Dopey Tweet

First, a disclaimer: I have even less interest in the activities of Kim Kardashian than in the doctrines espoused by the Pope, but even I was drawn to read the article suggesting that she tweeted an apparent accusation that God’s representative on earth was a dope fiend.

As was to be expected, much ado about nothing – and far less entertaining than the play of that name. She tweeted ‘The pope is dope’ and according to the Guardian, ‘Most would probably interpret the tweet ... as an endorsement.’

Would they? I am certainly not ‘down with the kids’ but I would assume negativity – and at my great age, I recall a time when a dope was an idiot: at school, if you were then only one in your gang not to get a joke, you were assailed with ‘You dope’.

More importantly, Kardashian’s tweet does show the dangers of social media, particularly for the famous. In my youth, favourite celebrities could be assumed to be intelligent, since we never heard or read anything other than agent-approved text and footage. The recently-shown video of John Lennon suggests censoring went on behind the scenes.

Now however, we have only to read some celeb twitter feeds to get a picture of their actual knowledge and skill level. 

As Abraham Lincoln and Mark Twain famously never said: ‘Better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.’

The Power of Networking #letsleverage

We were fortunate enough to host an amazing conference for business owners and entrepreneurs on the Isle of Wight last Tuesday.

I was unfortunate enough not to be able to attend – previous commitments. But the next morning I noticed there was a Periscope video of some of the event still available to view, so I took the opportunity to see what I’d missed.

Halfway through the presentation I watched, I had already taken an A4 page full of notes, and then one tip stood out for me, personally, as fitting brilliantly with what my business is about and suiting my strengths and interests.

It was practical advice which I could action immediately – and I did.

The next day I was at a networking meeting and mentioned how helpful this advice was to Lyn, the conference organiser – I also told her I would sign up for the video of the conference which is now available. 

Other business owners listened in to our conversation, with the result that they are also likely to buy the video and benefit from the presentations, and they also know more about my business and can spread the word.

Two days, and I’ve spread the word about my NLP work, gained some potential clients both from the networking and the advice given at the conference: Lyn has more potential customers for the video and I was able to make a suggestion which will I hope help her to not only make more video sales but garner interest towards the next conference – which I for one will be attending!

The power of networking!!


Oh, and what was that valuable tip? Well, you’ll have to watch the conference video to find out....

Lets Leverage

Periscope – Arrggghhhh!

A few weeks ago I was introduced by a lovely businesswoman friend to Periscope. I’d never heard of it before.

It’s a Twitter-connected app which allows anyone to point a camera phone at themselves – or anything else - and broadcast. Other Periscope users can view the video live; comment on what they see/hear and interact with the broadcaster. Once the video has finished it is available on the Periscope site for 24 hours for further viewing. Some users then capture their videos and put them up on YouTube etc for posterity.

Like everything else, it is a tool and can be used for good and ill. I’m sure there are plenty of trolls posting insults on videos, and people broadcasting for weird reasons, but you can also choose who you ‘follow’ (like on Twitter) and you will then receive a pop-up when one of the people you follow is about to go live with a scope.

So far I have followed about five people – as you would expect, those I know or have common interest with, and I have lurked and watched – and learned.

So having just started two new businesses (Find Your Family – genealogy service, and NLPIOW – as an NLP coach, trainer and counsellor) it looks like the right time to actually take the plunge and scope myself. As I would say to any procrastinators out there, the only right time is now. So this afternoon I will take that plunge. See you on the other side....

Age means being able to say I don't care!!

There are some disadvantages of reaching your middle years: you need glasses to read the small print; sometimes your knees make a weird clicky sound when you get up and you realise that unless you're very lucky indeed you now have more years behind you on this planet than ahead.

But the advantages outweigh all this: the main one being I genuinely no longer care what people think of me. Oh yes, when I was twenty I claimed to be an individual, disregarding of other people's opinions, but that was only because that was the fashionable thing to say.

Let me clarify: there are still people whose opinion I care about and trust: if my other half tells me a dress doesn't suit me I'll have a good look in the mirror and probably won't wear it when out with him at least, and if my son decided I was a crap mother and he never wanted to speak to me again I'd be devastated.

