Worry: Peacock is struggling to be fit for the weekend (Picture: Action Images)

The Leeds forward went off after taking a heavy bang to his knee in the first half of the 36-20 defeat by Australia at the weekend.

Prop James Graham and second-rower Gareth Ellis , who both experienced lower-back spasms, are expected to recover in time for the final group game at Hull’s KC Stadium but Peacock remains a major worry.

England and New Zealand are level on points but the Kiwis have a superior points percentage and need only a draw to go through to a final with the Kangaroos on  November 19. ‘It’s straight knockout now for us,’ said Leeds captain Kevin Sinfield .

‘I thought we troubled the Aussies in some aspects but we weren’t disciplined enough and paid the price.’

England beat New Zealand in the corresponding fixture at Huddersfield in 2009 to reach the final. However, the Kiwis are the defending champions and favourites to reach the final again. Sinfield added: ‘We know what a great side New Zealand are. We can’t mope about Saturday, we’ve got to get our chins up, graft and put things right.

‘It’s do or die for us now. I thought we made some strides again but they weren’t as big as they needed to be to get the win.’

Meanwhile, Australia forward Tony Williams has until this morning to accept a charge of a high tackle on England’s Ben Westwood, which carries an automatic one-match ban, or contest it in front of an international disciplinary panel tonight.

Elsewhere, Wales forward Craig Kopczak has been charged with a dangerous shoulder charge on Sam McKendry of New Zealand.

So it’s scarcely surprising that it should offer a shared program featuring Charles Slender’s Pretonically Oriented V.3 and Lenora Lee’s Reflections.  Both groups have enjoyed a residency period at Counterpulse, enabling them to produce the pieces seen  September 9-11.

Pretonically Oriented V.3 and Reflections, translated, means cerebral exposition on Caucasian bodies and Chinese martial arts blended with modern dance aided by traditional Chinese lion masks.

I had to query Rita Felciano for a definition of “pretonically” since  my routine
dictionaries gave me no clue. Her response was that it refers to that part of a word just before the emphasized syllable.  Now, that’s truly cerebral.  For me  that was the problem.  I watched, I admired the three principal performers and observed their intricate movement and body patterns.  But felt nothing, NADA.

doubtless I am  antedelluvian, but that is what theater and art is about – to evoke, and, perhaps, in the process make one a better human being.

Erin Kraemer and Catherine Newman are well-trained, nicely-moving modern
dancers called upon to contort their faces and their bodies both in solo and partnering sequences.  It must be an interesting contrast to working with the San Francisco Opera, listed in both dancers’ credits.

James Graham is a beautifully muscled, nicely proportioned man with substantial academic and performing credits.  This month he departs for Israel to be come a certified Gaga instructor.  I hope he gets  to dance there.

Among credits listed for choreographer Charles Slender is a two-year stint in Yekaterinburg, Russia.  Isn’t this location the site of the Romanov family murders? I wonder what and if the location influenced Slender’s subject matter.

Following intermission Lenora Lee Dance’s Reflections commenced with
the prominent placement of Chinese Lion masks, and a video of a Chinese
reflecting on his background and familial influences.  Lee was aided in her
exploration by the Kei Lun Martial Arts, and Enshin Karate from the South
San Francisco Dojo as she explored traditional North Asian themes in
the context of Western society.  The latter came into play only as the Asian
individual found himself in a struggle between traditional and individual
expression.

Lenora Lee and Dr. Raymond Fong engaged in a moving duet, characterized by destructive impulse and the staying, comforting, reassuring restraints of the feminine.  There also were episodes of high level testosterone conflict, swiftly and expertly depicted by the members of the two martial arts group.  The masks came into play at various times, including some skeletal forms which someday may see full trappings.

I responded to Reflections, not just because it was visually engaging and
familiar, but because it dealt with emotion in some form.  A Volte Face from its predecessor on the program, both choreographers  need to work on transitions in their pieces. Dance happens there as much as in actual movement.

Dying rabbits and burning children aren’t exactly the subject choices for songs that advertise any optimism for a band. Then again, nor does the name The Twilight Sad.

Singer James Graham claims that it’s the darker sides to life that are interesting and proof of such belief is evident in their tracks. His emotion fuelled lyrics contain lurid mystery which is echoed through the beautifully thought out melodies under layers of distorted atmospheres. This darkness is also the architect to The Twilight Sad’s sound.

……..More

‘I don’t like lyrics that harp on about how good life is all the time because that’s just not true and I think reflecting on the bad times helps you appreciate the good. All the songs are very personal because they are either about things that have happened to me or people close to me. My main influences aren’t musical to be honest’

The band has been together for eight years now and many artists would have used this time to develop or define their signature sound. With a proudly embraced Glasgow twang, these guys got it right from the beginning. Graham describes it as: ‘Honest, Scottish, sometimes noisy, intense and not pish’.

‘I’m Scottish and if our songs were going to be honest and genuine I had to be myself, so singing another way was never an option. It’s just the natural way I sing as well. I knew from day one it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste but I don’t care because you can’t please everyone. Arab Strap is one of my favourite bands and as soon as I heard them I knew that I had to embrace where I was from in my songs for them to be honest. My teenage years were spent listening to bands on Chemikal underground such as Arab Strap, Mogwai and The Delgados.’

The band’s debut release in 2007, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, received notable reviews and criticism. It established their strange electric-noise-folk sound and created a strong precedent for the follow up album to live up to.

‘Andy and I write the basic song with vocals and one guitar to begin with and then the band layers up the different elements after that. With [Forget the Night Ahead] there was a little more pressure as people knew the band and had something to compare it to. I just write the same way I always have, I write what comes naturally. Maybe it’s a bit different for Andy as he’s always trying to develop the band’s sound.’

‘We’ve just finished a couple of acoustic shows and the reaction was amazing. People that thought we were just a noise band were proved wrong and saw that the song writing in the band is probably just as strong as any noise element.’

With that, the band’s live shows can clearly be diverse, almost a reflection of their song writing style. Where they have just completed a series of acoustic sets, most of their live shows are huge atmospheres of noise and distortion with bold, thrashing bursts of energy.

‘The feeling you get from writing a song you’re proud of and the feeling of playing in front of a great audience are both amazing but completely different from each other. I’m just lucky to be able to do this and appreciate that more than anything. I wouldn’t say I prefer writing, recording or performing from each other. They all have different kinds of highs and lows I think.’

Andy MacFarlane, Mark Devine [no relation] and James Graham formed The Twilight Sad back in 2003 in Glasgow and were known for their long and very experimental sets. Coming back to perform in their home town where it all began, is something Graham embraces.

‘I love Glasgow and it will always be an important place to play for me. I want us to be as successful as this band possibly can be everywhere, it’s important for us take our music to as many countries and cities as possible. Hometown gigs will always be really special and important. Our friends and family will all be at hometown gig and without their support we would never got as far as we have, so that’s another reason gigs in and around Glasgow will always be extra special.’

We can definitely expect to hear more from them. The band’s latest album No One Can Ever Know is set for release in February and a tour kicking off before the release. Expect to hear some more experimental sounds resonate from this record and a usual stunning show from the guys. It’s been a while since the band have done a noise fuelled tour but Graham comforts us that the band are very much still as close as ever and we will not be disappointed by what’s to come.

‘We spend so much time with each other that it would be impossible not to argue or hate each other sometimes but we are all still good friends and hang out when we’re back from tour. We believe in what we’re doing and that’s helped maintain our friendship throughout the band. If this doesn’t work out we’re fucked!’

If there was a soundtrack to his life, Graham states that it would be Abba’s Super Trooper.

‘I don’t like lyrics that harp on about how good life is all the time because that’s just not true and I think reflecting on the bad times helps you appreciate the good. All the songs are very personal because they are either about things that have happened to me or people close to me. My main influences aren’t musical to be honest’

The band has been together for eight years now and many artists would have used this time to develop or define their signature sound. With a proudly embraced Glasgow twang, these guys got it right from the beginning. Graham describes it as: ‘Honest, Scottish, sometimes noisy, intense and not pish’.

‘I’m Scottish and if our songs were going to be honest and genuine I had to be myself, so singing another way was never an option. It’s just the natural way I sing as well. I knew from day one it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste but I don’t care because you can’t please everyone. Arab Strap is one of my favourite bands and as soon as I heard them I knew that I had to embrace where I was from in my songs for them to be honest. My teenage years were spent listening to bands on Chemikal underground such as Arab Strap, Mogwai and The Delgados.’

The band’s debut release in 2007, Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters, received notable reviews and criticism. It established their strange electric-noise-folk sound and created a strong precedent for the follow up album to live up to.

‘Andy and I write the basic song with vocals and one guitar to begin with and then the band layers up the different elements after that. With [Forget the Night Ahead] there was a little more pressure as people knew the band and had something to compare it to. I just write the same way I always have, I write what comes naturally. Maybe it’s a bit different for Andy as he’s always trying to develop the band’s sound.’

‘We’ve just finished a couple of acoustic shows and the reaction was amazing. People that thought we were just a noise band were proved wrong and saw that the song writing in the band is probably just as strong as any noise element.’

With that, the band’s live shows can clearly be diverse, almost a reflection of their song writing style. Where they have just completed a series of acoustic sets, most of their live shows are huge atmospheres of noise and distortion with bold, thrashing bursts of energy.

‘The feeling you get from writing a song you’re proud of and the feeling of playing in front of a great audience are both amazing but completely different from each other. I’m just lucky to be able to do this and appreciate that more than anything. I wouldn’t say I prefer writing, recording or performing from each other. They all have different kinds of highs and lows I think.’

Andy MacFarlane, Mark Devine and James Graham formed The Twilight Sad back in 2003 in Glasgow and were known for their long and very experimental sets. Coming back to perform in their home town where it all began, is something Graham embraces.

‘I love Glasgow and it will always be an important place to play for me. I want us to be as successful as this band possibly can be everywhere, it’s important for us take our music to as many countries and cities as possible. Hometown gigs will always be really special and important. Our friends and family will all be at hometown gig and without their support we would never got as far as we have, so that’s another reason gigs in and around Glasgow will always be extra special.’

We can definitely expect to hear more from them. The band’s latest album No One Can Ever Know is set for release in February and a tour kicking off before the release. Expect to hear some more experimental sounds resonate from this record and a usual stunning show from the guys. It’s been a while since the band have done a noise fuelled tour but Graham comforts us that the band are very much still as close as ever and we will not be disappointed by what’s to come.

‘We spend so much time with each other that it would be impossible not to argue or hate each other sometimes but we are all still good friends and hang out when we’re back from tour. We believe in what we’re doing and that’s helped maintain our friendship throughout the band. If this doesn’t work out we’re fucked!’

If there was a soundtrack to his life, Graham states that it would be Abba’s Super Trooper.

‘First Edition’ by the Fruit Tree Foundation is finally widely available after receiving only an initial release at the two gigs in October last year. A limited number of CDs are available from Chemikal Underground whilst the 14 track album is also available digitally from Chemikal and the usual online retailers.

