Wildewire

So, it looks as though "The Temple" has finally been 'lost' to some Chinese restaurateurs! [though I won't get official confirmation for a couple of days]. What could have been a dynamic centre for art, creative professional career development, culture, comunity enterprise and diverse activities will be a giant Chinese restaurant and karaoke bar! It has been a long haul against implacable resistance and I realised a while back that there was much more I could have done... but I'm not good a schmoozing! I don't know anyone worth sidling up to anyway- well, certainly not up here and it has been hard representing people who were too scared to stand up when they needed to be counted. I'm pretty sure I would have got further if I had gone a-empire-building, but it really isn't my style. I feel more comfortable in a creative democracy than a dictatorship even if I'm in charge! I like people who get passionate about stuff like I do- even if its

I don't understand it: I spend time making sure that what I do 'for' other people is with their explicit consent. I contact and consult and research and engage and yet when I present that work to the cultural gatekeepers their reaction is to request NEW consultation, research and engagement. The energy put into this "admin" is irritating and pointless. It serves to slow down real development in an attempt to wear out the active and reduce their potential impact on the status quo. It is so much procedure for the sake of being able to say that it was followed in case something goes wrong. My stint in a public sector agency taught me that the primary goal of the average public sector worker is to follow procedure, if everything goes tits up, as long as you can show you followed procedure, your particular butt will be covered. There is nothing creative about that. What REALLY pisses me off is to discover after a recent procedural road block, that the actions of a