Because, let's face it, we humans are a convivial lot: we like to feel we are part of a mutually appreciated group, liked and maybe even admired by our tribe: we are all a strange mixture of self absorbed and needy of external approbation. Our forefathers had the mutual support system, of their family and their small village, beyond whose confines few travelled. They also had the approval of God - subject to the relevant requirements.

Our culture is now global and for the most part secular: we are subject to the approval not of one tiny local group of humanity but potentially of anyone in the world via the Internet. 

Which should make things easier: if you happened to be the "only gay in the village", a single middle aged woman who knew a bit about herbal remedies, or were born with a noticeable birth mark, in medieval times, you were probably headed for trial by water: if you drowned, at least you'd proved you weren't a witch and had escaped burning. Nowadays, wherever you live, you will be able to converse with people with whom you have something in common, even if that something is train spotting, following Justin Beiber or collecting marmalade jars. 

So your tribe can be, and often is, formed around  personal interests. Nothing wrong with that: Internet forums and appreciation societies have spawned thousands of friendships and indeed marriages. The problem is, being open to global friendship also opens you up to global criticism, whether personal abuse by Twitter trolls or far more subtle and persuasive media pressure.

Do you have the perfect beach body? Do you work out five times a week, drink eight litres of water and eat eight portions of veg every day? Have you got a capsule wardrobe full of this season's must haves? Is your car/laptop/TV/fitted kitchen the envy of your friends? What are you going to do about it?

Well, as it happens, no, no, no, no and nothing actually. Because I genuinely don't care.

I take care of my health, try to be kind and loving, and live my life to my own rules.

I have gone from 'Oh my God, how can I fit into society?' to 'Why would I want to conform to what the media - or anyone else - demands of me for their own agenda?' 

And that feels good.

The Rose Readathon: A Unique Experience

If I were ever invited to appear on the TV programme ‘Room 101’ I know what at least one my nominations would be: people who qualify the adjective ‘unique’.

 

The definition of unique that there is literally nothing like the object, experience or whatever being described. Nothing, therefore, can logically be described as ‘very unique’, rather unique’ or ‘a bit unique’ – it either is or it isn’t. If a comparable thing exists, uniqueness is lost.

 

Which means there are actually very few unique things in this world: but on Saturday I experienced one of them. For – until and unless another is discovered – The Rose Theatre on Bankside is the only remaining Elizabethan theatre in the world – on the globe, I nearly wrote, but that would tread on the toes of its near neighbour, which is of course – ha! – just a replica.

 

Of course, The Globe does boast a few things The Rose lacks – walls, a full size stage... not to mention heating and toilets. But at The Rose one is in the presence of the actual, original, sixteenth century theatre – admittedly only the foundations, but the intention is that once these remains have been excavated and properly preserved, visitors to what will be a museum and working theatre will be able to stand almost literally in the shoes of Shakespeare, Marlowe and other great figures who trod the boards here.

 

To support The Rose Revealed Project towards this aim, the theatre hosted its second Readathon on Saturday: anyone who wished to was invited to sign up to take part in or watch the reading of one or more of six plays which were performed, one an hour, from 2pm. Five Shakespeares and one Marlowe.

When I turned up for the first Readathon last year I expected trained actors to be on hand to take the main roles, with those who had effectively walked off the streets to be offered something like ‘Second Soldier on the Left’.

 

Not a bit of it! Every person who has expressed an interest drew a slip from a hat bearing the name of a character so each actor had an equal chance of playing Hamlet, Lady Macbeth or Dr Faustus.

 

This did result in a few amusing castings, such as a strapping young man playing Ophelia while a petite lady played opposite him as Hamlet, but the actors and audience took this all – quite literally – in good part, and if anything it added to the enjoyment and entertainment.

 

Although billed as a Readathon, and although there was no requirement to do so, most readers performed as well, so rather than, as it could have been, a static readthrough, the effect was that of an early rehearsal of a play at which the cast had not yet had time to learn their lines.

