jeremy corbyn

I don't think for one moment that Jeremy Corbyn is perfect. I do, however, strongly believe that what he brings to politics is not only different and refreshing, but also really necessary: an unspun, humble, earnest but humane approach and a conviction – lived and evidenced through thirty years of parliamentary commitment – that a fairer society lies at the heart of Labour's reason to exist as a political movement.

I also don't buy the 'unelectable', 'disaster' and other doom-laden tags heaped upon him by his opponents. If you are going to be a political leader, you have to set out a vision and lead your members, and the electorate as a whole, towards understanding and embracing that vision. If the vision were already common currency or in place, your role would be obsolete. Some of Jeremy Corbyn's policies, views and opinions may turn out to jar with mine, and may not stand up to scrutiny forever, but he would be hard pushed to be a more bitter and devastating disappointment and disaster for Labour than Blair.

Being a progressive movement is not about making yourself 'electable' at any price and tailoring your values and politics to what the majority of a media-saturated and generally fatigued electorate already think they know. It is about setting out a direction you want your country and your society to go in and then doing all the hard and frustrating and also sometimes inspiring and rewarding work to take people with you.

They said women can't have the vote. They said there will never be an African American President. They said we'll never get equal marriage. If your starting point is "we can't" then failure is inescapable. If your starting point is "we can" then you don't have a foregone conclusion, but you do have a chance of change and success.

Which is why today I have voted for Jeremy Corbyn.#JezWeCan


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spot the critic: the 7 'types' of reviewer (plus 1, and another)

With the Edinburgh Fringe in full swing, you may be seeing a lot of shows this month, and finding your way around them may entail ploughing through reams of reviews written by innumerable Critics and furnished, in most cases, with star ratings.

To help you with this and make your experience that bit more enjoyable, here's a little game you can play as you try to absorb other people's opinions and make them somehow relevant to you. Plus one bit of really useful advice:

Ignore the star ratings. There will come a time, in the I-hope-not-so-distant future, when the mere notion that you could possibly express the 'quality', let alone significance of a work, be it theatre, film, dance, music, literature, or even comedy, with a rating of one out of five (or out of ten or, in some confusing cases, out of four) will appear as exactly what it is: crass and preposterous. It's lazy, patronising and meaningless. Believe me, I know: I have received five star reviews and I have received one star reviews, and for the same piece. Star ratings are not a shorthand, they're an insult to your intelligence (I suppose one of the most catastrophic unintended consequences of living in a complex world is that – unready to engage with it at a complex level – we resort to infantilised simplicity). So what you do with them is up to you, just as long as you don't pay heed to them...

I have no show up in Edinburgh this year, so nobody should be able to accuse me of venting a spleen or massaging a chip on my shoulder or attempting to curry favour or invoking such other idiom as may appear to come in handy under the circumstances. Let me share with you, then, my little game of Spot the Critic. 

Critics are only human too and with the era of the 'expert' long gone, together, largely, with the space and time in print or online for in-depth analysis, discussion and substantive criticism, the only thing that makes them different from you is that they believe their opinion matters enough for them to want to share it with you. And there's nothing wrong with that. You know as well as I that it's impossible really, and also plain wrong, to categorise people into 'types', but critics are people who put forward their opinion on other people's work and so to put these opinions in some kind of context, here are the, as far as I can tell, seven (plus one, and one more) 'types' of Critic you're most likely to come across. (If you know of any more or think I've got this totally wrong, don't hesitate to comment. You may even leave a 'starred' review, if you like, it will amuse...)


1 The One Who Misses the Main Point

No matter what kind of show (or, for that matter, film) it is, there will invariably be somebody reviewing it who is not a bad person but simply doesn't quite get what this is about. If we were to take Hamlet as an example, they might have several interesting things to say about the set, the costumes, the lighting, the acting, the direction and the poetry, and then undermine it all with some observation such as: "The main problem with this piece is that it drags. Hamlet's interminable soliloquies do nothing but slow down the plot, and where you could have some emotionally charged conflict, some drama, some action, Shakespeare expects us to listen to endless musings over whether it is better 'to be or not to be'. An experienced Literary Manager could have solved this in one afternoon."

