Wildewire

I went to Leadgate yesterday to meet a group of older people who're comparatively new to the village and who have started new community activities largely because they found what was on offer restrictive and cliquey! My friend warned me that they might be friendly with the self-proclaimed leading light of the village: the person who had refused to accept grants because he thought his organisation could do without them and yet complains about the lack of public sector support he receives for his activities. The reality couldn't have been more different, this group identified the "leading light" as a force for stopping things from happening. What is more: as they have been drumming up interest for their ideas a common refrain from villagers has been to the effect of : they'd do it as long as [the leading light] isn't involved. I felt sorry for him. I also found out that he had been rather over-egging his military career: When someone says they were involved in...

So... I drove to Sheffield yesterday. My faulty sat nav behaved itself and I got there with about an hour to spare to go over what I'd written and the job description etc. I couldn't get over the feeling that the job was a little vague but I was heartened by things like: " The Enablers will be experienced Black arts professionals who demonstrate a clear comitment to supporting artists and developing new work as well as he cuture of the black theatre sector " "It is important that whilst participating in this programme they are also delivering their own projects a independent practitioners..." "...being a voice of the independent Black arts sector..." The interview was a little weak! The first thing I was asked was to tell a story in four minutes ending with "So then I decided to apply for this job". I spoke of my disappointment at the demise of Intercultural Arts and my desire to revive it and saw that the remit of identifying...

The youth project in the community centre I'm after for my company is pulling out in February claiming cuts as the reason. They're in fact a branch of a huge and wealthy global charity that COULD fund its individual projects if it wanted to. They'd been threatening to go ever since they lost a grant from the local authority last year. The kids aren't happy and are writing unprompted letters to the Council and the papers. I was invited to speak with them yesterday and tried to get them to understand that the council isn't responsible. The council has to find cuts of £250m and central government wants all local authorities to pay for themselves with no central funds by 2020. I explained that if my company is chosen we will honour a commitment to retain an independent youth project with the same youth leaders and that I believe it will be eminently fundable. I encouraged the kids to spread the word about my plans and at very least, to demand that the council gives ...

Yesterday I met with a woman from Kenya I've known professionally since around 2005 to discuss what she's doing, what I'm trying to do and how we might collaborate. I was amazed at how similar her work experience has been to mine. She shared similar frustrations, watched inept people be continually rewarded whilst work in which she has been involved has been starved in the hope it would disappear. She articulated the same feelings about 'playing the game' to acquire favour as opposed to rocking the boat by doing the job you know needs to be done. Perhaps it was a case of "misery loves company" but I went away from that meeting feeling just a little less insane! When polite and reasonable people regularly tell you that the things about which you're passionate aren't really important or that you haven't really understood what is going on, it isn't surprising if you begin to believe it. My colleague reminded me that this is an effective ta...

Part of my plan for community centre is to resurrect the organisation I built up and had to leave in 2011 when Arse Council funds were cut. There was more to it of course: I'd foreseen what was going to happen after the crash started in America in 2008/9 and I was convinced that once it hit UK, the government would be true to previous form and cut the arts and culture budgets first and most fiercely. I started reporting to the Board of Trustees in April 2009 about the need for diversifying income and not depending on a single source. They patted me on the head and ignored me. When the cuts approached, the Arse Council fell on its own sword and made its own cuts perhaps hoping to be spared but it was not the case as additional cuts were demanded from central government and, as the organisation did not produce art but supported minority ethnic artists, it was one of the first to go... ...Anyway: as you might imagine, although we were "civil", this was another of the job...

One of the things I really appreciate as an ex-Londoner, is how quiet it is where I live. In New Cross you'd be hearing three or more assorted sirens per hour, only marginally less through the night whereas here; hearing one at all is unusual. The fly in the ointment is 5 storey block of flats 100m from my house that contains a load of Yoof- its some sort of half-way house for kids who've been kicked out/left their families. There's a warden, but he goes at about 6pm and isn't there at week ends. I've been here since 2006 and the council was promising to close the project then. It is the source of expected levels of antisocial behaviour (loads of unsupervised yoof, what do you expect?). Last night I was woken by som Chavaette screaming about how she "didn't want to be here no more" -something I echoed, and she "wanted to be with my grandma in heaven" etc. The issue seemed to be that "I always back yous up and you nevva back me up for any...