 

As an audience member for one play, I found I could disregard the fact that the actors were holding scripts and for the main part enjoy it as I would enjoy a play in performance. As a reader for other plays, I thoroughly enjoyed not knowing exactly how others would interpret their roles, and acting and interacting with them.

 

The experience of performing on stage in the very theatre where such luminaries have acted, speaking lines written over 400 years before, yards away from the stage on which the writer once stood – now that truly is unique.

Music on a Distant Shore - Ryde Depozitory

From the moment you enter the theatre you are transported to the Scottish Highlands by the superb fiddle playing, echoing one of the play's themes.

The Depozitory provides a cosy and very civilised environment, and I was soon settled with a glass of red to enjoy the show.

And enjoy it I did.

The early scenes were a little slow for me, I have to admit, but they set the scene – we met Elaine, a struggling widow juggling a job she hates and her domestic and maternal responsibilities while yearning for love – and a different job (and boss!)

Once the internet romance starts to blossom, juxtaposed with the grind of the telesales job she clearly isn’t suited to, as her frustrated boss seems to delight in pointing out, the pace picks up and the audience is carried along by the excellent performances.

There are some moments of high comedy, even if one or two of the plot devices are a little predictable, and the four actors make the most of the humour with careful timing and delivery, while the underlying pathos of the characters’ situations come through more and more as the play progresses and elements of the past unfold alongside the current action.

While we immediately see and sympathise with the difficulties faced by Elaine and her son Kevin, who is desperate for some form of connection with his dead father, we could be forgiven if at first sight we think Alma, the ‘happy medium’, and Arthur, Elaine’s boss, have their life organised as they want it.

Without giving away the plot, as the play moves towards its denouement, we discover that those we thought were in control of their own lives are just as unfulfilled as anyone else. And through four extremely sensitive and accomplished performances we are led to an unexpected but fitting conclusion.

Gradually, along with the characters, we learn that although we may think we know what we want in life, sometimes life itself has other ideas.

Music on a Distant Shore is on this evening at Chale Church – if you don’t catch it there, it’s worth crossing to the North Island to see it in Portsmouth on 26 June.

The Truth Untold

This brand new play by Kevin Wilson, takes its title from a Wilfred Owen poem, Strange Meeting, which explores the meeting of two enemy World War I soldiers in the Underworld.

Appropriate for this centenary year, but the play takes the theme rather than subject matter of the poem: the action is set firmly in the present day: two protagonists, former school friends who are now a Conservative MP and a Social Services manager respectively.

Just like the soldiers however, these men have so much - including their past - in common, but find themselves on different sides of the political debate because of their chosen career path. Both are pressurised by the expectations of others and the truth gets lost amid the posturing and empty justifications.

The catalyst for their meeting after many years apart is the death of a small boy in care, and the subplot exploring the way the media cynically exploits the situation with no thought for anything other than selling copy is effectively written,, particularly a scene in which the boy's grieving mother cannot voice her feelings and allows the reported to construct the copy he wants and portray her as feckless and at the same time critical of the system which has allowed her son to die.

The profoundness of the impact of the meeting on both protagonists could have jarred without the cleverly interspersed flashback scenes which enabled us to appreciate the depth of, and reasons for the attachment between these two as boys. With this insight, the audience appreciates the way the confrontation with a former ally and friend turned opponent leads each to question, and then reject, the values of the life he has been leading.

The play itself was beautifully written, with some telling speeches at exactly the right moment; the staging was simple - the odd scene change could have been slightly sharper but that's a minor criticism and it didn't impact on the flow of the story. The portrayals of the protagonists were sharply drawn and the emotional torture as the play unfolded was brought out well. The supporting cast, playing various roles, were effective, especially the MP's ambitious wife, and the dialogue between her and her husband was at once humorous and insightful.

Not only is the nature of the truth - told and untold - questioned, but our habit of wanting to pigeon-hole people, and the media exploitation of this, is laid bare. I was led into the trap of wanting to label characters - feckless? Grieving? Sentimental? Uncaring? Gay? Straight? Conservative? Labour? But in the end, the only label worth putting on anyone is human. And being true to yourself is the most valuable form of truth.

I very much hope The Truth Untold will be staged again - it deserves a wider audience than it has yet had.