in this coming election has raised the prospect of increased support for the British National Party (BNP), following on from its relative success in the 2009 European elections. This has led to questions about why someone would vote for a party that is so extreme in its rhetoric and policies.
The simple answer that people feel overwhelmed by migration is complicated by the Institute for Public Policy Research findings released this week that nine out of ten local authorities with the highest proportion of votes for the BNP have had lower than average levels of recent migrant settlement. Instead, the party, it seems, assumes greater legitimacy in areas where there are high levels of economic, social and political exclusion. In many ways, this is unsurprising. Whether living next door to a migrant or not, there has long been an association made between deprivation and increased expressions of racism, and the findings do not mean that those excluded do not blame migration for the conditions they find themselves in.
The findings could also be explained by another argument: that, rather than simply anti-immigration motives, a vote for the BNP is a response to ‘change fatigue’, that is, an acting out of frustration in the face of transformations over which we have no control. In so doing, an attempt is made to reclaim some sense of power. Managing change can be a stressful process as anyone who has moved house, changed jobs or ended a relationship knows. And in just forty years, powerful social and economic influences such as de-industrialisation and globalisation have radically changed British society. Exclusion and inequality have been exacerbated, and the gap between policy-makers and those impacted by their decisions increased by the influence of transnational organisations and failing democratic institutions within the UK.
As suburbs, economies and lifestyles visibly change we can reach the limits of things as usual. Collective norms are disrupted, for example, when industries die, when our streets change and we no longer recognise familiar patterns, be it respect or groceries on the shelf. Anomalies and contradictions in former routines and beliefs appear, unable to be classified or ignored, generating a sense of dissonance as a result. A process of grief, of adjustment to loss, can be evoked and an internal struggle in response to that loss follows. There is a search for stability as ‘the way things used to be’ and ‘the way things are now’ grate and jar against each other. As a result, for some, often communities or individuals already marginalised, low in resilience and with limited choice anyway, fatigue sets in and change meets the determination of our inherent desire for continuity of meaning and the predictability of life.
There is no handbook to manage this change, until the BNP, or parties like it, proffer one in the form of a cultural identity: historically questionable on closer inspection, a bit blurry around the edges perhaps, but an offer of fundamental certainty nevertheless with all the privileges that bestows for the ‘indigenous’ Briton. With this cultural identity, and its vociferous, impossible attempts to define Britishness, comes order and place, geographically and temporally. Britons have a past, some 7000 years of it according to the BNP, and will have a future.
Current official policies of social cohesion do little to address that defensive position because of the lack of recognition of its connection to exclusion and the struggle for some degree of control over the direction of change, leaving the way open for the BNP to manipulate fears. Word of caution, then. Attacks against the BNP as simply racist thugs without acknowledging the excluded reality of its supporters could possibly increase its vote. People ticking that box on May 6th may be afraid for the future, or tired of feeling they are always at the wrong end of other people’s decisions. The BNP then becomes a surrogate form of change management if other more civil means are not found.
The simple answer that people feel overwhelmed by migration is complicated by the Institute for Public Policy Research findings released this week that nine out of ten local authorities with the highest proportion of votes for the BNP have had lower than average levels of recent migrant settlement. Instead, the party, it seems, assumes greater legitimacy in areas where there are high levels of economic, social and political exclusion. In many ways, this is unsurprising. Whether living next door to a migrant or not, there has long been an association made between deprivation and increased expressions of racism, and the findings do not mean that those excluded do not blame migration for the conditions they find themselves in.
The findings could also be explained by another argument: that, rather than simply anti-immigration motives, a vote for the BNP is a response to ‘change fatigue’, that is, an acting out of frustration in the face of transformations over which we have no control. In so doing, an attempt is made to reclaim some sense of power. Managing change can be a stressful process as anyone who has moved house, changed jobs or ended a relationship knows. And in just forty years, powerful social and economic influences such as de-industrialisation and globalisation have radically changed British society. Exclusion and inequality have been exacerbated, and the gap between policy-makers and those impacted by their decisions increased by the influence of transnational organisations and failing democratic institutions within the UK.
As suburbs, economies and lifestyles visibly change we can reach the limits of things as usual. Collective norms are disrupted, for example, when industries die, when our streets change and we no longer recognise familiar patterns, be it respect or groceries on the shelf. Anomalies and contradictions in former routines and beliefs appear, unable to be classified or ignored, generating a sense of dissonance as a result. A process of grief, of adjustment to loss, can be evoked and an internal struggle in response to that loss follows. There is a search for stability as ‘the way things used to be’ and ‘the way things are now’ grate and jar against each other. As a result, for some, often communities or individuals already marginalised, low in resilience and with limited choice anyway, fatigue sets in and change meets the determination of our inherent desire for continuity of meaning and the predictability of life.