The Fruit Tree Foundation was founded by Rod Jones and Emma Pollock and after a series of gigs under the ‘Music as A Vitamin’ banner, last year they followed the Burnsong route and sequestered a number of fellow Scottish artists in deepest Perthshire to write and record new songs. ‘First Edition’ is the result.

It’s the sort of collaborative project that is becoming increasingly common in Scotland today (a good thing) and follows in the footsteps of the more formal collection that is the Burns Unit.

First thing to say, in case you’re not aware of it, is that 50% of the profits from sales of the LP go to the Mental Health Foundation in Scotland. And secondly, more importantly, it’s a cracking LP and doesn’t need its charitable origins to sell it. You really should buy it.

Involving James Graham (Twilight Sad), Scott Hutchison (Frightened Rabbit), Jill O’Sullivan (Sparrow and the Workshop), Karine Polwart, Jenny Reeve, Alasdair Roberts and James Yorkston, the record does a fair job of touching most of the range of repertiroes of the artists concerned.

And I think it’s a testament to the strength of the songs that, when we were away in France last weekend without much opportunity to listen to music, the songs that were popping into my head were from this record.

Thing is, although it stretches from folk to indie, it’s a less diverse collection than ‘Sideshow’ was. Which very much has the benefit of making it feel like a cohesive collection.

If there’s a problem at all (and I almost feel bad suggesting this) it  is that there are few surprises. Indeed  ‘I Forgot The Fall’, the Frabbit/Idlewild collaboration, indicates just how much common ground there is between the 2 bands.

Given everyone involved that’s perhaps to be expected – most of the artists concerned are about the songwriting first and foremost. The only exception may be The Twilight Sad and almost inevitably there’s little of that band’s sonic experimentation carried through here. Next time for ‘Second Edition’ it might be nice if there was a wider spectrum of artists involved – how about some Mogwai, Errors or Jetpacks?

Which all sounds a bit negative which would be entirely wrong. There are some great songs on here, Jill O’Sullivan’s ‘Favourite Son’,  the aforementioned ‘I Forgot The Fall’, the Rod Jones and Emma Pollock collaboration ‘Hired Hand’ and Jenny Reeve’s ‘Tooth and Claw’ spring to mind.

Buy it here. I insist and I don’t do that often.

The Truth: You can experience emotional states without knowing why, even if you believe you can pinpoint the source.

Source: capbridge.com

The bridge is still in British Columbia, still long and scary, still sagging across the Capilano Canyon daring people to traverse it.

If you were to place the Statue of Liberty underneath the bridge, base and all, it would lightly drape across her copper shoulders. It is about as wide as a park bench for its entire suspended length, and when you try to cross, feeling it sway and rock in the wind, hearing it creak and buckle, it is difficult to take your eyes off of the rocks and roaring water two-hundred and thirty feet below – far enough for you feel in your stomach the distance between you and a messy, crumpled death. Not everyone makes it across.

In 1974, psychologists Art Aron and Donald Dutton hired a woman to stand in the middle of this suspension bridge. As men passed her on their way across, she asked them if they would be willing to fill out a questionnaire. At the end of the questions, she asked them to examine an illustration of a lady covering her face and then make up a back story to explain it. She then told each man she would be more than happy to discuss the study further if he wanted to call her that night, and tore off a portion of the paper, wrote down her number, and handed it over.

The scientists knew the fear in the men’s bellies would be impossible to ignore, and they wanted to know how a brain soaking in anxiety juices would make sense of what just happened. To do this, they needed another bridge to serve as a control, one which wouldn’t produce terror, so they had their assistant go through the same routine on a wide, sturdy, wooden bridge standing fixed just a few feet off of the ground.

After running the experiment at both locations, they compared the results and found 50 percent of the men who got them digits on the dangerous suspension bridge picked up a phone and called looking for the lady of the canyon. Of the men questioned on the secure bridge, the percentage who came calling dropped to 12.5. That wasn’t the only significant difference. When they compared the stories the subjects made up about the illustration, they found the men on the scary bridge were almost twice as likely to come up with sexually suggestive narratives.

What was going on here? One bridge made men flirty and eager to follow up with female interviewers, and one did not. To make sense of it, you must understand something psychologists call arousal and how easy it is to falsely identify its source. Mistaken emotional origins can save relationships, create amorous mirages and lead you into behaviors and attitudes both sublime and hypocritical.

Courtesy: Matthew Field

Arousal, in the psychological sense, is not limited to sexual situations. It can envelop you in a number of ways. You’ve felt it: increased heart rate, focused attention, sweaty palms, dry mouth, big breaths followed by bigger sighs. It is that wide-eyed, electricity in your veins feeling you get when the wind picks up and the rain begins to pour. It is a state of wakefulness, more alert and aware than normal, in which your mind is paying full attention to the moment. This isn’t the action-roll-out-of bed-feeling you get when a fire alarm snaps you out of a deep sleep. No, arousal is prolonged and total, it builds and saturates. Arousal comes from deep inside the brain, in those primal regions of the autonomic nervous system where ingoing and outgoing signals are monitored and the glass over the big fight-or-flight button waits to be smashed. You feel it as a soldier waiting to see if the next mortar has your name on it, as a musician walking on stage inside a sold-out stadium, as a crowd member elevated by a powerful speech, in a group circling a fire and singing and drumming, as a member of a congregation swimming in the Gospel and swaying with hands raised, in a couple at the center of a packed dance floor. Your eyes water with ease. You want to weep and laugh simultaneously. You could just explode.

The men on the bridge experienced this heightened state of clarity, fear, anxiety and dread, and when they met an attractive woman those feelings continued to flow into their hearts and heads, but the source got scrambled. Was it the bridge or the lady? Was she being nice, or was she interested? Why did she pick me? My heart is pounding – is she making me feel this way? When Aron and Dutton ran the bridge experiment with a male interviewer (and male subjects), the lopsided results disappeared. The men no longer considered the interviewer as a possible cause, or if they did they suppressed it. The misattribution of arousal also went away when they ran the experiment on a safe bridge. No heightened state, no need to explain it. On a hunch, Aron and Dutton decided to move the experiment away from the real world with all its uncontrollable variables and attack the puzzle from another direction in the lab.

In the lab experiment male college students entered a room full of scientific-looking electrical equipment where a researcher greeted them asking if they had seen another student wandering around. When the men said they hadn’t, the scientists pretended to go looking for the other subject and left behind reading material for the men to look over concerning learning and painful electric shocks. When the scientists felt like enough time had passed, they brought in an actress who pretended to be another student who had also volunteered for the study. The men, one at a time, would then sit beside the woman and listen as the scientists explained the subjects would soon be shocked with either a terrible, bowel-loosening megablast or a “mere tingle.” After all of this, the psychologists flipped a coin to determine who would be getting what. They weren’t actually going to shock anyone, they just wanted to scare the bejeezus out of the men. The researchers then handed over a questionnaire similar to the one from the bridge experiment, complete with the illustration interpretation portion, and told the men to work on it while they prepared the electrocution machines.

The questionnaire asked the men to rate their anxiety and their attraction to the other subject. As the scientists suspected, the results matched the bridge. The men who expected a terrible, painful future rated their anxiety and their attraction to the ladies as significantly higher than those expecting mild tingles. When it came to those narratives explaining the pictures, once again the more anxious the men, the more sexual imagery they produced.

Aron and Dutton showed when you feel aroused, you naturally look for context, an explanation as to why you feel so alive. This search for meaning happens automatically and unconsciously, and whatever answer you come up with is rarely questioned because you don’t realize you are asking. Like the men on the bridge, you sometimes make up a reason for why you feel the way you do, and then you believe your own narrative and move on. It is easy to pinpoint the source of your contorted face and toothy grin if you took peyote at Burning Man and are twirling glow sticks to the beat of a pulsating lizard-faced bassoon quartet. The source of your coursing blood is more ambiguous if you just drank a Red Bull before heading into a darkened theater to watch an action movie. You can’t know for sure it if it is the explosions or the caffeinated taurine water, but damn if this movie doesn’t rock. In many situations you either can’t know or fail to notice what got you physiologically amped, and you mistakenly attribute the source to something in your immediate environment. People, it seems, are your favorite explanations as studies show you prefer to see other human beings as the source of your heightened state of arousal when given the option. The men expecting to get electrocuted misattributed a portion of their pulse’s pace to the ladies by their sides. Aron and Dutton focused on fear and anxiety, but in the years since, research has revealed just about any emotional state can be misattributed, and this has led to important findings on how to keep a marriage together.

Source; http://www.shesknows.com

In 2008, psychologist James Graham at the University of North Carolina conducted a study to see what sort of activities kept partners bonded. He had 20 couples who lived together carry around digital devices while conducting their normal daily activities. Whenever the device went off, they had to use it to text back to the researchers and tell them what they were up to. They then answered a few questions about their mood and how they felt toward their partners. After over a thousand of these buzz-report-introspect-text moments, he looked over the data and found couples who routinely performed difficult tasks together as partners were also more likely to like each other. Over the course of his experiments, he found partners tended to feel closer, more attracted to and more in love with each other when their skills were routinely challenged. He reasoned the buzz you get when you break through a frustrating trial and succeed, what Graham called flow, was directly tied to bonding. Just spending time together is not enough, he said. The sort of activities you engage in are vital. Graham concluded you are driven to grow, to expand, to add to your abilities and knowledge. When you satisfy this motivation for self-expansion by incorporating aspects of your romantic partner or friend into your own skills, philosophies and self, it does more to strengthen your bond than any other act of love. This opens the door to one of the best things about misattribution of emotion. If, like those in the study, you persevere through a challenge – be it remodeling a kitchen yourself or learning how to Dougie – that glowing feeling of becoming more wise, that buoyant sense of self-expansion will be partially misattributed to the presence of the other person. You become conditioned over time to see the relationship itself as a source for those sorts of emotions, and you will become less likely to want to sever your bond with the other party. In the beginning, just learning how to relate to the other person and interpret their non-verbal cues, emotional swings and strange food aversions is an exercise in self-expansion. The frequency of novelty can diminish as the relationship ages and you settle into routines. The bond can seem to weaken. To build it up again you need adversity, even if simulated. Taking ballroom dancing lessons or teaming up against friends in Trivial Pursuit are more likely to keep the flame flickering than wine and Marvin Gaye.

I think falling in love occurs under the right circumstances and it is not a rational process, but it’s a predictable process.

- Psychologist Art Aron

The arousal you are prone to misattributing can also come from within, especially if you find yourself on questionable moral ground. Mark Zanna and Joel Cooper in 1978 gave placebo pills to a group of subjects. They told half of the pill takers the drug would make them feel relaxed, and they told the other half it would make them feel tense. They then asked the subjects to write an essay explaining why free speech should be banned. Most people were reluctant and felt terrible about expressing an opinion counter to their true beliefs. When the researchers gave all the participants a chance to go back and change their papers, the ones who thought they had taken a downer were far more likely to take them up on the offer. The ones who thought they took a speedy pill assumed the heat under their collars was from the drug instead of their own cognitive dissonance, so they didn’t feel the need to change their positions. The other group had no scapegoat for their emotional states, so they wanted to rewrite the paper because they suspected it would ease their minds and bring their arousal back down to normal. Cognitive dissonance, behaving in a way which seems to run counter to your beliefs, cranks up arousal in a way that feels awful. The subjects in the Zanna and Cooper experiment wanted to alleviate this, but only those who thought they took the downer could pinpoint the source of their mental discomfort. For the other group, the fake upper served as a red herring throwing them off the trail back to their own negative emotions.

