It was not Apple’s self aggrandisement at its recent keynote session launch claiming ‘courage’ for doing away with the head phone socket on the iPhone7 but for me it was its diversity on stage and on screen.
No more mono cultural white male presenters and images but woman and minorities shared the stage as well as being seen on screen throughout the two hours – a first for Apple. Particularly appropriate at a time when we are celebrating Startrek’s 50 years of Diversity.
The reminder email the afternoon before I
was to seeKnife Edge from The Big Houseproduction company at the Pond advised that I should prepare myself for a
‘promenade performance’ andto ‘travel
light’ added to my expectation
Through the making of theatre The Big House
provides a platform for young people who’ve been through the care system and
being challenged by life, an opportunity to have their voices heard, in KnifeEdge we certainly hear their voices!
I was shocked by the directness and
frankness of those voices the plays language pulled no punches in making
manifest the anger the youth felt about the way they’d been treatedby society - it was full-on, frank and foul.
I was left in no doubt at the young people’s resentment, mistrust and
suspicion, rejection being their experience and expectation. They in turn rejected many of those sent
by society to care for them; a line from the play that reflected that despair
and mistrustfor me was one directed to a carer‘You only care ‘cos you’re being
paid!’
The acting was without exception powerful
and emotional, I had the sense these guys were not acting but living their
lives before us. - the words came from
their own lives.
The settings were brilliantly innovative as
we – the audience moved around the restaurant from sets depicting aNando’s restaurant to a kitchen to aliving rooms and the street. The
lighting was particularly inventive much use being made ofplastic water bottles andLED light strips – you have see it to believe
how magical it made the various sets as we were led from one scene to another
around the entire restaurant space.
As the play moves form one scene to another, the young people are on an emotional journeyfrom one life changing event to anotherwe the audience followed their storythrough a physical journey as we movedfrom set to set .
Knife Edge’s ending is as powerful as
moving as its beginning as we the audience complete our promenade as we are
invited to share a meal with the actors - cannot speak highly enough of the
Hawaiian style fish – sharing food ,Knife Edge and their lives.
I very much enjoyed the meal both the food and meeting and sharing
with the actors and The Big House production team ,the meal was also a chance to network with
other like minded folk concerned about the life outcomes of our young people
leaving the care service.I was minded
of Cameron’s statement that children in care have been 'let down for too long'
something had to be done by Government,
To conclude my Knife Edge promenade showed me that
there is hope as young people from care despite set backs can ‘make it’ but we
can certainly do more to help them on their promenade.
Knife Edge - a great evening's entertainment with good food and good company and a strong message - recommended !
Salman Rushdie defending his novel The Satanic Verses said Nobody has the right not to be offended , it has been repeatedly quoted in the media these past few days as a defence for CHARLIE HEBDO’s cartoons in general, and in particular those castigating or mocking Islam.
The Enlightenment’s freedoms certainly allow us , in Great Britain and France at least, not to be bound by the fear or the manacles and chains of lèse-majesté so today we are free to offend or mock the Monarchy, equally the Church. I am minded of the words of the Enlightenment philosopher Diderot : Man shall not be free until the last king is hung on the entrails of the last priest such was the hold the Monarchy and the Church had over the common man at the time, before the Enlightenment.
But with the freedoms of the Enlightenment come responsibility, not to replace one intellectual tyranny with another, rather to understand how a free and open society works. We must take time to understand each other's points of view, it is a case of tolerating, respecting the other’s point of view, that tenet is fundamental to the liberal democratic society we live in.
My thoughts are rooted in the cliché I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death to your right to say it*. Rushdie can, at face value, seen to be right but he makes no reference to how a liberal democratic society functions, effectively. Such societies are founded on mutual respect and tolerance, without either they are doomed to endlessly fighting ideas and beliefs with knives and bombs rather than Enlightened reasoned rational thought.
So, for me, CHARLIE HEBDO was as wrong to create such ugly images not just of Islam but of Christianity and Judaism as their images are unremittingly offensive to and disrespectful of those beliefs.
I'll conclude, for now, not with a cartoonist's drawings but with the words of the French cartoonist - Tomi Ungerer : Mutual respect is after all the key to peace and understanding.
* Voltaire is often quoted as the source but (sadly) he never said it!
FootNote
Having written this post I am now moving on from posting #JeSuisCharlie in Facebook and Twitter but I'll continue to post in Pinterest from time to time.
A friend posted on Facebook that picture of the front page of The Times reporting the Minister for Education Michael Gove's demands for British values to be taught in schools following attempts by Muslim fundamentalists to dictate the way some schools in Birmingham should be run and the sad, untimely death of the comic actor Rik Mayall. They pointed out The Times juxtapositions headlines and pictures so well.
For me, the headline and picture raised the question: what does it mean to be British and how on earth could we extend that definition to include the Minister as well as such an odd character as the idiosyncratic Rick from The Young Ones who Mayall was portraying?
Neo-Classical St George's Hall
Gothic Anglican Cathedral
I propose that an answer is to be found in the architecture of my home town Liverpool, in its Gothic Anglican Cathedral (above) and its Neo-Classical St George's Hall (above).
One of the fundamental design tenants of the Anglican Cathedral was that no two of its 11 million plus carved stone blocks were to be identical, each and every stone was to be different. It was standing in the vast nave looking and comparing the blocks of the North and South walls (below) that I saw that design idea in action - the regular pattern one might expect is in fact a dystopian fusion of blocks of all sizes combined to create the nave's tessellated wall.
