|
›› Guided Tour of the Wardman Wire ›› Our Feeds and Websites ›› Buttons and Banners |
›› MPs' Expenses - House Rules
›› Ad Agency Slogans + Blog Slogans ›› Watching You: Surveillance Society |
Archive for Touching Base
A Clash of Symbols II: What is the Sound of One Symbol Clashing?
What, if anything, do the 5 designs for the Ebbsfleet sculpture say about us?
Early favourite, Mark Wallingers giant horse, is the only one of the 5 designs which is recognisable, compared to cubes, piles of recycling, or the wing of Mercury (or was it a spare one from the Angel of the North?)
Less obvious than a 33xscale horse, is the point of it. Not content with the St. Pancras facelift, the aim of the Ebbsfleet Landmark is to provide something big and striking as people enter England on the Eurostar. After all, Kent only has Canterbury Cathedral, the White Cliffs of Dover, and Leeds Castle - the place is clearly a bit of a let-down.
So is the sculpture supposed to represent England? Or confer identity on the brownfield development of 10,000 houses happening beneath the equine shadow? Bizarrely, the Highways Agency seems to be providing the parameters for the sculpture, not an organisation known for it’s artistic pedigree.
Hole in the Soul
Two related stories have popped up this week:
1. Some new research, widely disputed, which forsees the final implosion of Christianity in the UK, from 5m churchgoers today to less than 900,000 in 2050. On the way there, the ancient faith of Britain is overtaken by Islam in the 2030’s, and Hinduism 15-20 years later. Writes Ruth Gledhill “it feels as if the soul of Britain is dying”.
2. The publication of the latest Rough Guide to Britain, which observes:
“Of the two hundred-plus destinations across the world that Rough Guide covers, there is none so fascinating, beautiful and culturally diverse, yet as insular, self-important and irritating, as England,”
The guide also calls us quarrelsome, obsessed with minor celebrities, a ‘nation of overweight, binge-drinking reality TV addicts… (as well as) animal-loving, tea-drinking charity donors,’ which may be having a national identity crisis.
Why Do God-botherers Bother?
This week Gene Robinson, the gay US Bishop at the heart of current Church of England soul-searching, has been touring the UK promoting his new book. Having already missed out on an invitation, Robinson let it be known that Rowan Williams, the AB of C himself, doesn’t want him to speak publicly or lead worship during the Lambeth Conference. Lambeth 08 is the latest in a 10-yearly gathering of Anglican Bishops from around the world. Sadly one issue has dominated the pre-conference chatter, and it’s not Zimbabwe.
Williams himself notes that the national media has two narratives for stories about the church: split and decline. The local media can be much more positive and balanced, as they operate at the level where the church is most active and effective, and report news as news rather than grist to the editorial mill. But it’s not as if there’s no dispute, and no struggle, about church life at the moment. So why do we God-botherers bother?
Who’s There?
Christian thinker Francis Schaeffer argued that there were two basic questions:
- Does God exist?
- Has God spoken?
If you are Dawkins, Hitchens et al you’ve answered ‘no’ to question 1, and needn’t pass Go or collect £200. However if you answer ‘yes’, it starts to get interesting. Because then we’re at question 2.
Has God spoken? If the answer is no, then all religion is informed guesswork, following the clues we think the divine being has left in creation, human personality, the cosmos and whatever else we think points towards God. The trouble is, if we don’t know what God is like, we don’t know what points in his direction. If you don’t know where London is, then you have no idea whether any signs which say ‘London’ are pointing to London, or to Nempnett Thrubwell. So either you bet on all the religions at once (Bahai), or you have to stay neutral about all of them. As Homer Simpson puts it “what if we’ve chosen the wrong religion? Every week we’re just making God madder and madder.”
It’s Confession Time: Touching Base by David Keen
‘Bulimia’: the normal image conjured up is of an emaciated model or troubled teenager, not a rounded 69 year old Northern bloke with a taste for pies and official buffets. John Prescott’s revelation that he suffers from bulimia overturns most of our stereotypes about who suffers from what. Brave man. I was going to say you have to admire his guts, but that’s starting to conjure up some unpleasant pictures….
If I Tell You, I’ll Have to Kill You
It’s far easier to admit to a problem if you can do it anonymously. Like eating disorders, self harm, which up to 1/3 of teenagers have tried, is one of those private, secretive things which is hard to admit to. Jon Birch’s blog has given people space to do that this week online. This is one of the upsides of false identities on the internet, giving us space to admit to things we’d never share with people we know.
Having a safe space to admit to being wrong, or being in a mess, is a basic human need - both for ourselves, or, in the case of the 10p tax relief, admitting we are wrong for the benefit of others. We used to call it confession, a valuable practice which got tarnished by the fact that most people left their sins in the Tardis-shaped box in church, then went out and committed them again. Confession at its best is a place where we own up to what we are, to what we have done, and face unpleasant facts.
It’s made harder for public figures by the fact that the media pack pile in and cry ‘U-turn! U-turn!’, or ‘ner, ner ne-ner ner’ to use the school playground version. A culture of gloating and one-upmanship is an unforgiving place to confess. Media attitudes make it harder for politicians to admit to being wrong.