Source: http://www.PsychNet.com

Misattribution of arousal falls under the self-perception theory. This theory goes back as far as William James, one of the founders of psychology. It posits your attitudes are shaped by observing your own behavior and trying to make sense of it. For instance, James would say if you saw a cricket on your arm and then flailed about rubbing your body up and down while screaming incoherently, you would later assume you had experienced fear and might then believe you were afraid of crickets. Self-perception theory says you look back on a situation like this as if in an audience trying to understand your own motivations. Sometimes, you jump to conclusions without all the facts. As with many theories, there is much research left to be done and plenty of debate, but in many ways James was right. You often do act as observer of your actions, a witness to your thoughts, and you form beliefs about your self based on those observations. Psychologist Fritz Strack devised a simple experiment in 1988 in which he had subjects hold a pen straight out between their incisors and bare their teeth as they read cartoon strips. The subjects tended to find the cartoons funnier than when they held the pen between their lips instead. Between the teeth, some of the muscles used for smiling were contracted, and between the lips they contracted some of the muscles used for frowning. He concluded the subjects felt themselves smiling and decided somewhere deep in their minds they must be enjoying the comics. When they felt themselves frowning, they assumed they thought the comics were dull. In a similar experiment in 1980 by Gary Wells and Richard Petty at the University of Alberta subjects were asked to test out headphones by either nodding or shaking their heads while listening to a pundit delivering an editorial. Sure enough, when questioned later the nodders tended to agree with the opinion of the speaker more than the shakers. In 2003, Jens Förster at International University Bremen asked volunteers to rate food items as they moved across a large screen. Sometimes the food names moved up and down, and sometimes side to side, thus producing unconscious nodding or head shaking. As in the pundit study, people tended to say they preferred the foods which made them nod unless they were gross. In Förster’s and other similar studies, positive and negative opinions became stronger, but if a person hated broccoli, for example, no amount of head nodding would change their mind.

Arousal can fill up the spaces in your brain when you least expect it. It could be a rousing movie trailer or a plea for mercy from a distant person reaching out over YouTube. Like a coterie of prairie dogs standing alert as if living periscopes, your ancestors were built to pay attention when it mattered, but with cognition comes pattern recognition and all the silly ways you misinterpret your inputs. The source of your emotional states is often difficult or impossible to detect. The time to pay attention can pass, or the details become lodged in a place underneath consciousness. In those instances you feel, but you know not why. When you find yourself in this situation you tend to lock onto a target, especially if there is another person who fits with the narrative you are about to spin. It feels good to assume you’ve discovered what is causing you to feel happy, to feel rejected, to feel angry or lovesick. It helps you move forward. Why question it?

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk

The research into arousal says you are bad at explaining yourself to yourself, but it sheds light on why so many successful dates include roller-coasters, horror films and conversations over coffee. If you want to get things rolling with a romantic interest you would be better served by bungee jumping or scuba diving, ice skating or rock climbing than candlelit dinners. No doubt, trapeze artists must have complicated and compelling love lives.

There is a reason playful wrestling can lead to passionate kissing, why a great friend can turn a heaving cry into a belly laugh. There is a reason why great struggle brings you closer to friends, family and lovers. There is a reason why Rice Krispies commercials show moms teaching children how to make treats in crisp black-and-white while Israel Kamakawiwo’ole sings Somewhere Over the Rainbow. When you want to know why you feel the way you do but are denied the correct answer, you don’t stop searching. You settle on something – the person beside you, the product in front of you, the drug in your brain. You don’t always know the right answer, but when you are flirting over a latte don’t point it out.

You Are Not So Smart – The Book 

If you buy one book this year…well, I suppose you should get something you’ve had your eye on for a while. But, if you buy two or more books this year, might I recommend one of them be a celebration of self delusion? Give the gift of humility (to yourself or someone else you love). Watch the trailer.

Order now: Amazon - Barnes and Noble - iTunes - Books A Million

Links:

Video of Aron discussing bridge experiment

A followup to the pen in the mouth study

The food and head nodding study

The adversity and bonding study

The cognitive dissonance study

A meta-analysis of the Schachter theory of emotion

Where the body goes, the mind follows

Isreal Kamakawiwo’ole’s Somewhere Over the Rainbow

We’re here primarily to talk about Circus Britannica, which has transferred to London’s Theatre503 following a hugely successful run at the Exter-based Bike Shed Theatre, a powerhouse for new writing that gives writers the chance to develop their work away from the hubbub of the Big Smoke. Vantyler is reprising his role as a wide-eyed gap-year student who joins the circus in Shaun McCarthy’s powerful new play about immigration and right-wing extremism in the UK.

Vantyler’s performance in Circus Britannica is one of a score to have won him critical acclaim following his return to these shores a few years ago. Born in Ireland in 1986, he moved to the USA aged six and went on to study at the illustrious Juilliard School and The Actors Studio. In 2005, he won Best Newcomer at The NYC Star Awards for his turn as Rodolfo in A View from the Bridge at The Tower Theatre.

Since coming back to the UK, Vantyler’s roles have included Anselmus in The Second Maiden’s Tragedy, the lead part of Lord Fancourt Babberley in Charlie’s Aunt and a soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in Prophecy, US playwright Karen Malpede’s exploration of the effects of war. In 2009, he starred opposite Susannah York in the Tennessee Williams season at the Hampstead New End Theatre and was singled out for praise for his performance as Pietro in Swimming at the Ritz, about the last day in the life of Winston Churchill’s granddaughter, Pamela Harriman (played by best friend and colleague, Felicity Dean). Last year, he was nominated for an Off West End Theatre Award for his scene-stealing turn as Tom Sawyer in James Graham’s Huck.

While digging into lunch (“I’m on a diet today. I’ve been eating like a racehorse and I keep panicking about my vest and the trapezy bottoms I have to wear”), Vantyer tells me what makes Circus Britannica so good, what it was like growing up related to a famous Hollywood actress, how much he loves supporting roles and how he ended up mowing Susannah York’s lawn.

Your new show, Circus Britannica, has just transferred from Exeter to London. Why do you think it’s been such a success?

Do you remember that old word, agitprop? That’s what Circus Britannica isn’t, which is its blessing. It’s political and talks about xenophobia, extreme racist views and everything else to do with this country and foreign people working here. It’s easy when someone writes about these things for everyone on stage to end up as a mouthpiece; but it’s not like that here. Everyone is completely different. There’s my character, Stevie, who’s very middle-class and on a sort of gap-year at the circus; there’s the working-class woman who owns it, runs it and is up to her neck in debt; her life-long childhood friend who’s got a criminal record and done some terrible things for reasons that we find out would probably have led us to do the same; and then there are the people who have had terrible lives and who have come to the circus to get away from their countries. The play is about what happens when all of these people are forced to be together for a long period of time, living and touring the country.

And in the midst of the massive political shift that happens in it, there’s some spectacular circus stuff: a trapeze, magic and fabulous live music. The boys who do the music are phenomenal. There are violins, accordions, a tenor-sax – it’s wonderful. There’s a facade of heightened entertainment, joy and cheekiness while, behind it, the goings-on are as grim as you like. Everything works to such an effect that if you catch sight of people’s faces in the crowd, their mouths are open; they can’t believe what they’re seeing. David Lockwood, the director [and Bike Shed’s artistic director], has done a brilliant job. I’ve really enjoyed working with him.

You were born in Ireland but at a young age moved to the USA, where you had a successful stage career. What prompted your return to the UK?

I did it and it was very nice. But if you look at Broadway, it tends to be – and people will say that this is wrong, but I really don’t think it is – slightly geared towards children. Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King… the list is endless; it’s children and family theatre with some massive musicals and the odd play now and again. There’s no Arts Council and no new writing. I mean, I came here and did great plays like Huck, which I adored, and straight after that I did The Game for Northern Broadsides and Barrie Rutter, who I’m nuts about. I played his son. Never in a million years would that have happened in America. I mean, The Game was over a hundred years old and it had never been performed. But it was an absolutely huge success. I love the American theatre world – there’s some wonderful work – but it sticks to what it knows.

The thing about London is that everybody’s on the same page. So, something can do really well at the Finborough Theatre and come into town; something can do really well at the Menier Chocolate Factory, come into town and then go on tour; or a show can end up in the West End, like Over the Rainbow. Everyone’s tapped in, turned on and, I think, massively aware of what the people want and how to bring it to them.

Why did you pursue acting as a career?

There’s never really been anything else besides acting. I don’t know what else I’d do. Be the prime minister? I think I’d be good at that. Also, did you watch the royal wedding? When the royal family were getting out of their cars I sat there and honestly thought, “I’d be a wonderful part of the royal family.” That isn’t narcissism, is it? It’s having broad horizons. I don’t look at the royal family and think, “It’ll never happen.” Because you never know, they might end up short of a member.

Essentially, I always wanted to do something where there was an audience involved. If I’d told my father that I wanted to be the prime minister, I don’t know if he’d have taken it seriously. But he’d never have said, “I don’t think that’s right for you.” He’d have asked me how I was going to do it, and I’d have been there as a four-year-old, trying to answer. So everybody kind of egged me on. And I had a relative, Anne Miller, who was a dancer and a film star, which was a nice kind of inspiration – not that we do at all the same work.

Did watching her give you a good insight into the industry?

Well, she was from a different age of industry, from the golden age of Hollywood when you were hired, protected, controlled and designed; you looked a certain way and you did a certain job and there was nothing in between. When that came to an abrupt end, Anne, Debbie Reynolds, Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire – they weren’t exactly left high and dry but they were out of the woods, so to speak. When you’ve seen somebody as one thing for so long, well, you wouldn’t expect to see Astaire in a thriller because you’ve been told that he’s a dancer. So their careers were limited. Although, before she died, Anne did do Mulholland Drive, which she loved.

You’ve garnered some of your best reviews playing supporting characters. Do you think that, sometimes, these are the more interesting roles?

They’re my favourite. I love them. I had an acting coach, who became a friend – I had about nine lessons and we never got anything done, we just used to talk – called Neil Phelps. I used to go to him and say, “I’ve only got 20 lines in this play” and he’d say, “They’re the best parts, because you don’t have all the responsibility.” If I’d just left RADA I’d probably be sat here saying, “I only want to do the leads.” Now, I love a lead; give me a lead. I love ‘em. But I’m the first one to sniff out the other parts. As the lead, you have to set stuff up, drive the play and wake ‘em up at the start of the second act… you know what I mean. I think that supporting roles often get overlooked when, in fact, they’re the real gems!

Like the role of Tom Sawyer in Huck?

I loved Huck. John Terry, who directed it, is brilliant. He pulled it off with such genius.