2 The One Who Wants to See Another Play Altogether

Similarly, somebody will show up at a performance and almost immediately decide that the play they're watching could be brilliant, if only it were about something else. They will rummage in the two or three star compartment of their well-intentioned but not overly expansive mind and say something like: "I would have preferred to see the relationship with Ophelia explored in much greater depth: it clearly sits at the heart of the play and by doing away with her so casually, and cruelly, the author misses a great opportunity for giving his play heart and soul as well as overbearing intellect."

3 The One Who Gets it But Wants it Done Differently

So near, and yet so far, from actually being able to accept the work for what it is, is the Critic who just has that one problem. The one problem that renders everything else more or less obsolete: "This is a cracking plot with a magnificent central character who really manages to explore the deepest layers of a traumatised princely psyche. If only the writer had stuck to what he knows best – dialogue and good story telling – instead of lumbering his world with incomprehensible verbosity dressed up in supposedly 'blank' verse. There is nothing 'blank' about this language, or sparse, or even just economical, and by the end you just wish an editor had put a stop to it."

4 The One Who Is so Jaded, They Just Can't

There are so many shows to see, so many reviews to write, so many times an opinion to form, first of all, and then to write down, for which then to incur the wrath of so many people you've been mean about, no wonder some Critics just exhaust themselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, philosophically, intellectually, any way you care to imagine. They just can't even. No they can't: "This piece is four hours of torture," they will write, in sheer, heartfelt, exasperation: "somebody should kill it off, because I just can't even think about it. I can't."

5 The One Who is Normally Up for it, But Happens to Be in a Foul Mood Tonight

Everybody has an off day now and then, let's face it. And having seen three Hamlets in a row, somebody might just feel like a break. With something completely different. Who can blame them. So they will get back to their laptop at the end of another gruelling day and write: "Another Hamlet. I've seen four now. Why can't people think of another play to do? What is it with Hamlet? Why not Guys and Dolls, for example, or No Sex, Please, We're British..., that hasn't had an airing in a while. Anything funny, really: what's wrong with farce? We have some excellent farce in our theatre tradition..."

6 The One Who Was Expecting Something Else from The Writer or The Director or The Company Now

Some Critics take their job very seriously and are genuinely so interested that they start following your work, and since it is their job to form an opinion on everything, they will inescapably form an opinion also on what you should be doing now, now that they've seen one or two or even three or more other things that you've done. Having seen – and written about – one or two or even three or more other things that you've done naturally entitles (more like: obliges) them to be quite clear about where you should be focusing your attentions next: "It is a shame to see so much talent wasted on yet another tragedy. Not that there is anything wrong with Hamlet, it's a fine play, but surely The Lord Chamberlain's Men have now drained this well to its depth. I would have liked to have seen them come up with something light and charming for a change, especially for this time of year, when nobody likes sitting in a theatre being badgered with cod-philosophy and fake skulls."

7 The One Who Loves it All, But Is Just a Bit Dim

Very occasionally, somebody pitches up at a show full of beans and excitement about the very fact that they're here, and their warm golden heart embraces it all with generous enthusiasm. What could possibly go wrong. "Hamlet is a great play with music by Wilfred Shakespeare: After he kills his uncle with poison, the Prince of Darkness has to sleep with his mother to make the ghost of his father go away. His father is angry with Hamlet, for probably being gay. (His girlfriend drowns herself and he hangs out with guys all the time. The guys have cool names, though.) The production really goes to town over the verse thing which is awesome though like hiphop it's more the beat that counts. I'd give this seven stars just for the old guy Polius who like totally cracks everyone up with his jokes about student loans; which also means the play is still literally totes relevant."

Plus The One Who Really Wants to Be a Writer Too

This is of course an old stereotype, and the fact that it's an old stereotype does not make it universally true, nor does it render it false absolutely: clearly, clearly, there are Critics who really just want to be writers (or filmmakers, or composers, or artists, or chefs) too. And who can blame them: spending your days and nights watching other people do badly what you think you could do well is frustrating. "Aside from the clichés (how often have we heard these rhetorical questions before?), the excessive length (this show's plot could easily, elegantly, condense into eighty minutes without interval), the implausible plot (ghosts? Seriously?) and ridiculous body count (spoiler alert: hardly anyone survives...) there are some nice touches to this piece which, with a bit more development and some proper guidance from a Dramaturg could make for quite an interesting play."

