Wildewire

Facebook is an odd thing.  I have just over three hundred friends on Facebook; I have met all but two of them and can honestly call them friends... some more than others unsurprisingly, and others I sometimes wonder if I would still like them if I spent regular face time with them today, but the past we shared was rosey enough not to have to go there.  I make clear on my profile that I am not interested in amassing thousands of contacts rather than having a way of being in touch with some of the people I met in my life. People still send me 'Friend Requests' but I rarely respond. Another odd thing is when people I have known but would not call "friends" contact me. I do try to consider the time that has passed and how the person might have changed and how important the reason for any fall-out might still be, but I will have a good nose around their profiles before I might accept them... I got a request from a manager of an organisation I worked for last year for...

When I think about it, there are things about even the people I love most that I wish were different about them, not enough to actually want to change, but that I just wish were different. I don't think I am alone in that or that it makes me any more of a horrible person than I am already- I KNOW there are things about me that those closest to me wish were different about ME too. Most of the time those things are just there- I accept them- WE accept them about each other because fundamentally our love or affection trumps these 'imperfections' or hides them in the background. The man I love most in the world and more than anyone I have met in my life- who happens to be straight and our relationship is purely platonic, turns out to have pretty unacceptable views about Muslims- it is to do with where he lives and his up-bringing etc. We sometimes 'discuss' it and I am often ashamed at not delving deeper for fear of damaging what we have together. I recently cr...

It is so cool to be on schedule with our main project this year: the LGBT online archive for North East England named after a popular DJ: Michael "Sal" Lumsden who died of lung cancer in 2007; The Sal Lumsden Archive Project (SLAP!). We had our first "scanning party" tonight at 'The Dancing Peppermill'- formerly 'Pride Cafe' with which I was involved for a few (ultimately painful) months last year. The idea is to get people to bring things they might have kept that tell a story about LGBT events and people: posters, fliers, programmes, photos to be scanned for inclusion on the website along with their comments and memories... We're asking organisations to share their constitutions and records of important decisions etc and we will be interviewing people to get their stories on audio or video. We want to capture the stories of older people and to honour their contributions to the LGBT communities around the region. Fewer people  turned u...

I drove to Durham today (!!!) to meet an 'Age UK' group of LGBT elders. In some ways it was to be a bit of a dress rehearsal for the event we're doing tomorrow to drum up contributions for the online LGBT archive we're developing, but there was no way of really knowing what the group would want to do so we piled everything into the car to be ready for anything. They were an interesting group and they reminded me of a lot of things I knew but had let slide to the back of my mind. Widowers who only began to explore their true natures after the death of their wives, some of them living in small rural communities where the role of grieving widower is more acceptable than born again gay! They're unsurprisingly suspicious of the "freedoms" LGBT people enjoy in this country- it makes little difference if your neighbours find out your 'one of them' and decide to make your life a misery. One was a trans woman who attends bingo with her wife and most p...

I can hardly believe it! I passed my driving test!!!! I only had two minor faults this time (you can have up to 15 and pass). I was concentrating so much I could feel beads of sweat rolling slowly down my face. I messed up the drive on your own bit- where they say "follow the signs to..." but I was concentrating so much on the road etc I missed the sign. Fortunately, my driving was better than my navigation. I decided I wanted to celebrate so bunked off work early and encountered a friend at The Yard and downed a few pints with him. Someone with whom I worked last year until his ego left no space for partnership flounced in. Both my friend and me have no time for this individual but he had clearly decided it was time to forget the past or something so (in a weirdly aggressive way) he said "Hello" - with a sort of querying inflection, my friend and me managed a grunt in his general direction. -While I am being bitchy lol- I saw his ex-boyfriend a few days ag...

!!! I found this in an 'unpublished folder' Its a pretty standard rant from me, I can't remember when it was drafted, might as well post it... Now is not the time for investing in “strategy”, at least; in minority arts! I have lost count of the number of consultations and strategies I’ve witnessed and to which I have contributed since 1985. Each one promised a great leap forward for minority arts and culture, so why does it seem that so little has been achieved? How many full time UK creative companies, let alone venues are run by and for people from minority communities? How much public money has been spent to deliver consultations and research ‘on our behalf’? Why does it seem that so many of those consultations were conducted by the ‘Usual Suspects? Why are so few professionals from minority communities acceptable to “Strategic” agencies to conduct consultations and deliver reports? How did those who have the confidence of ‘Strategic Agencies’ ...

Its impossible to go from "A" to "B" if you're at "C"! I've been preoccupied with my relationship with my godson and thinking with hindsight that it was never going to work out the way I hoped when I agreed to foster him three years ago. I thought I would be able to give him security, guidance, support and to build up an affectionate relationship with him that would help him make his own way in the world. I hadn't accounted for how self-reliant this tri-lingual 13 year old had become- had needed to be to survive his childhood. Self-reliance seems to be an increasingly important quality or skill-set, but it can be a problem if it is based on insufficient knowledge, experience or both. He endures my nagging with stoicism but, despite his intellect, fails to make the connection that if he struggles to exist in a home where his meals etc are provided and he has most of the things he wants, how is he going to survive when he doesn't have acc...