Wednesday already! How did that happen? I'm not made for this sort of existence. More Stir Crazy each day.  Eclipse have invited me back for an interview for their "Enabler" job which would be nice as I wouldn't be desk-bound and would be able to continue to develop my enterprise and community support ideas. The interview's in the afternoon so at least I should be able to do the drive in daylight. Got to get the windscreen wiper fixed first. I'm continuing to job hunt like a good boy. I haven't found anything that really excites, though I completed an application to join a regional funding body today LOL. Poacher-turning-gamekeeper! Though I very much doubt they'll invite me for interview it keeps the Universal Creditors off my case. How stupid that is: the hours I spent completing the application for something in which I'm interested in the sense that if they offered it to me I'd accept it, but it doesn't really get my juices flowing. ...

Its great when my low expectations are proved entirely wrong. Sustained Theatre set the bar very low for me and I'm not sure I would have bothered with the Eclipse Theatre Audience Development Training if I had been more economically secure, and it would have been my loss. I came away from the two days feeling like there HAS been change in Black British Theatre- at least for this company who have landed big bucks from Esmee Fairbairn and Heritage Lottery Fund- Arse Council is there too, but they aren't funding the actual development work- they fund the basic existence that kept the company inside another company for 5 years. It is exactly that resistance to true black independence against which I railed as Chair of Sustained Theatre: Arse Council were willing to release funds to black artist groups IF they remained under the 'care' and control  of established (white) venue organisations. This arrangement does not work for the black company: when they manage to get a t...

I'm in Sheffield. I was invited to join a team of Audience Developers in support of just about the only black British touring theatre company. Their plan is to produce a range of new plays with the background of 500 years of black history in Britain and to tour them around the country. Having people in each region who will work with the venues to raise awareness and drum up audiences is a great idea. I left Newcastle at 7am yesterday and the drive was OK until I got to Sheffield on the motorway and the sat nav stopped working lol. I'd overshot the exit and had to double back. Once in the city, things were only marginally better: there is a shitload of roadworks and route changes in the city that my sat nav doesn't know about. Once I ditched the car I walked around in circles for about 45 minutes until I gave up and took a taxi to somewhere that I later found was about 10 minutes from where I needed to be so I was a little late. Later on; I popped back to pick up the car...

Watching the BBC's Black and British series has been having a profound effect on me- especially in programmes that explore the 1980s and 1990s in UK; when I was in my twenties and thirties. I realise now how much being at university from the beginning of the first Thatcher government shielded me from the worst of the seismic social shifts the country experienced. I started my first job at the end of 1984 with a plan to make my name as a theatre director headlining at the National by the time I was thirty... LMAO! ... it is funny in hindsight but wasn't at all out of the bounds of possibility at the time'  I was a graduate -a BLACK graduate from a brand new degree course and one of the top three theatre schools and had earned distinction at both. I'd put in a year's teaching practice in a Quaker boarding school (another cloistered year) as part of my back-up plan in case I didn't get the breaks and I'd landed a job at an exciting modern arts centre in S.E.L...

Perhaps it was the fact of having to go the dole at all, but I had a horrible feeling all day last Thursday: preparing for the meeting, then deciding not to take anything as they'd not requested it. When I got there, the operative was still quite wary of me -which is good LOL, so I didn't feel the need to act up. I've fulfilled my part of the arrangement, I've got nothing from them. I'd found out by then that I hadn't been shortlisted for the Seaton Delaval Hall job. Its always a hard one when that happens: my gut reaction is "NEXT!" but I can't help wondering WHY: what was the problem? Was it in what I wrote or what I missed out? Is my work experience too extensive- does it lack coherence? Do I come across as "hard work"? Am I too old, too gay?... I never presume anything, but, when I take particular care to ensure that everything in the person-spec is covered and attached to examples of my experience and I still don't make the sho...

I think "Africa 81" was the first time I actually began to find out about British history in Africa. It was a festival of all things African and it was good. The BBC series of shows in their current Black British season is having similar eye-opening effects for me, but this time it seems so much more personal... As much as I am enjoying the shows, I will write to BBC after the season to lament that it takes a "season" to explore and illustrate black lives in Britain: it would be better to find a strong string of such stories throughout the schedule. I avoid moaning about my lot. I rejoice in the many experiences that I have had that the average Brit might not have experienced. I am aware that being black has in some instances contributed to those things- it has long been useful to have at least one black face in the mix to show "diversity". It has bothered me how often I have been that face. Watching Black is the New Black yesterday SO MANY of the thin...