And The One Who Unreservedly Appreciates What's Been Done and Isn't Afraid to Say So

It happens. They want the T-Shirt. And they say so: "This blew my mind, I want the T-Shirt," they say. We, that is people who create these things that Critics review, love this person. With all our hearts. Everything we've ever said about them as a 'species' goes out of the window. All is forgiven. Five stars? We'll have them, and put them right on our poster, thanks. They actually get us. They really get us. They are magnificent. We want to have dinner with them and spend the night with them. Maybe marry them, that wouldn't be hasty, no. They may come again. And chances are they will. And we'll start all over again... 

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how to embrace, nay celebrate, the tube strike

And so, perhaps it is time to take a dispassionate, more ‘philosophical’ perspective on the London ‪#‎TubeStrike‬ today.

I am in a position to take a dispassionate, more ‘philosophical’ perspective on the London #TubeStrike today, because thanks to the combined – so as not to say concerted – efforts, and unwavering commitment to their jobs, by a London Overground driver, a Southwest Trains driver and a bus driver on the No 490 bus, plus all the staff and colleagues and infrastructure that support them in their sterling service to us, the public, I am now (at the time of writing) ‘airside’ at Terminal 5; and having emotionally and psychologically prepared myself for the extravagant expense of a taxi cab, but, thanks to the unsung heroes who have created and given us CityMapper, not incurred that expense, on the one hand, as well as having built in a sizeable margin of error into the additional estimated travel time and – again all credit to aforementioned innumerable transport workers – not really used it, on the other, I have since rewarded my fully acquired British stoicism with a glass of Sancerre and the most delicate sea bass ceviche, devised and provided by our friends from Fortnum & Mason for our delectation here at the airport; and so my level of gruntledness is now ‘pleasing’.

Maybe we are altogether wrong, admonishing London Underground staff for their ‘industrial action’. I feel tempted to say we should embrace, nay, celebrate these occasions. For do they not serve us as timely, and – even at their near-regular frequency – welcome, reminders of how trivial our woes are by comparison.

When trade unions were first thought of as a good idea, their purpose was to secure a tolerable existence for their members, which largely meant high enough wages to put food on the table for their families and to maintain a roof over their heads. How glorious an achievement, then, is it not, that some of our best paid public sector workers today are able to assert their right not to baseline survival, but to a finely tuned ‘work-life balance’: surely this is progress, and enlightenment put into practice, of sorts.

Also, the worst thing that has befallen me, for example, today, is that I left my flat two hours earlier than ordinarily I would have done, and instead of taking the well-trodden, over-familiar route involving the Piccadilly Line and nothing else, I was given the opportunity to take a handsome detour via Clapham Junction where I was able to take some pictures that I might use to illustrate the first instalment of my new concept narrative online, which happens to set off from that precise station, then watch a man sleep on the train, wondering what he might be dreaming of, and make a fleeting acquaintance with Feltham, which I am convinced has its own charms, although my time spent there was sadly too short to discern any of them. Thence, it was an unguided but nevertheless fascinating tour of the Heathrow perimeter, which showed Heathrow up to be quite as large and expansive as it looks from the sky, with stops at (and in) places you would ordinarily only ever see in a less-than-convincing English ‘action’ film by an earnest young director attempting to emulate American television drama. And who would have thought that Terminal 5 has an approach road called ‘Walrus’? That alone warms the cockles of my heart, as I can never hear or see the word ‘walrus’ without imagining John Lennon, perched on a rock in the water, with his glasses on.

And, because I had time to spare, and was frugal in my choice of transportation, I now know what a ‘ceviche’ is. Most worthy of rejoicing in though, surely, and of bearing in my all too often still, I warrant, all too self-obsessed mind, is the fact that nobody dropped a nuclear bomb on my head, burning the skin off my flesh today and incinerating every thing around me.

Perspective can be a soothing balm, indeed.

(Do I now support the London Underground workers in their strike? Of course not, I think they’re being completely unreasonable, but who’s to say that unreasonableness is, in itself, not something we should simply elect to celebrate now and then…)

If you want to read from somebody who doesn't think the tube strike is unreasonable: this is interesting, (though I'm not sure I quite buy it).
 

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