Nowhere is that design idea better seen than in the vault of its Lady Chapel (below ). Each stone of its vast vaulted ceiling is different, even when there seems to be no need, in those places were the bosses and ribs of the vaulted ceiling could be simply replicated , each boss, each rib and their stones respect the design tenet and is individual.
Lady Chapel Vault
Corinthian Columns
I would argue the individuality of the bricks in Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral is a metaphor for Britain and British values. In Britain we are all, like the stones, individuals in our right - unique - nevertheless we fit in to a greater thing than ourselves as individuals. This intrinsic individual uniqueness allows the manic, wild eyed Young One's Rick and the calm, irascible Michael Gove both to lay claim to being British.
The Cathedral's designed diversity is in contrast to the relentless uniformity of St George's Hall. The Hall can be seen as combination of repeated construction elements for example the Corinthian Columns of its entrance portico (above right). Each column is uncompromisingly identical - base, shaft and even its capital. The latter is where the Hall's neo-classical craftsman could have been given some leeway to apply his own individuality without comprising structural integrity, just as the Cathedral's Gothic craftsman were allowed.
Neo-Classical architecture is not British as it has no place for the individuality of a Mayall or a Cove, one must be one or the other to fit in, the two cannot coexist. It is no mistake the uncompromising, uniforming political governing systems - Communist and Fascist - both favour neo-classical or pastiches of neo-classicism in their architecture.
Being British is to be Gothic like Liverpool's Anglican Cathedral stones, to be an individual yet fitting into a greater whole, keeping your intrinsic values yet able to fit in with others to create a greater something; out of many we are one United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland aka Britain.
Signing the Condolence Book at South African High Commission
The message I left...
Many thanks Mr Mandela for teaching my how to forgive and have compassion and understanding for my fellow human beings - you were one of the greatest. Love Michael
It took a man like [sic] Madiba to free not just the prisoner, but the jailor as well; to show that you must trust others so that they may trust you; to teach that reconciliation is not a matter of ignoring a cruel past, but a means of confronting it with inclusion, generosity and truth. He changed laws, but also hearts.
We can choose to live in a world defined not by our differences, but by our common hopes.
Obama closed by quoting Mr Mandela
It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.
There were many floral tributes left outside the High Commission....
The sad, but not unexpected, news of the passing of Nelson Mandela made me recall the time I had the honour of encountering The Great Man.
It was on an early morning flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town in the early 90s.
I was one of the last to board and to my amazement I saw Mr Mandela sitting there literally as large as life - he was a tall, distinguished man - in the middle of a row of seats half way down the aircraft’s cabin. He was involved in conversation with the folk around him, looking just like any other traveller. There was one small sign of his position as there were two rather tall, even when seated, young men in dark suits and open neck white shirts, sitting either side of him, presumably his body guards, while he talked across them. I tried desperately not to gawp as I filed past to find my seat further down the aircraft.
This scene in itself was remarkable as the leaders I had experienced elsewhere in Africa had a very different style around aircrafts - always last to board. vast numbers of hangers-on and lackies, sitting up front in a curtained off area - protected , isolated and elite. Mr Mandela seemed the exact opposite as he sat patiently almost discreetly, in amongst the rest of the passengers on what was a busy flight, that morning. No pomp, No circumstance.
In the arrivals hall at Cape Town I was caught short. I need to go. As the gap for me personally between needing to go and catastrophe can be quite short I made my way - very quickly - to the toilet only to have my entrance barred by one of his bodyguards I’d seen on the flight , who told me politely that I had to wait till Mr Mandela had finished. Normally I would have respected the wish but I was heading towards catastrophe. I started hopping from one leg to the other trying to retain my composure as I tried to explain my desperation. He relented and let me through.
There was Mr Mandela in front of one of the toilet’s two urinals, I rushed to the vacant one. There was me shoulder to shoulder with the great man - well almost - he was taller and there was a respectful space between us.
Then it all went wrong. I dried up. The urge left me. I couldn’t do it. I just looked up, stared ahead, directly, at the wall. By this time Mr Mandela had finished I went to speak - he smiled politely - I was speechless, I was gobsmacked. I just stared at the wall while he washed and dried his hands, I continued to stand before the urinal there all ready to to the business but failing completely!
It was just like that scene from the eighties TV satirical program Spitting Image which had Thatcher characterised as a man rushing into the men's room as two of her cabinet - Heseltine and Fowler - are noisily using facilities yet dry up in both speech and flow.
Thatcher noisily joins them, they go quite, as both their conversation and flow dry up in her presence. After she’s left the room Heseltine says to Fowler ‘I never seem to be able to go when she comes in’
I knew exactly how they felt!
Mr Mandela that day, for me, had a presence I could not understand yet I responded to his greatness with what can only be described as reverence such was his command of the space around him - a truly awesome yet engaging human being with grace and greatness in equal measure.
I feel humbled and honoured to have shared that brief, unlikely moment with The Great Man.
In August 2013 the building nick named The Walkie-Talkie, melted cars , set fire to carpets, blistered paint and for few days became a tourist attraction in central London. Here are my pictures.
The Walkie-Talkie with its concave glass structure acted like a giant magnify glass focussing the sun's rays down on the street below - Eastcheap.