If Truth Be Told
Facing the truth about ourselves, and what we’ve done, is best done in a supportive community. This is a practice developed in a brilliant way by Alcoholics Anonymous. The 12 steps of AA, familiar more to pop stars and press officers than the general population, opens with this uncompromising statement:
1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol - that our lives had become unmanageable.
it gets better:
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
It’s Alright Darling, I Know Where I’m Going
All the men reading this are now skim-reading frantically. We don’t do God, and we don’t do ‘getting it wrong’. If we’re lost, we just keep driving.
The idea of systematically writing down every character flaw we have, well, most of us would rather enjoy a sit down meal with John Prescott. But the fun is just starting:
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
As well as being the basic plot of My Name is Earl, this was also the process followed by the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and is a principle of the Restorative Justice movement (see here for how this is working in one Taunton school). It’s a myth that sin is a solitary activity, most of us have a history of broken promises, disappointed friends, wasted chances and worse.
A Clash of Symbols: Touching Base
Try to recollect the highlights of recent British elections, and what do we remember? Prescott’s punch, Portillo’s face, Major’s soapbox. All of them images, but more than images - they said something about what was going on.
Symbols communicate, which is why brands spend so much time and money honing and protecting their own symbols.
Made of Plastic, but Explosive
A tin can on a stick:
A man with saggy jowls and his diary commitments in the Far East:
Not exactly world-shaking stuff. Not until this week anyway.
We’ve known about Tibet for years, and done very little, and we’ve know that China was hosting the Olympics since 2001. This is the same China which shares with North Korea, Saudia Arabia, Laos and Iran the dubious privilege of being in the ‘Top 10 worst places to live for Christians’, and who were strongly criticised by an Amnesty International report in March. Amnesty have produced some hard hitting ads, with the tagline ‘China is getting ready’, which show people being beaten up and with guns held to their heads.
But we’ve still not done much. We buy ‘Made in China’ products as though they were made in Cheltenham, we worry about the impact of Chinese economic growth on global warming, but until the last few days, China’s human rights record was a footnote rather than a headline.
So what’s changed?
Symbolism, that’s what.
You Can Fool Some of the People….
Laurel and Hardy. Eric and Ernie. Ken and Boris? The classic comedy pairings of a straight man and a fool, where the fool constantly reveals the foolishness of the ’sensible’ one. It’s a theme which goes back to the classic clown pairings of whiteface and auguste, the sensible superior one, and the put-upon dimwit. However its the dimwit who usually ends up with the sympathy of the audience, and who has much more freedom to tell the unadorned truth than their uptight partner.
Savvy?
Sometimes the fool turns out to be the savant, with a wisdom not available to the sensible. From Peter Sellers simple gardener in Being There to Forrest Gump, (and possibly Jack Sparrow) we tell ourselves stories about simpletons who have a better grasp on the important stuff than anyone with a suit and a plaque on the door. In medieval times the Jester was given a place in the royal court, and often had license to say things as the Fool which the sensible courtiers would have been beheaded for. As the Joker he was a wild card, with no fixed place in the hierarchy, protected by the fact he spoke as a fool. Now we have, erm, Jeremy Clarkson.
Maybe this is why comedians are given the time of day as social commentators.
Cricket, Saviour of the World: Touching Base
In the grand scheme of things, Marcus Trescothicks announcement a few days ago that he was retiring from international cricket is but a pebble on Chesil Beach. But it’s not alone. Trescothicks decision, based on the onset of an anxiety condition in recent years, comes a couple of weeks after Steve Harmison’s admission that whilst his 6′ 4″ frame was running in to bowl in New Zealand, a key internal organ was at home with his wife and newborn child.
A brief and entertaining handbag session followed in the English press between Harmison and Geoff Boycott. Boycs, now that he doesn’t have to face them on a regular basis, was clearly gunning for the quick bowlers, having also had a go at Aussie Shaun Tait for ‘lacking character’ in his decision to take a break from the game. Tait’s language suggests that he was starting to suffer with some form of depression or stress-related illness from the pressures of the game.
The Big Question
Tait, Harmison and Trescothick have all asked themselves an important question. A few years ago, months after the birth of our first child, I stood in a field somewhere near Darlington and thought ‘what am I doing here, playing cricket, when my family needs me at home?’ Maybe its a contagious disease of the North East, or maybe it’s about priorities. There comes a point when you find yourself standing in the corner of a field (or sitting at a desk, or about to board a plane on another trip), and the question ‘what am I doing this for?’ arrives, bags in hand, ready for a long stay in your psyche.
Cricket, Saviour of the World - Not Until Saturday
‘Why is cricket so great. It’s one of the only games in the world where you have sufficient time to wander round a field thinking ‘why am I doing this?’
This is the introductory paragraph from David Keen’s “Touching Base” column for the coming Saturday.
It was published this evening for 20 minutes by mistake, so I have pulled it. I thought it had not leaked out to search engines, but it *has* escaped via the Headline Feed on Twitter. So this article is in its place.
We have just had Easter and - like the disciples waiting from Good Friday to Easter Sunday for three days (counting in biblical fashion including the days at both ends) - you are going to have to wait for 3 days until Saturday at 11:00am for this article to be resurrected.
In the meantime here is a cartoon with thanks to Mike Power who flagged up the error.
Credit@ ASBO Jesus
A question: is the website he is looking at Polly Toynbee or Rowan Williams?
Tags: cricket - saviour of the world, david keen, touching base