Which role has been the most memorable so far?

I must say that of all the parts I’ve played, the one in Prophecy was my favourite. I loved it. It was proper macabre American writing. You read it kind of wincing, going, “How am I going to say that?” As part of my research, I went up to a hospital in the north of Scotland where they have soldiers with PTSD; who have been in war and seen terrible things. And I went there. It definitely served a purpose, but you have to be in a slightly work-ish mode, because you can’t take in the things that are there. You just couldn’t do it, because you’re not going back to an environment where that’s looked after. You’re just going home on your own, on the train. But it was a wonderful insight.

Prophecy proved to be quite controversial. What was that like, as one of the actors in it?

People walked out of the show. When somebody gets up and walks out you kind of think, “Was it because of me?” Actually, I think that it’s people looking after themselves. They’re going, “I can’t hear it, I don’t want to hear it.” And good on ‘em, because no should sit and suffer; if you’ve got the nerve to get your stuff and leave, well done. But it’s a wonderful thing to do something like Prophecy. I mean, it’s lovely to be sat here talking about the plays, the good reviews and who I’ve liked working with – all of that – but there’s real worth in being able to present somebody to an audience who, without you playing the part, wouldn’t have a voice.

If a play’s controversial and you know some people aren’t going to want to watch it, well, so be it. Because you know that, truthfully, you’ve presented somebody that people wouldn’t have got to know about otherwise. And hopefully, afterwards, they’ll have a slightly wider understanding of the subject, situation and time that created the world that character lived in and experienced.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t do Prophecy when it transferred [to New York] because I was doing the Tennessee Williams season at the New End Theatre with Susannah York – Yorkie!

What was it like working with, and getting to know, the late, great Susannah York?

I’d met her before, at Nick Roeg’s BAFTA honorary dinner thing. She was sat next to me but I didn’t know her at the time. I was born in 1985, after her heyday in the Sixties and Seventies. We chatted but we never said that we were actors. And then the Tennessee Williams script came through and I had Yorkie in the second act. She was playing a washed-up prostitute, God bless her. We did the show and became great friends.

When the audiences came to see it, you could tell they were waiting to see her; because no one had really seen her apart from people who might have watched her in the West End or on a big national tour. And there we were, in Hampstead, in this cosy little theatre that was packed to the rafters. She opened the second act and there she was, this British film legend, stood in a little nightie with a bow in her hair. We both looked a fright. And when she went on you could hear people saying, “Is that her? That’s her, that’s her,” all the way through. Even in her seventies she was still very attractive, with the biggest, bluest eyes you ever saw and baby-doll skin; but she wasn’t a girl of 25. And she was wonderful. I don’t how she did what she did, because she wasn’t deaf! She’s one of a handful of people who, when you deliver a line and they deliver it back to you, the person – Susannah – is completely absent. You’re getting that line from a washed-up prostitute, which was sensational. I adored her.

We became great mates and, after the show had finished, I’d go round for tea and end up doing the gardening. She’d go, “I’m struggling with this lawnmower. I don’t suppose you could just..?” And you’d find yourself looking through the window at her on the phone, looking down at the lawnmower and going, “What am I doing?”

So, what’s up next once Circus Britannica is over?

I’ve been asked to do a play. I can’t talk about it at the moment, but it’s a super play, a classic. It’s lovely. You know when you really want to do something and your tummy roars, you have to do it? It could be great. But I don’t know yet, because I haven’t finished Circus Britannica. When I’m doing a show I can’t really think about anything else. It consumes me. After 9 July, things will be clearer. I don’t know how other people do it. When I’m in something I can’t even think about my journey home!

Circus Britannica is on at Theatre503 from 4 to 9 July. For tickets and information, see: http://www.theatre503.com/

First published by OffWestEnd.com

Some Connecticut lawmakers, many of them big union supporters, are scratching their heads. They can’t understand why state workers would turn down a package that offers them job stability, even raises starting in their third year out.

But the unions have voted to reject that and now Malloy turns to plan B.

That calls for eliminating more than 7,500 state jobs.

WCBS 880 Connecticut Bureau Chief Fran Schneidau With The Story

Download: schneidau_budget1w_midday_110624.mp3WCBS%20880%20Connecticut%20Bureau%20Chief%20Fran%20Schneidau%20has%20the%20story.

Most municipal leaders are asking how will this will affect them locally.

Ridgefield first selectman Rudy Marconi says, “What does that do to our budgets and what kind of an arrangement can we make with the state of Connecticut?”

He also said, “Believe me. We have made adjustments at the local level that have been more severe than what the state employees were asked to accept.”

Malloy has said he will try to minimize the impact of his cuts on aid to cities and towns.

Meanwhile, a Hartford Superior Court judge says he will rule shortly on a motion to dismiss a challenge to the constitutionality of Connecticut’s budget.

Judge James Graham heard arguments Friday morning and said he will issue a ruling in the afternoon.

Republican state lawmakers and a conservative think tank that filed the lawsuit say a $2 billion shortfall in the budget signed by Malloy violates a balanced budget law. The attorney general’s office says the budget process is still under way and no law has been broken.

(TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2011 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

Nothing riles – nothing agitates – wets more than having to define themselves, as that inevitably leads to conflict within a group of people with marginally different definitions of what that group represents and a deep need to define themselves by this external label. This is archetypal behaviour of lefties parodied in The Life of Brian, and so Jonathan’s post met with a screaming furball of responses, not least that of James Graham, which veers between a rejection of the usefulness of labels and an affirmation of his use of ‘social liberal’ to define himself.

All this is of course hilarious, and I’m sure Jonathan was wearing a grin when he added ‘Thanks for the comments’ to the bottom of his post. However, I’m suddenly feeling charitable, and not withstanding as much patronising language as I can force into this post, I think it’s fair to have a bash at coming up with a non-spurious definition.

David Howarth’s chapter from Reclaiming the State is intended to provide a definition of social liberalism, and opts for the rather churlish trick of defining it so wildly it includes practically everyone, to the point where John Stuart Mill is probably not a classical liberal. He claims that a ‘social liberal’ is concerned with ensuring that people have access to resources sufficient to guarantee their freedom, in contrast with ‘classical liberals’ who merely want the withdrawal of state interference. Within this he differentiates between those who believe that this resource access/redistribution should only be carried out to a level sufficient to allow everyone political freedom, and those who believe that other ‘fairness’ principles should be added to basic liberalism. It is the latter branch of ‘social liberalism’ that comprises the Social Liberal Forum, although one can never tell.

Now, it’s easy to be dismissive of people who want more of that most abstract of concepts, ‘fairness’, and its slightly more intellectual twin, ‘social justice’. However, this recognition that social liberals want more ‘fairness’ can actually be cashed out in an interesting way. Many of the wets of my acquaintance have spoken about Amartya Sen’s work on justice, and made frequent reference to ensuring equality of capability and similar new ways of justifying being wet.  However, this is to miss significant parts of Sen’s work which are much more relevant to the Social Liberal Forum.

Sen argues that transcendental institutionalism (the philosophical modus operandi which intends to define justice through the definition of a perfectly just set of institutions for a society) has thus far failed to wholly capture what justice is. Instead, he avers that there is a useful role for comparative justice – i.e. comparing two particular states of affairs and determining which one is more just. This process is to be carried out by reasonable public debate, with a range of criteria for how this can be achieved and several ways of assessing those states of affairs – including his capability theory, but not exclusively.

If social liberalism is the implementation of this viewpoint, then it cannot be defined except by the issues with which it is currently dealing – i.e. the aggregate of one’s positioning on a range of social issues, like the NHS and corporatism, as James Graham refers to in his speech to the Conference. Its distinguishing feature from social democracy is that it is a process rather than an ideology of Government. It may come to the same conclusions about particular issues, but it will not necessarily share principles in common with social democrats, because it does not have specific principles. Rather, it represents the process of deciding between specific choices, rather than the ideology that sets up the conditions for those choices.

As such, it represents a useful check upon those of us, including myself, who tend towards the minimal-requirements-for-political-freedom end of Howarth’s social liberal scale. Assessing our suggestions against the demands of justice is both pragmatically and politically useful. While we are capable of making firm choices about the path ahead, the wets will always prevaricate, because that’s what such a process demands – constant re-evaluation. Social liberalism cannot be ideology of Government, but it can be a useful adjunct to a governing party. I contend that there is a full role for the Social Liberal Forum over the course of this parliament. Just don’t let them near a decision.

by Fae Awareness staff member, KV Taylor.

Before I begin my discussion of Jack Frost (aka Father Frost, The Crystal Star, and Morozko), I ought to make a confession:

I stumbled over this movie through a pared down version in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.[1] While I consider it the best TV show of all time, you watch it expecting terrible movies, not awesome ones. But the awesome happened this time–or, at least, I think so. (My husband, not so much–and I think it gave some of the older generation flashbacks.)

It’s one of my favorite MST3K episodes. If you’re not sure about watching this strange movie, try it that way, first. You can get almost any episode on You Tube in its entirety, usually broken up into 10 or so parts. This is the first one of Jack Frost–if you’re not an MST3K watcher, you’re probably not interested in the bits with Mike and the bots, so skip to about the 6:00 mark. You’ll laugh so hard you might just cry.

Now that’s out of the way, on to the movie! Jack Frost is an admittedly bizarre, but awfully wonderful retelling of the Russian fairy tale of “Father Frost“. You know the sort: the good, obedient girl gets a handsome husband and dowry, the bad girl comes to a bad end.

Though I prefer the translation in the dubbed version: "You're a good girl, not the contradicting kind!" Oh, dear.

But there are a few things that make the movie much more than that, and I’ll endeavor to give a list of my favorites–though I’m in no way qualified to give an introduction to Russian fairy tales.[2] I read them as a child, but I’ve not made a study, so I apologize for sounding like an amateur.

The first few points come directly from a wonderful JoMA article by James Graham (who was good enough to allow me to quote him here–thank you, sir!) on Baba Yaga in film:

The Crystal Star (Father Frost, Jack Frost) 1964, directed by Aleksandr Rou
Contains all of the characters from the fables: the bandits, mushroom spirits, matchmakers, one of the most articulated depictions of Baba Yaga’s house, and a direct (yet comic) attempt at cannibalism on her part. Natalya Sedykh stars as Nastenka, one of the weirdest and eerie beauties ever committed to film.

Nastenka has a Snow White/Sleeping Beauty moment.

Which I think is the best summing up of why this movie’s so visually interesting. The care and effort put into producing each familiar character, the weird, eerie beauty of the whole thing, is at once trippy and fascinating. And as Mr. Graham said to me later, Baba Yaga, in spite of the comedy, is still pretty damn scary.

I'm okay with her trying to push people into her stove on a shovel, but this is the limit of evil, Baba Yaga. That ain't right.

But this quote also sums up what I think is the greatest achievement of this movie: it takes the Father Frost tale and weaves all of these characters, all of these side adventures, into the heroic journeys of Nastya and Ivan. Looking at that list of elements, we could add in man-bears[3], beggars, angry stepmothers, swaggering braggarts, and all other manner of fairy tale tropes. There are other complete tales referenced, such as that of Baba Yaga and little Ivanushka (she tries to eat him, he outwits her), or of Ivan the bold prince, which make up the male half of the narrative. And yet the story doesn’t lose its original thread, the story of the abused daughter who meets with Father Frost in the woods.

