Wildewire

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...