The Politics of Dancing

My past is everything I failed to be.” Fernando Pessoa, Book of Disquiet Of all human facilities memory is the least reliable and one of the most important. Without memory we cease to be who we are, or more accurately who we have become. Yet we fictionalise our lives to an extraordinary degree, creating patterns and order where there was none. We operate always with hindsight, -we know how things turned out, -and fabricate a narrative to explain our current predicament. Lost in all this is the chaos of contingency, the million and one possibilities, the roads we did not take.  In addition to all this this narrative is highly selective, from the millions of possible moments we select but a few, then memory edits and chooses the angle from which we view this thing called our past. We become victims of the propaganda of memory. I envy, but am suspicious of autobiography, the meticulously arranged chronology, the neat history of a life described in detail. My own memory a...

Life is a constant tension between the desire to explore, to take risks, to be adventures and the desire to stay safe, secure, and well within our aptly named ‘comfort zone.’ The way our lives pan out largely depends on how we manage this tension. Absolute safety is impossible, we are all born into a risky environment, [1] life being both perilous and ending in death.  A few years back when I was working as a clinician and manager, running therapeutic groups which sought to assist clients with serious long term mental health problems. When we discussed the literature describing the nature of the groups the Director wanted to describe the groups as a ‘safe space.’ “I certainly hope not,” would have been an appropriate response, however my response was more nuanced, and I demurred. For a ‘safe’ therapeutic group would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. A therapeutic group requires the right element of challenge, of risk, if it is to have any hope of facilitating chang...

Well the solar Eclipse was something of a non-event in London. The sky just grew a little darker,- it being dark already. Walking from the Post Office in Notting Hill gate, the gloom suddenly intensified, street lamps and car headlights came on and we all pretended that the end of the world was not happening. This was all in stark contrast to the last eclipse in 1999. I was then working in Dartmouth Street, close to St James Park. Just before the event we all, office workers, civil servants, and even some politicians, poured into the park to participate in what felt like a communal event. People actually talking to complete strangers. 'Don't Talk, Don't Touch The propensity to keep oneself to oneself is particularly marked in London and is at its most comical on the Tube, a desperate desire to avoid physical let alone emotional contact.* Although London is an even more cosmopolitan city than when I arrived in 1983 this does not seem to have had any impact on this...

The Museum of Brands, Packaging, and Advertisements  Hidden in a little cul-de-sac just of the Portobello Road in Notting Hill there sits a time machine. This takes the form of a museum, the Museum of Brands. To enter it is to engage with a reality that is with us all the time but which we barely notice, the world of product brands. If music provides a soundtrack to our lives, then Brands and advertising provide part of the scenery. Ever since the mid years of the 19 th Century, advertising has been a ubiquitous feature of daily life. * Though its form and effectiveness has evolved over the years it still consists of the basic seduction of; ‘I’m what your life needs, I’m the best/most economic product, buying me is a statement about you.’ He's got an Ology, you can go places with an Ology The adverts and brands we remember form part of our lives; aside from music and smells, few things are guaranteed to poke the Proustian memory than an old TV advert for Oxo cubes, or ...

Cameron's Temper, Young Girls and Jihad, CAGE, The Book of Disquiet The Past as a Foreign country The incredible fiasco of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, ducking out of the TV debates has been like the script of the old TV series ‘Yes Minister,’ as the Prime minister sought ever more devious ways to avoid having to debate Ed Miliband on TV. First, improbably, he discovered a secret love for the Greens, who, he argued, couldn’t possibly be excluded from the debates. Then, when this request was acceded to, more probably, he felt a surge of passion for the Ulster Unionists, demanding that they too be included. Conveniently for the Tories the Unionists have continued, having never hitherto been part of the national debate, to wail about their exclusion, now threatening to set my ‘learned friends’ upon the broadcasters.  Finally, having failed to get his way, Little Lord Cameron-Fauntleroy has picked up his ball and walked away.  Though condescending to partici...