I disagree, pal. Another good thing about this movie: Ivanushka's great hair.

See? That guy can wear anything!

The pacing is, as Graham also pointed out to me, stately. “It should be taken in the context of Russian culture where slow, slow pacing carries the story over vast expanses of frozen tundra. In that it is more like the films of Tarkovsy than the other Russian fairy tale films.” It’s true; there are moments when a modern audience might despair of it every coming around to the point. But in truth, it reminds me very much of an opera, both in structure and its use of the fantastic. Which might be why I actually enjoyed the pacing. Too much opera makes one tolerant, I’m sure.

"Uh, dude, tell me you see that mushroom-guy too. Please. For the love of god."

It’s a weird friggin movie, no mistake. But it seems to me to distill a lot of what makes fairy tales so fascinating into one surprisingly coherent package. So if you don’t mind feeling like you’re on a long, strange trip for an hour and a half–or if disappearing and reappearing mushroom men won’t give you nasty flashbacks–Jack Frost is worth an hour and a half of your time, for sure.

Also, there is apparently an iPad game based on it. I need this.

Pseudoscience relies on ignorance to work its magic. You don’t understand quantum physics, do you? So when we tell you that this pendant will use quantum energy transference to resonate with your cellular integral field to reduce your risk of cancer, arthritis and diabetes, promoting weight loss, immunity to disease and essential wellbeing, you won’t know any better. You can’t say it won’t do that, so just run with this here. Only two hundred pounds to you, sir. A bargain if ever there was one.

Oftentimes, pseudoscientists work to actively promote ignorance – maybe those hoity-toity “legitimate scientists” claim to be able to understand quantum resonance, but why should you believe them? You can’t even understand what they’re talking about!

In the case of medical pseudoscience, or “quackery” as it’s more commonly known, I have particular contempt due to the emotional manipulation involved. Sure, quacks sound sympathetic, but that’s because they tell you what you want to hear. Doctors tell you cancer has no cure? Well, that just shows how callous they are, because I can cure it with simple-feng-shui-ley-line-type crap. There appears to be a concentration of toxins in your breasts, let me lay my hands on them. Even when quacks aren’t taking advantage of the desperate and incurable, they’re still emotionally manipulative. Diet and exercise are hard, wouldn’t it be far easier if you just used acupuncture to somehow, against all laws of physics, cause the fat to disappear? The worst aspect of all this is that people often reject conventional medicine in order to spend a fortune on the modern-day equivalent of a bottle of snake oil, endangering their chances of recovery and often their lives.

As quackery relies so heavily on people’s lack of scientific knowledge, it often employs whatever the latest weird and exotic science is to make suckers sit up and take notice. Potential patients may have heard of this new “magnetism,” “radiation” or whatever, but aren’t so likely to know the full range and scope of its abilities. Particularly given that many of these substances are used in legitimate medicine – radiotherapy, for instance.

For an awfully long time, the big thing was electricity. Luigi Galvani discovered in 1786 that passing electricity through a dissected frog’s leg would cause it to kick. This seemingly confirmed a popular misconception that electricity was a vital force.

Not that the quacks had been waiting for scientific confirmation, of course. James Graham (pictured below), for instance, had been convinced ever since seeing a demonstration by Benjamin Franklin in the early 1770s that electricity was worth paying attention to. He proclaimed it to be a force that “invigorates the whole body and remedies all physical defects.”

In 1779, he came to London and opened the Temple of Health and Hymen just off the Strand, at No. 4 Royal Terrace. This was showmanship of which P. T. Barnum would have been proud. No expense was spared. The place was filled with huge, exotic-looking machinery that promised to use electricity to blast “aetherial forces, vivifying air, and the magnetic effluvium into the whole body or any particular part of it.” Various other electrical and chemical treatments were available, including an electric bath and an electric throne.  Don’t try this at home, kids. If you fancied a takeaway, you could purchase Graham’s range of “Imperial Pills” and “Aetherial Balsams.”

If you were having a little trouble in the bedroom (cough), then you might consider a session on Graham’s notorious “Celestial Bed.” This was a large and magnetically-charged bed which vibrated, played music and released fragrances that were supposedly “aetherial” in nature (but frankly, what in the Temple wasn’t?). The unhappy couple would hand over a whopping fee of £50 and spend the night therein in the hope of relieving infertility. I suspect that any successes arising were purely coincidental.

Graham’s particular interest was matters of a sexual nature, and it certainly didn’t escape his notice that sex was a pretty good selling point. To that end, some of the most popular attractions in the Temple were the Goddesses of Health, delightful young ladies whose job was to assist Graham and to depict what physical perfection should look like. In the name of science, of course. Scantily-clad science. Rumour has it that one of the Goddesses, depicted right, would later marry into wealth, becoming Lady Emma Hamilton and later still Lord Nelson’s mistress.

The temple was, initially at least, a roaring success – so much so that within a couple of years, Graham was able to up sticks and move to fashionable Pall Mall. Alas, while Graham was a persuasive quack, he wasn’t so strong on the financial side of things, and his extravagance resulted just two years later in his having to sell up entirely.

He never quite managed to replicate the Temple’s success, and spent the rest of his days promoting ever more bizarre alternative medicines, such as being buried naked in mud and not eating for weeks at a time. He died in 1794 at the age of just forty-nine, which says a lot about the efficacy of his methods.

Fortunately, such quack electrical nonsense didn’t last long, because – oh wait, no, the belief in electricity’s mystical health-giving properties lasted until at least 1951, when the Food and Drug Administration in the USA banned the sale of electrical remedies. Hell, there are probably people even today who think you can cure impotence by electrocuting your gentleman’s prerequisites. There’s a sucker born every minute.

St Helens prop forward James Graham this week announced that he was to sign for Australian NRL club Canterbury Bulldogs on a three-year deal.  The reaction? Almost universally positive.  I haven’t heard a single bad word said about our joint captain’s decision to move on.

I suspect this is because of all he has achieved in his short career so far.  At just 25, ‘Jammer’ has won the Man of Steel award, one of the most prestigious individual honours a player in Super League can win.  It recognises his impact and performances over the course of a season.  He won that in 2008, aged just 23 in a position where players tend to mature nearer 30.  That same year, the Liverpudlian was voted Writers’ Player of the Year, was the only British player in the World XIII and was named ‘Best Prop In The World’.  Just in case this looked like a fluke, he was included in the World XIII in 2009 and 2010, and in both years he was also officially recognised as statistically the top metre-maker in Super League.  In the 2010 Four Nations, Graham captained England, and was named joint captain of St Helens RLFC for the 2011 season, sharing duties with local stalwart and fellow modern-day club legend Paul Wellens.  That’s one big paragraph for a 25-year old Rugby League player hailing from a city where football rules the roost (and then some).

Having achieved so much so soon, it comes as little surprise that the clubs Down Under would begin to sniff around such a talented prop hoping to seduce him with the promise of playing in the most elite league in the world.  James has decided to go and test himself against some of the meanest defences and toughest tacklers in the world, and hopefully the English Rugby League team will benefit from our two starting props (Graham joins South Sydney Rabbitohs prop Sam Burgess in the NRL) playing against the best players in the world every week.

Good luck Jammer – show them what you’re made of, and if you ever decide to come back to Super League in years to come, I know I’m not the only supporter hoping you’ll be able to sign for St Helens again.

Africa

Chelsea’s Didier Drogba was selected the African Footballer of the Year for the second consecutive year, finishing ahead of Manchester City’s Emmanuel Adebayor and recent Manchester United signing Kwadwo Asamoah. The precocious Ghanaian Asamoah was declared the Young Footballer of the Year for the continent as well, topping Malian and Congolese midfielders Abdou Traoré and Chris Malonga. The team of the year reflects the continued dominance of West African countries, with a smattering of talent from South Africa thrown in.

• African XI of the Year. Mohammed Abou Trika (Al-Ahly, Egypt), Adebayor, Demba Ba (Barcelona, Senegal), Ismaël Bangoura (Stade Rennais, Guinea), Matthew Booth (Sundowns, South Africa), Drissa Diakité (OGC Nice, Mali), Drogba, Michael Essien (Chelsea, Ghana), Moeneeb Josephs (Al-Ahly, South Africa), Carlos Kameni (FC Bayern, Cameroon), Frédéric Kanouté (Sevilla, Mali), Seydou Keita (Barcelona, Mali), Nicolas N’Koulou (AS Monaco, Cameroon), Thando Mngomeni (Sundowns, South Africa), Sulley Muntari (Inter, Ghana), Taye Taiwo (OM, Nigeria), Joseph Yobo (Everton, Nigeria), Karim Ziani (Wolfsburg, Algeria).

Awards are also given for players who remain within the continent to play their club football. Abou Trika was named the African Inter-Club Player of the Year for the third time in four years, trailed by Al-Ahly teammate Emad Motaeb with ES Tunis’ Henri Bienvenu coming in third.

• Goalkeeper of the Year. Josephs, Fawzi Chaouchi (FC Midtjylland, Algeria), Tony Sylva (Trabzonspor, Senegal).
• Defender of the Year. Booth, Bilel Ifa (Club Africain, Tunisia), Chadi Hammami (CS Sfax, Tunisia).
• Midfielder of the Year. Mngomeni, Abou Trika, Thembile Kanono (Kaizer Chiefs, South Africa).
• Coach of the Year. Faouzi Benzarti (ES Tunis).
• African Inter-XI of the Year. Abou Trika, Harrison Afful (CS Sfax), Ahmed Ali (CS Sfax), Bienvenu, Booth, Siboniso Gaxa (Al-Ahly), Josephs, Kanono, Mngomeni, Motaeb, Naby Souah (CS Sfax).

Asia

Tim Cahill of Everton was voted the Asian Player of the Year, with Seongnam’s Kim Yong-Dee being elected the Asian Keeper of the Year ahead of Fulham’s Mark Schwarzer. 22 year old Takayuki Morimoto was the Young Player of the Year, and Al-Ain’s German coach, Winfried Schäfer, took home Coach of the Year honors. Finally, Asia is one of the few federations to recognize the person with the whistle, and Saudi national Adil Al-Amri was selected as the referee of the year from the area.

• Asian All-Star XI. Roda Antar (Shandong), Jorge Caballero (Changchun), James Chamanga (Dalian), Chris Coyne (Perth Glory), Cristiano (Adelaide United), Jason Culina (Gold Coast United), James Graham (Sydney FC), Vyacheslav Hleb (Shenhua), Paul Ifill (Wellington Phoenix), Sun Jihai (Chengdu), Ahn Jung-Hwan (Dalian), McGlinchey, Craig Moore (Brisbane Roar FC), Pierre Njanka (Arema), Wayne Srhoj (Perth Glory), Mile Sterjovski (Perth Glory), Yong-Dee, Bo Xu (Beijing).