That was an odd week! At least the cold I picked up at the castle has finally passed. I 'lost it' with the peripatetic lodger who turned up as usual with his daughter on Wednesday night. The fucker waltzes in sorts out the child then sits in my living room without so much as a fucking acknowledgement. I told him what I thought of that but had to leave as I was irrationally angry. I have spoken to the lame shit about the disrespect I feel about him just showing up when he feels like it without any word to the people with whom he is living. You might say its his right as a paying tenant, but that was never the basis under which ANYONE has lived in my home and if it were, he should be paying me around £150 per month more AND contributing to the bills. I begin to wonder if there isn't something wrong with him! I know he's on antidepressants, is that an excuse for his behaviour? I couldn't care any less who he might be shagging, but the tales he tells of his work j...

The BBC is running a "Black British" season that is having more of an effect on me than I would have expected. Yesterday was like having been bombed or torpedoed with depression. It was a crap day, I have them sometimes. It was frustrating. I am job hunting and empire building (LOL) which require a lot of reflection on my "achievements"/ survivals. It should make impressive reading: I have done so much more than is average- I have been FORTUNATE enough to have experienced so much more than is average that I despair at how little I have achieved in comparison with my white counterparts! I have a predisposition NOT to carp on about being in the minority, but the bald statistics presented in " Will Britain Have a Black Prime Minister " got me thinking about a lot of things I'd just assimilated as 'the way things are'. I acknowledge my debt to my mother who would not contemplate me going anywhere but to the local grammar school. I remember our ...

'Signing on' doesn't come easily to me, it is like an acceptance of failure- less so now after it sinks in that I paid taxes during my working time to secure me against times when I am not. The last time I was made redundant I had problems with the Job Shop operative who told me that a £18,000 minimum salary was "unrealistic" because it was more than she was earning. Luckily, she threatened me with her manager so I insisted on speaking with them and she became my contact. Luckily; I wasn't signing on for long, but I nearly lost my house! The Tories have been in power since I was last 'on the dole' and I made sure I was over-prepared for my encounters. The online service is a nightmare that doesn't properly work and the verification process they use doesn't recognise my bank- which is hardly a 'local' concern but a national company which meant having to attend the Job Shop for a Verification Interview in addition to the online bolloc...

I am FINALLY feeling a lot more human! Its weird how I don't realise how sick I've been until I recover. If I'd been stuck working for my former employers, yesterday would have been the first when I was really able to go to work and function adequately. I do tend to get a cold at around this time of year and then again when it starts to warm up in late spring. My head feels lighter today- like I'm not carrying around gallons of stuff  in it for a change and I can sell my shares in tissue paper! My ex phoned on Sunday, we tend to exchange calls around our birthdays, his was recent. I found out he'd been reading this blog which was a surprise. I'm fascinated that anyone finds these musings of interest. I am aware that it is in a public domain but I write it for me. He'd got an alert about the blog during my Featherstone gathering from google plus apparently. He's a former prominent member of the group that in many ways led the way for the Faeries etc b...

For someone actually feared by some... I've given up trying to show that I'm NOT a threat just because I'm big, black and articulate. I think that combination worries them most. But in fact I find it hard to be... well; hard on people. When the peripatetic "lodger" appeared as expected on Wednesday, I asked him to explain to me what HE thought was going on- what was the 'deal' about him and my home. He looked at me as if I was mad and says "I live here!". "Really!?" I countered, "how does that work then?" My experience of him "living" here is that it was the first time I'd laid eyes on him since returning from Featherstone, no text or any other attempt to communicate, he owes me money on his already 'mates rate' rent, he has contributed nothing to the upkeep of the house (including contributing to bills) he hardly communicates, when he is in the lounge he is into his 'phone and I am supposed to be O...

I had been looking forward to reviewing and submitting to the Council the Expression of Interest form I'd shared with my Co Directors before going to Featherstone. Unfortunately; they'd sent me the wrong version of the form so I have had to cut paste and rejiggle and write some new stuff which all has to go back to the Directors before I can submit it. Having said that; I think that the submission gets better and better each time I've had to redraft it and I am increasingly confident of the business principles beneath the operating plans and the potential for real success. Getting the building would give us the opportunity to revive Intercultural Arts (though I'd expect some resistance from the old guard), it would give SLAP! headquarters, we'd be able to support the Newcastle Alevi Cultural Centre project, there's scope to revive NEST (though it would be a LOT smaller than it had been before) and opportunities for a load of creative groups to head to the esta...