There is no handbook to manage this change, until the BNP, or parties like it, proffer one in the form of a cultural identity: historically questionable on closer inspection, a bit blurry around the edges perhaps, but an offer of fundamental certainty nevertheless with all the privileges that bestows for the ‘indigenous’ Briton. With this cultural identity, and its vociferous, impossible attempts to define Britishness, comes order and place, geographically and temporally. Britons have a past, some 7000 years of it according to the BNP, and will have a future.
Current official policies of social cohesion do little to address that defensive position because of the lack of recognition of its connection to exclusion and the struggle for some degree of control over the direction of change, leaving the way open for the BNP to manipulate fears. Word of caution, then. Attacks against the BNP as simply racist thugs without acknowledging the excluded reality of its supporters could possibly increase its vote. People ticking that box on May 6th may be afraid for the future, or tired of feeling they are always at the wrong end of other people’s decisions. The BNP then becomes a surrogate form of change management if other more civil means are not found.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
New Maps
Just caught part of the Leaders Debate in the UK (we have an election on May 6th for those of you not in the neighbourhood). The theme was meant to be international relations. We had a lot on Europe, a bit on the USA and Afghanistan, nothing on the Middle East (except for references to Iran and its nuclear programme as a justification for the UK government spending £100 billion on nuclear submarines), nothing on Israel's nuclear programme, nothing on Palestine, nothing on China, ASEAN, or India. Asia fell off the map.
Friday, 16 April 2010
Everything I've Ever Needed to Know I've Learnt from Climbing Up Things: Commandment III
Thou shalt accept that things will go wrong so just deal with it.
There is a time in every traveller’s life when they will have a shocker. Can’t be helped, it’s inevitable, usually brought on by weather (see Commandment Seven) or other people (see Commandment Five). Apart from weather, people and altitude, there are other hazards that require some caution, like village dogs. Cycling through the Tibetan Himalayas, mastifs litter the road side, sleeping, and are best left to lie unless the thought of rabies injections is something that appeals to you. My closest encounter came in a village when, finally giving into irritation at yet another attempt by kids to see what would happen to the funny looking foreigner if they put a stick through my wheels, I had an attack of PUTA. PUTA, better known as a dummy spit when cultural difference gets too much for frail Western temperaments, stands for Psychologically Unfit to Travel in Asia. Surprisingly, this is an actual medical condition noted in World Expedition's handy medical manual. My PUTA led to kids screaming which woke drooling mastifs, who saw my plump legs. My screaming alerted the village elders who yelled at the children to rescue me. Arms, legs, language, rocks and dog fur flew through the air. Here endeth the lesson.
There is a time in every traveller’s life when they will have a shocker. Can’t be helped, it’s inevitable, usually brought on by weather (see Commandment Seven) or other people (see Commandment Five). Apart from weather, people and altitude, there are other hazards that require some caution, like village dogs. Cycling through the Tibetan Himalayas, mastifs litter the road side, sleeping, and are best left to lie unless the thought of rabies injections is something that appeals to you. My closest encounter came in a village when, finally giving into irritation at yet another attempt by kids to see what would happen to the funny looking foreigner if they put a stick through my wheels, I had an attack of PUTA. PUTA, better known as a dummy spit when cultural difference gets too much for frail Western temperaments, stands for Psychologically Unfit to Travel in Asia. Surprisingly, this is an actual medical condition noted in World Expedition's handy medical manual. My PUTA led to kids screaming which woke drooling mastifs, who saw my plump legs. My screaming alerted the village elders who yelled at the children to rescue me. Arms, legs, language, rocks and dog fur flew through the air. Here endeth the lesson.
Monday, 29 March 2010
A Good Read
If you fancy a good read over Easter I'd recommend Jeremy Rivkin's The Empathic Civilisation ... there is hope.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Cultural Inflections
So one of my British colleagues has recently returned from attending a workshop in Sydney where he was confronted with the full force of Australian directness. Asking another participant what they had thought of the previous speaker's presentation, the Australian researcher replied: 'Personally, I think it was a load of soft cock'. My colleague is still recovering although now he's used to it at least that's one person I can swear in front of. Oh the agony of having to watch what I say in the office (or on the street ... twice I've been told off now by complete strangers for swearing in public when almost involved in cycling accidents).
And if you thought deciding whether to use Miss, Ms, Mrs, or Mr was bad, try filling out a government form in the UK. Here you get to choose from:
And if you thought deciding whether to use Miss, Ms, Mrs, or Mr was bad, try filling out a government form in the UK. Here you get to choose from:
Baron
Baroness
Dame
Dr
Judge
Lady
Lord
Miss
Mr
Mrs
Ms
Professor
Reverend
Sir
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