Oceania

The Oceania Awards were repetitive: West Brom’s 19 year old Kiwi import, Chris Wood, won with last year’s winner, fellow New Zealander Mike McGlinchey, coming in second. This was true for the Player of the Year, Footballer of the Year, and Young Footballer of the Year.

South America

Cruzeiro’s Kléber won the South American Footballer of the Year, edging out emerging superstar and teammate Diego Renan for the award. San Lorenzo’s Diego Simeone was the manager of the year for the continent.

• South American Team of the Year: Emmanuel Culio (River), André Dias (São Paulo), Dudu (Cruzeiro), Fábio (Cruzeiro), Juan (Flamengo), Kléber, Marcinho (Botafogo), Aquivaldo Mosquera (América), Ruben Olivera (Peñarol), Renan, Pablo Zeballos (Cruz Azul).

Chelsea's Didier Drogba, 2010 African Player of the Year.

Al-Ahly's Mohammed Abou Trika, by far the best African footballer to remain with a club on the continent.

Everton's Tim Cahill, 2010 Asian Player of the Year.

This is  Christie O’Carroll’s first, and stunningly, directed show for Lyceum youth and it is blessed with not only a cracking script by James Graham but also a gifted cast; in particular the quite mesmerising performance of Aaron Jones as the central and most troubled teen, Leo.

He’s not alone in deserving acting plaudits.  For a start it’s an excellent ensemble show and cleverly written to give all 14 young actors their moments to shine.  But inevitably there are stand outs.  For me they were the aforementioned Aaron Jones who, although slight of build, puts in a gargantuan performance.  In a smallish but rocket fuelled cameo (it’s much more than that really, but her spell in the limelight is a true short sharp shock) is Lucia D’Inverno as Lucy and throughout the laughs are provided by Hannah Joe Mackinlay as Zoe and on slightly more cerebral level by Tom Palmer as a quietly understated Amid.

The play delivers 40 minutes of changing mood and pace and centres on a school classroom in Wooton Bassett the day that a local hero is repatriated from Afghanistan in a wooden box.  The dead ‘hero’ is Charlie an ex pupil and idol (in different ways) to many of the classmates.  His death and the resulting ritual parade through Wooton Bassett are an incendiary device to the class who are inexplicably locked into their classroom by a particularly inept supply teacher just as the parade is about to happen.  This enrages Leo who gradually winds up his classmates as he himself becomes convulsed by the situation.

This ignites a classroom discussion which covers just about every subject a class of fifth formers would typically cover in their social life; sex, politics, slagging each other off, sex, toilet humour, being gay or not, sex, x box versus PS3, sex and swearing.  Oh, and sex.

It’s laugh out loud hilarious at times but gradually darkens as the mood swings from resentment at being excluded from the parade to bitter political ideological debate about the futility of war, nationalism (racism really), sexuality and religious belief.

It’s a tremendous script.  It’s expertly directed and it leaves the audience really quite shell shocked.  Although I have not yet seen Black Watch live I suspect it has that sort of visceral impact.

I strongly recommend that you see this.

The supporting performance consists of two one act dramas written by young writers on the Traverse’s Scribble initiative.  Tonight I saw “Is this it?” ( a thought provoking and very mature piece by Kiera McIntosh-Michaelis & Alex Porter-Smith) and Bang by Kelly Sinclair, a highly amusing insight into life in a detention class.  These pieces rotate on a performance by performance basis with four other, presumably very short, scripts.  Each are acted (with scripts) by members of Lyceum Youth and both were very enjoyable.

Finborough Theatre. Photo: Matthew Turner

into plastic tumblers and heading upstairs to see the first production in London of Caryl Churchill’s hymn to the land, Fen, for 30 years.

I’m here on behalf of Offwestend.com to meet artistic director Neil McPherson, the human dynamo who has powered the Finborough through an incredibly successful period. The theatre’s most recent play, Emlyn Williams’ Accolade, was a smash hit. Critics fell over themselves to lavish praise on this tale of celebrity double-life, not performed since the 1950s but as fresh today as then. The New York Times loved it so much it reviewed it twice.

McPherson’s programming is always exciting, unpredictable and enriching. And his instinct for excellence in the off-West End arena has seen him discover directors, playwrights and actors who have gone on to become major players in the theatre world. It’s unsurprising, then, that he should have attracted a clutch of awards during his career, including perhaps the greatest accolade of all – Best Artistic Director at The Offies 2011.

Once the bell has rung and he’s made certain that everyone’s safely in their seats for Fen, the witty and wonderfully irreverent McPherson joins me at the bar. Sipping a Coca Cola he tells me about his job, his views on independent theatre, his loathing of plays by accountants and trying very hard not to get Kate Winslet wet.

TW: First off, congratulations on winning Best Artistic Director at The Offies a couple of weeks ago. You’ve won so many awards in the past couple of years, does winning another one mean much to you now?

Neil McPherson, artistic director of the Finborough. Photo: Lisa Bowerman

NM: Oh, yes, of course it does. We’re very grateful; we’ve done wonderfully. We were just a bit surprised because, yes, there were many good shows [here] last year but the ones before that were equally as good. So it’s a bit like buses, with everything coming at once! Of course, we’re waiting for the backlash now.

Part of the thing here is that you work very hard and you’re not paid very much. I last had a proper holiday in 2001 and a weekend last year when I didn’t answer any emails. So things like this [award], they make you feel like you’re doing a good job – that it’s all worthwhile.

TW: It’s interesting that you use “we” rather than “I”.

NM: That’s the royal “we”!

TW: Really? So how do things work at the Finborough?

NM: Well, I’m the only paid member of staff. Everyone else is a volunteer. Our longest surviving volunteer is Alex Marker, our resident designer, who’s been here since 2001 and wins amazing plaudits for his work. And then there’s a large team of people who don’t stay that long, from three months to a couple of years. So when I say “we”, I mean me and all of those volunteers who make everything possible.

One of things we’re proudest of is our assistant director programme. Of the directors who started with us, well, one is assistant director here, one is now assistant director at the Donmar Theatre, one is director of new plays at Theatre Clwyd in Wales, one is artistic director of their own theatre in Oxfordshire and another is staff director at the National Theatre.

TW: So what does your specific job consist of?

NM: Everything! Obviously, the biggest bit is choosing the plays; actually, probably bigger than that is then making sure that those plays are of a quality. We’re very anxious that we’re not looked on as ‘fringey’. We produce half of our own work and half with companies. The difficult bit is making sure that the quality of those visiting companies is up to the standard of everything else. So, we’re strict on casting, we’re strict on how your poster and your programme look and that you behave honourably and decently to everybody, even if you’re not paying them equity minimum. And on top of that [I’m responsible for] marketing, finance, refurbishing the building, and so on.

I’m sometimes amused when I go to other theatres and they’ve got a list of 80 staff in the back of their programme and I’m doing a bit of all those [jobs]. But you know that’s sort of what makes it fun. You can develop a new script, get bored with that; do the accounts, get bored with that; clean the toilet, get bored with that; then paint something.

TW: You say you want to avoid seeming to be ‘fringey’. What does that mean?

NM: A lot of fringe is absolutely f**king terrible, isn’t it? If you want to make a lot of money you can easily do that on the fringe. I could charge six to seven thousand pounds a week to rent this space. I could be doing terrible plays by retired accountants. Or [putting on a show] by an actor who hasn’t trained, has done some evening classes, wants to do Hamlet and has the money to pay for it. All that kind of thing I loathe, and everyone else on the fringe loathes, because it drags us down. That’s not what we’re about.

“A lot of fringe is absolutely f**king terrible, isn’t it?”

TW: So when did you get started in the business?

NM: Well, I began as an actor. I did three years at drama school, acted for about a year, then decided that, actually, it was a silly job – for me at least – then ran the New End Theatre for nine months, produced for about a year then got the job here, where I’ve been for 12 years now.

TW: Was there a specific point at which you realised you didn’t want to be an actor?

NM: Yes, being dressed as a polar bear in front of 500 screaming children at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and thinking, “You know, actually, this is kind of daft.” [In my role now] I can do a lot more. And when somebody I’ve discovered, whether they’re a director or a writer like Laura Wade or James Graham, makes it big or an actor’s come here and gone on to win an Olivier, well, that’s nice.

TW: What makes independent theatre more than a vanity exercise for bad actors or would-be playwrights?

NM: People often ask me what the difference is between a vanity project and a sensible investment in the future. The only really honest answer is: “If it’s good.” So part of my job is weeding out the really terrible scripts from the good ones and going from there.

“I was dressed as a polar bear in front of 500 screaming children”

TW: What would you say distinguishes off-West End theatre from West End venues and shows?

NM: West End versus off-West End… Obviously we don’t have the money, but we’re trying to work to those standards. We’d love to be paying everyone equity minimum, what they’re worth. Practically that’s not possible. But what we can do is put on a play with a cast of 28, or a play that may not be commercially viable elsewhere but could be commercially viable here for four weeks. If, as a result, the actors are getting casting agents, you know, from their point of view it’s worthwhile. Take Accolade [directed by Blanche McIntyre and starring Aiden Gillet and Saskia Wickham]: it had a low wage – actually, an expenses thing – but Nicholas Hytner came, Richard Eyre, The New York Times came, David Tennant came…

TW: Do you think that you can take more risks, be more adventurous, than if you were bound by issues like minimum expenditure?

NM: Yeah, but to be really honest, I just put on what I like and hope other people do as well – and so far they seem to! I think Stephen Daldry once said of the Gate Theatre, “The worst thing that could happen would be if we got funding.” Because then you end up limited, stuck doing a play with a cast of three [that] casting agents won’t come and see because they’re only seeing three people rather than ten at a time. [Here] our average cast size, over the year, is about nine.

TW: Plays such as Accolade, which become critical and commercial successes, must be the reason why you do the job.

NM: The thing about Accolade was that I’d been giving it to directors for the past five to six years and they all went “nah”. And one of the best things [since] has been the emails going either, “You bastard, I wish I’d done it” or “Oh, you were right, I was wrong.”

TW: You’ve said that finance is always a challenge. But are there any other major obstacles when putting on a show?

NM: No, actually it’s all about the money. It really is. You know, when people are campaigning against Arts Council cuts I’m with them, of course, but part of me is thinking, “Just give me one percent of what some other theatres get.” With that one percent we could do amazing things. The Emlyn Williams was a big success, five stars, but if I’d had more money I’d probably have done a season of Emlyn Williams plays. I probably could still have made that happen, but not at the level of quality I’d have wanted it to be at.

“Just give me one percent of what some other theatres get”

TW: Does the Finborough have definable aims? Does it have a mission statement?

NM: Our artistic policy is very, very strict: it [has to be] new writing and rediscoveries. But nearly everybody in the world says that their artistic policy is new writing and rediscoveries; so our artistic policy is new writing and obscure rediscoveries. We have a rule that [a play] must be from the nineteenth or twentieth century – we don’t do anything before 1800 – and it can’t have been performed in London in the past 25 years. So, that immediately wipes out A Doll’s House or The Birthday Party. Nothing wrong with those plays but you can see them anywhere.

The idea is that you’ll come here and see something absolutely brand new, or you’ll see something so old it’s actually brand new again. I always argue that if there’s nobody alive on the planet to have seen it then it counts as new writing. One of my favourites was Our Miss Gibbs, a musical that hadn’t been done since 1908, full of jokes about the London Olympics and cash for honours. Audiences in 2007 were absolutely wetting themselves over the same gags as a hundred years ago. You know, I couldn’t do just new writing. I’d get very bored. And there isn’t enough good new writing out there yet.

TW: But when you are seeking new writing where do you look? Do you accept unsolicited work?

NM: We accept unsolicited scripts where possible, but one of the things we don’t like is rejects. A few fringe theatres go to the Bush Theatre or the Royal Court Theatre and say, “What don’t you want?” We’d rather discover our own writers and work with them for as long as it takes. James Graham is the best example. He sent us an unsolicited script, utterly unperformable at 300 pages long. We spent two years working with him on it, put it on, commissioned the next one and have done one of his plays every year since.

TW: Is there a particular skill to identifying a good play?

NM: There’s a spark. [It’ll often] be lost in a morass of awful structure and terrible dialogue, but you can spot who can do it; you can tell who has it. The x-factor, if you will.

TW: In the 12 years you’ve been at the Finborough, what have been the best, worst and funniest moments?

Dear God! Well, the worst was the Hamlet. There really was a Hamlet, for one week – it was that or bankruptcy – by an actor who was on [TV show] The Bill. Bless him. He couldn’t remember the lines. It was after that that I decided I’d rather go dark than take something for the money.

We’ve had lots of great moments, often the small things. [For example] we did Soldiers, which has a debate in Act Two about the ethics of aerial bombing in the Second World War, in Dresden, in Hamburg. Well, we had people coming out of that screaming at each other about Iraq, sitting in the pub and banging their fists on the tables as they argued about it. Small things like that make it all worthwhile, when you know you’ve affected someone. Seeing the people I’ve developed going off and getting commissions, that’s wonderful too.

TW: And have there been any funny or absurd moments?

NM: Oh my God. Well, the staircase flooding – that was fun. That was quite a while ago. [The Finborough has] a flat roof that, when it rains, fills up like a swimming pool until the water breaks through the skylight. This happened when Kate Winslet was here to see a show. She had to walk up under an umbrella as four feet of water poured down. She said it was worse than Titanic.

“Kate Winslet had to walk up the staircase under an umbrella as four feet of water poured down“

TW: What do you hope an audience will get out of coming to see a show at the Finborough?

NM: Well, somebody once said, being snide but I took it as a compliment, “You do war, genocide, disease and the odd camp musical.” And I thought, “Yeah, actually that’s true, we do.” It sounds wanky but if you didn’t think you could change the world you wouldn’t do it, would you? What we very specifically don’t do is plays about 20 or 30-something relationship problems. If your girlfriend has left you we’re really sorry but take it somewhere else!

Most of our stuff, apart from the camp musicals – and there’s nowt wrong with them now and again – is hard-hitting or political. It’ll make you go away and think. The BNP play we did last year, we were having death threats. I always say that if you don’t have a firebomb threat every couple of months you’re doing it wrong.

“If you don’t have a firebomb threat every couple of months you’re doing it wrong”

TW: That would certainly add a spring to my step. So, what do theatregoers who step through these doors and don’t get completely waylaid by the bar have to look forward to next?

NM: We’ve just started the [three-month] season, ‘In Their Place’, of works by women playwrights. We’ve got Fen by Caryl Churchill, new off-Broadway musical Bed and Sofa, with music by Polly Penn, and Naomi Wallace’s new one [And I and Silence]. The Sunday and Monday slots are all devoted to Colleen Murphy, a Canadian writer who’s never been seen in the UK. We think it’s about time she was, so the idea is to put her work on the map.

Other than that, in July we’ll have Vibrant, our new writing festival. That’ll be a four-week run of a brand new play and a series of stage readings by our playwrights and residents from the literary department’s writers’ group, as well as a few other writers we’ve worked with a lot who we want to show off.

First published by Offwestend.com

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For further information go to: http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/

This is a .gif created by James Graham of the Houseasaurus Cooperative in State College, PA. The images come from a self-timer on a DSLR Canon t2i in Rothrock Forest on their annual retreat in Sept. ’10. Hope this can take away some of your winter blues. If the group shot is not in motion, be sure to click on it for the link. To learn more about their housing cooperative, visit: http://centralpacommunityhousing.org/

Wigan’s Darrell Goulding is preparing for his England debut (Action Images)

The 22-year-old gets his chance in place of Leeds’ Ryan Hall , who has failed to shake off a hamstring injury sustained in training.

The only other changes to the team that drew 18-18 with New Zealand Maori last weekend are in the front row, where coach Steve McNamara accommodates new skipper James Graham and Wigan prop Stuart Fielden .

Graham, rested for the warm-up match, takes over both the playing position and the captaincy from the injured Adrian Morley while Fielden is rewarded for a return to form with a first cap in four years.

He sat out the Maori clash after delaying his departure for New Zealand to be at the birth of his first child.

McNamara, who confirmed Wigan half-back Sam Tomkins would play after shaking off a hip problem, added: ‘Stuart’s pretty fresh and keen. As always, he’s very enthusiastic.’

Graham, meanwhile, insisted being given the captaincy will not change his game, saying: ‘It’s just a “C” next to my name and I get to walk out first.’

G Widdop (Melbourne); D Goulding (Wigan), M Shenton (Castleford), R Atkins (Warrington), T Briscoe (Hull); K Brown (Huddersfield), S Tomkins (Wigan); S Fielden (Wigan), J Roby (St Helens), J Graham (St Helens, capt), G Ellis (Wests Tigers), S Burgess (South Sydney), S O’Loughlin (Wigan).Subs (from): L Robinson (Huddersfield), D Griffin (Huddersfield), B Westwood (Warrington), J Tomkins (Wigan).

James Graham in action for St Helens (Getty Images)

The 25-year-old St Helens prop was chosen by head coach Steve McNamara to fill the void created by the absence of Jamie Peacock and his successor Adrian Morley .

Although he does not captain his club, 2008 Man of Steel Graham has demonstrated his inspirational qualities at domestic and international level and is a popular choice among his England front-row ­colleagues.

‘It’s been a bit surreal,’ said ­Huddersfield’s Eorl Crabtree. ‘Moz was a massive inspiration but ­Jammer is probably the future. It’s fantastic he’s got the opportunity and we’re all very confident in him. He is a great player and a great leader.’

Warrington’s Garreth Carvell, the latest addition to the England squad who went into camp last night after a marathon 33-hour journey from Manchester, immediately gave his backing to the new skipper.

‘He wears his heart on his sleeve,’ added Carvell. ‘I think it will bring the best out in him. After losing Moz we needed someone to stand up and he’s going to step up to the mark.’

Graham kept a low profile at training yesterday and will be happy to let his actions on the pitch speak for themselves.

‘He’ll be the first coming off the line when you know you’re going to get bashed,’ said Crabtree. ‘He does his talking on the field.’

After being rested for Saturday’s 18-18 draw with New Zealand Maori in Auckland, Graham will be an automatic replacement in the starting line-up for Morley, who has been ruled out of the tournament with a ruptured bicep.

Carvell will fight Crabtree, Darrell Griffin and Stuart Fielden for the other three front-row places.

Half-back Sam Tomkins sat out training after sustaining a pelvic injury against the Maori.

The appointment of Jammer has not been met with universal approval and  his all to frequent displays of displeasure with a match officials performance have caused some to question whether he truly has the correct temperament for the role.

However, he is absolutely the right choice and England coach Steve McCormack should be commended for his decision.

I am sure that Gareth Ellis, Sam Burgess and Sean O’Loughlin were all considered for the role and it is possible to put a convincing case forward for all three.

Ellis and Burgess are two of the finest players in the world but it is possible that the fact they play outside of Super League counted against them while O’Loughlin appears to have revelled without the pressure of captaincy for Wigan Warriors in 2010.

Graham captained the England Academy side to victory over their Australian counterparts in 2004 and his unflinching desire to win at all costs is evident every time he runs onto the field. He will need to curb his temper and develop his referee management skills but his drive, determination and ambition to succeed are the perfect fit for the current England team.

While the appointment of Graham is unlikely to have a significant impact on the outcome of the upcoming Four Nations tournament – England are short of several key players and do not appear to have the squad depth to be able to ask serious questions of Australia or, my predicted winners, New Zealand – it does perhaps allow England to move forward.

It remains to be seen whether the tough Scouser will retain the captaincy beyond the end of the Four Nations and Morley and his predecessor Jamie Peacock are unquestionably outstanding leaders. But both are the wrong side of thirty and Peacock in particular is more susceptible to injuries these days.

Graham is capable of leading his country for the next 10 years and the amount of exciting youthful talent on show in Super League at the moment suggests that the future for England is bright.

I’d been aware that Idlewild’s Rod Jones had been heavily involved in the Scottish Mental Health Arts & Film Festival in previous years but the project has grown substantially for the current year with the founding of the Fruit Tree Foundation.

A number of well known Scottish songwriters, Jones, Scott Hutchison, Emma Pollock, Karine Polwart, Jenny Reeve, James Graham, Jill O’Sullivan, Alisdair Roberts and James Yorkston  decamped to Perth for a song writing collaboration and the results will be released as an LP, initially available only at two shows in Edinburgh and Glasgow this weekend.

Obviously the involvement of Pollock and Polwart lends echoes of the Burns Unit but this could be a little different.

The shows will see the entire LP performed but with additional solo performances from Polwart, Hutchison and Broken Records (Edinburgh HMV Picturehouse, Friday 1st) and Yorkston and Roberts (Glasgow O2 ABC) with tickets £6 for each show.

There’s more info available from the Fruit Tree Foundation site from which you can also download 2 tracks from the LP.

Paddles! 20mg Epi! Stat! Get this social movement on its feet!

What follows is a summary of the ten pages of notes I took at Saturday’s BlogNation event, organised by Sunny Hundal under Liberal Conspiracy’s banner. On a personal note, it was great to meet Paul Sagar, Paul Cotterill, Carl Packman, Kate Belgrave, Cath Elliott and Sunny himself, as well as seeing a bunch of other blogoland people I’d met before. Especially gratifying was the piss up afterwards.

There were four main elements to the conference; over the first two, six people spoke from the front of the room about upcoming battles for the Left and how we should address them. After three speakers had their turn, each table discussed the issues, what they thought they could add to what the speakers said and threw out ‘strategic’ ideas.

Part three was much more traditional – there was a full panel of high-profile individuals (which, to the mirth of several of us at the back, was described by Sunny as containing individuals from all across the Left – liberal to socialist), each of whom offered a contribution on Left co-operation, followed by contributions from the floor. For the last part, the conference divided into two – a forum for London bloggers and a forum where anyone could pitch any idea.

Parts one and two – coming battles and how we prepare
Individually, the ‘coming battles’ issues are well known and there’s no point in my only rehashing what the speakers said. Instead I’d like to view what was said – both from the platform and from the floor – through two categories: packaging and practicality. The first was by far the most dominant, which was perhaps expected in a roomful of bloggers and actual or aspiring journalists.

In this regard, some good ideas came out – though not anything that hasn’t come up before. One idea repeated multiple times in multiple contexts was the need for some means whereby to get out anecdotal evidence as well as statistical evidence, something that was also a feature of the stillborn Left New Media project. The immigration debate stressed this; it was noted than when communities were confronted with those who were likely to be deported, or with the realities of Yarls Wood and other camps, opposition developed fast.

What to do with such collated information ranged from the broad and insubstantial (e.g. Anthony Painter’s ‘be positive and passionate about the contribution of immigrants’) to the very specific and activist (e.g. Kate Smurthwaite’s desire that details of sex education in schools should be used to arm a campaign that could provide speakers and organise protests against faith schools and other educational bodies which deviate from basic science).

Only one of these responses moved from ‘packaging’ to ‘practicality’, and the failure to make this transition was a key feature of the contributions of many of those at the conference.

Tim Ireland phrased this problem quite well with his adaptation of the 1-9-90 equation. His argument was that we’re the 1% creating content, that the audience we write for is only another 9%, those who feedback, those who we engage with as activists etc, and that it’s the remaining 90% we need to bring on board – which we can do by appealing to technical wizardry like SEO or more skillful use of comedy and emulation of the soundbyte style of the Right.

Quite clearly these are solution to how the Left ‘message’ is packaged. It doesn’t address the more specifically political questions of whether or not that message is the right one, and what sort of political practice it is that our ideas demand. That the political practice of Right and Left will be different is essentially a Marxist idea predicated upon a class analysis that identifies more fundamental reasons behind the bias of the media than merely the Right being good at PR.

Packaging was also at stake when conferees argued that one of our key strategies should be to change the content of debate. On anthropogenic global warming, for example, it was argued by Leo of Climatesock that we should move the debate from whether or not AGW is for real to “what do we need to do about it” and the policy options. I’m not clear as to whether that means we bloggers should stop engaging with the Climategate controversy.

If so, I think that fundamentally misunderstands the relationship between the junk science that people like Nadine Dorries and fellow Tory nutters spout and the currency it has amongst the certain layer of the public. It is my view that it fulfills a social function which is not adequately addressed simply by putting out the opposite story, and especially not by trying to move on to some later stage of the same question.

In fact I would go so far to say that it’s the attempt to move on like this which produces a dangerous disconnection between government and people (an inevitable disconnection under capitalism).

All of that said, from different parts of the hall as well as from Kate Smurthwaite on the platform, there was a serious attempt to address practical measures and not just the packaging; the need to build definite organisations which could organise communities and workplaces. Sunny suggested that the conference should not address ‘movement’ issues, but should speak as bloggers and journalists about issues specific to us.

My view, though I didn’t make any contribution beyond at my own table, is of course that we don’t have any relevance beyond our our movement. Getting people to agree with us is great – but if the only people we’re appealing to are those who are already listening to us, we’re still hitting the thin end of the 1-9-90 wedge. Moreover, we’re failing to appreciate the dialectical relationship between argumentation and organisation.

A key part of the debate Saturday should have been what form that organisation should take, under which aegis all of us bloggers could stand. That would have exacerbated all the tribal divisions – Labour, Liberals, Socialist – but importantly there was a wide swathe of people as yet uncommitted to a party, community organisers and such. Of course there were also the anti-party crowd, but they’ll never amount to much and can be ignored.

Part three – scope for co-operation on the Left
From the get-go this discussion wasn’t going to be the one people wanted. The key mistake, I suspect, was involving James Graham of the Social Liberal Forum. He was meant to introduce the discussion and instead spent his time sermonising the hall on why we shouldn’t regard the Lib-Dems as liars and traitors to a Left ideal lest we drive them into the arms of the Tory Right.

Claude Carpentieri has already addressed this at Lib-Con and Dave Osler did so from the floor of the conference, rubbishing Graham’s contribution as partisan self-justification which glossed over the fact that a large part of ‘the Left’ don’t believe the Lib-Dems deserve that soubriquet. This received loud applause and cheers from the floor, stretching far beyond the Labour members present.

One of the most egregious comments Graham made was to suggest that while we need to guard against the Tory Right, Labour must rein in its own ‘headbangers’ (and mention was made here of those who ‘sabotaged’ a Lib-Lab deal). Evidently the conference wasn’t willing to stomach denunciation of Neil Kinnock-like proportions when hiding behind the remarks is a political party quite happy to sustain Tory attacks on workers, the disabled, pensioners and the unemployed – basically every disadvantaged group.

Beyond this, quite a proportion of the speakers kept their remarks focused on Westminster and the happenings there – on what one faction should do to woo another faction, on what ‘compromises’ must be made to stop further inroads being made against the issues we consider to be vital. Perhaps this was to be expected when members of the panels are MPs or former MPs (Evan Harris, Michael Meacher) or commentators on parliament (Graham, Alex Smith).

There was also room for comments that could be filed under the “bloody stupid” category – such as Rowenna Davis’ statement that since joining Labour she’d felt more ‘tribal’, more willing to defend policies she didn’t believe in simply because they were being evinced by her own party. While that’s useful for all readers of Ms Davis’ future contributions, her attempt to generalise this is of course nonsense – clearly she’s never met a real Labour Leftie, because as I can attest, smacking about Labour policy takes up a large part of our time.

Another stupid comment came from the floor, that it should be ‘disinterested groups’ who we look to, to campaign against the budget etc as the trades unions look too partisan. It’s in the interest of workers to campaign against cuts, therefore their motives are suspect. That one was beautifully shot down by Justin Baidoo, a community activist from Peckham. Implicit to a lot of this liberal dithering is the Aristotelian golden mean – which is a worthless concept in a society that cannot be anything other than dominated by particular interests. All we need to do is decide which.

Where things did become interesting (briefly, before wandering off again) was in the discussion around what Evan Harris said about Labour party democracy. His statement was clear; if Labour wants to win back the Left, they should give members a say again. I couldn’t agree more – though Harris’ subsequent elevation of the Lib-Dems to status of ‘people’s party’ by virtue of their internal workings is rather a laughing stock bearing in mind what the parliamentary party subsequently decided to do – i.e. go into coalition and toss out half the ‘member agreed’ manifesto.

Alex Smith’s view that we need to ‘build institutions to re-wire the progressive architecture’ drew plenty of attention – particularly his addendum that this means ‘more than just parliament’. Yet it was clear from subsequent remarks that what this means is up for debate – Alex appealed to a MoveOn.org style solution, returned to time and again by his queries, “How did the Americans do this?” and “How did the American Left win?”

The twists and turns of the Obama administration should give us pause for thought – as should Obama’s complete failure to articulate a relationship between politicians and popular movements beyond the wish that they should come when called and otherwise twiddle their thumbs. It’s this very factor which threatens the credibility of the Democrats at this year’s mid-term elections, especially given that the Dems have adopted policies hostile to the very movement which pushed them to a landslide victory in 2008.

It was left to Michael Meacher to say that he had no truck with ‘aspirational views’ as regards the Con-Lib coalition. He rightly said that it was this year’s disastrous budget which was likely to dominate politics for the next 5-10 years. Judging by IDS’ (less blunt) repeat of Tebbit’s “On yer bike” outburst against the unemployed, Meacher’s assessment seems bang on. Meacher said our only response must be to line up with the popular movement that develops to oppose the Tory agenda.

Where Meacher went completely off-beam, I thought, was his remark that, “Vince Cable and all the rest are decent people, but are completely overruled by the Tories”. No doubt Meacher made this comment in response to a clear tension between the Lib-Dem elements to the room (though several Lib-Dems, such as Linda Jack, proclaimed their alienation from their own party) and the rest of the conference – but the reality is that such a view merely obscures the real problem – that policies like supposed equidistance from labour and capital cut the Libs off from the Left.

This is why the Liberals found it so easy to go into coalition with the Conservatives. Lib-Dems who want to quibble with the Left about the ‘good’ the Liberals are doing in office are basically performing the political equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and singing “Lalala, I can’t hear you”. Thus Evan Harris’ comment that the ‘budget is not a Conservative programme” – reassuring ammunition for those of us on the Left who can point to the £11bn cuts and only £2bn in new tax revenues.

As a last note, probably the scariest and most reactionary part of the conference came whenever Alex Smith pontificated for several minutes on the need for a new “national narrative” as a means to restore the pride of being Left-wing. By this he meant a “chronology” about how “we” (presumably the British, though possibly the English) “built the NHS” and “defeated dictators” and that we needed to stress “Labour’s place in that”. All I can say is yikes.

The contributions concluded with Michael Meacher denouncing careerism, and the disengagement from communities, and his call to reinvigorate the Left at a local level. James Graham then summed up with another self-righteous justification; that he remembered similar talk about ‘localism’ in 1997 but that here were are, 13 years later. He said that “so long as most spending is decided in parliament, the daily parliamentary grind must be central to our concerns” – thus completely missing the point of Meacher and others that this means nothing without a popular movement.

Part four – 5 minute pitches
Since I’m not a London blogger and am thus spared having to listen to people angling to endorse Oona King or Ken Livingstone (and I’d prefer Genghis Khan to Oona King), I attended the session which permitted anyone to make a five minute pitch. Paul Cotterill made his expected presentation on the need for a local media effort, in print, that could take information to the masses and be a focal point in resistance efforts – especially important in light of current events.

There was a pitch for a MoveOn.org style organisation, to bring pressure to bear against individual candidates – and again the American example got cited. Amnesty International made a pitch about involving people in corporate responsibility campaigns. Reclaim the Pubs pitched something that sounded like speed-dating for politics; meet ups in pubs, open to all, designed to encourage political engagement, advertised to anyone who wants to come.

People around the Labour Values website announced that they’d be holding meetings of those outside Labour, to try and garner ideas from that angle, and that they would be establishing a blog with case-studies backing it up. David Babbs outlined the reach of the organisation 38 degrees and pressed everyone to tell his group what they should campaign on. One P. Casey argued for a British version of American groups like Factcheck.org.

A particularly interesting pitch was by the chap behind Political Scrapbook, in response to recent cases of left bloggers facing nuisance lawsuits, for a collective fund to fight such cases. This proposal was the ‘ultimate development’ of co-ops which could start small, by inviting bloggers to bunch together to purchase high quality hosting, and later premises in London with video editing facilities and access to subscription-based databases – as a lot of the mainstream media is about to become, online.

If anyone is interested in any of those, they should contact the relevant organisation or website. More can be read about the event at Liberal Conspiracy and on the pages linked to.

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Overall, I was happy to attend the conference. Even where someone disagrees with what is being said, it’s important to meet people outside of the controlled environment of the internet, where people can’t pre-vet what they say. Our little group of activists is only ever relevant based on the roots we put down in social movements – and what roots I have exist offline. But what to do with those roots – what tactics we use – is debated everywhere, online and off and it’s always good to get a fresh perspective. I look forward to Blog Nation 2011.