Did you know that, today, the 9th of April, is National Unicorn Day? No? Neither did I until last week.
I struggled to believe that such a ‘day’ existed, so I Googled it and, yup, there it is – April 9, National Unicorn Day. How bizarre! I have but just the one question. Why? (Apparently, it’s to give children a fun day to celebrate and nothing at all to do with a cynical marketing ploy by toy manufacturers.)
My Google search also highlighted an old Change.org petition that sought to move the ‘celebratory’ day from 9 April to 6 June. Who does this kind of thing? Or is it me that’s the idiot and not the petitioners (don’t answer that!)?
Anyway, just to show that coincidences happen all the time, I had, purely by chance, just written a unicorn limerick for my ice-cream buddy.
She’d asked for a copy of one of my B&W film photography exhibition prints, a print of some street art in Aberdeen that shows a girl holding a unicorn, so I wrote a dedication in limerick fashion and pasted it to the back of the picture frame.
NuArt, Correction Wynd, Aberdeen.
So here, on the one and only occasion that I will recognise National Unicorn Day, is a unicorn limerick:
An idea that some can’t resist, Is that unicorns really exist. But they’re hard to espy And that explains why You don’t see them unless you’re half-pissed!
Following last week’s treatise on vision and mission statements, this week’s limerick continues the theme in more salutary fashion. Just like the previous one (The Sort-of-Serious One) this week’s ALAW outlines the difference between a vision and a mission, but it also usefully reminds you that you need staff buy-in as well, otherwise it’s entirely pointless; much like the corporate bol**cks to which the narrative for ALAW #132 refers.
So here is the second of my ‘Vision and Mission’ competition entries of yesteryear (for readers south of the border, pish is used here in the Scottish colloquial sense and not as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary!):
The Salutary One
A Vision’s an overall wish That a Mission seeks to accomplish, But if they fail to enthuse They are bugger-all use And amount to a whole load of pish.
On art, limericks and the dead-hand of corporate bol**cks…
Some years ago, many of the artworks on the lecture theatre walls in the Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen, were removed and replaced with posters of supposedly corporate relevance and interest. At about the same time, its then Director demanded that we should aim for our science “to be just good enough”. Hey, guys, let’s forget about creating a vibrant place to work! Who needs the sort of workplace to which bright young scientists could be attracted or one in which we can help them to develop a fulfilling career in science? And let’s forget about organisational reputation too!
No wonder the Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist laughed out loud when we told her that was our Director’s ‘vision’!
Oh, and by the way, f**k art!
I was recently reminded of all this when reading an article in the Graun entitled Is your boss a bit daft?. In my opinion, that would be a ‘yes’ when considering the senior leadership teams under which I worked in my later years, but fortunately for them the Graun also tells me that it’s possibly not their fault because:
organisations that emphasise image and symbolic manipulation can often reward smart people for not using their intelligence, creating a culture of “functional stupidity”. [the Graun’s article links to this amusingly-titled paper: Alvesson and Spicer, 2012, A Stupidity-Based Theory of Organizations]
‘Functional stupidity’! I wish I’d invented the phrase as it describes perfectly some of the tripe that at times seeped down on us from on high. I think the removal of artworks and their replacement by corporate statements to ’emphasise image and symbolic manipulation’ is a lesser example, but an example all the same.
So I was amused when a former colleague recently derided the art-less-ness of the place:
I often wish we hadn’t got rid of the art that used to hang in the lab … I suspect philistine elements of a recent regime were responsible for that.
I agreed wholeheartedly:
Getting rid of the artworks in a science-orientated institute in favour of vision statements and corporate branding always seemed rather vulgar to me. I can just imagine the Medici’s telling da Vinci to stop his work on the Mona Lisa or The Last Supper in order to focus more on bringing his inventions ‘to market’ whilst simultaneously advising him that his gizmos were to be ‘just good enough’!
Anyway, this all brought to mind an occasion some years ago when the Laboratory’s then Head of Science decided to ask staff to vote on their preferred ‘mission statement’ from a list of candidate drafts (and in doing so he failed IMHO to distinguish between a mission statement and a ‘vision’, as I believe his alternatives were clearly the latter and not the former!).
Now, I know I wasn’t the only person to view this development with quiet despair, because a more senior colleague suggested that we should try and see who could develop the best mission statement via the medium of a limerick.
The prize was a Kit Kat and was ultimately won by the only competitor that actually used the word ‘science’ in their entry! I submitted several and was doing quite well until the judge read the last one and disqualified me from the competition (of which more in a future post).
So, as inspiration is currently lacking for any new limericks, I’ve decided to present a series of older, unpublished limericks over the next few weeks that are drawn from my ‘Vision and Mission’ competition entries of yesteryear. Here’s the first:
The Sort-of-Serious One
M Luther King said: “I have a dream!” That’s a Vision, if you know what I mean, But how we pursue What we wish to be true Is the Mission for all in our Team.
Several years ago I read an article about rugby’s Sir Ian McGeechan. The author introduced it by writing that, as he’d grown older, he appreciated more and more the decency of a person above their achievements. McGeechan, he went on to say, was not only one of the most fundamentally decent of people, but also one who had achieved remarkable things.
I mentioned this later to a work colleague on whom I reported in performance appraisals and his reply was mischievous; did it matter if he didn’t achieve anything during the course of a year providing that he showed, instead, what a thoroughly decent chap he was? Er, that would be a ‘No’!
McGeechan was, by chance, one of the TV studio summarisers last weekend during Scotland’s epic draw with England in the final Six Nations rugby game of the season. I wonder if he’d watched the earlier game that day, when Wales demolished the Irish team to claim the tournament’s Triple Crown, Championship and Grand Slam? If he had, then he would have seen a kind act courtesy of the Welsh captain.
As reported on the WalesOnline web site, the Welsh and Irish teams were both uber-pysched and totally focused prior to the kick-off, seeking to get the pre-match preliminaries out of the way before tearing into each other. The rain was falling heavily, so it was cold and wet and the lad selected as the Welsh mascot was shivering badly as he stood in front of Alun Wyn Jones, the Welsh lock forward and captain.
Despite the formalities and his focus on the game ahead, Jones noticed this and took time-out to take off his jacket and wrap it around the youngster before laying into the Welsh anthem with only a slightly less savage demeanour than that which later put the Irish to the sword. Apparently no-one who knows him was in the least surprised by Jones’ thoughtfulness. And what a win in the game itself! Great achievement underwritten by sheer decency. I like that.
When la vita turns out non è bella In the rain without an umbrella, Wyn Jones is the guy Who’ll help you stay dry ‘Cos the bloke’s just a real decent fella!
(‘Yes’, I do know that in his case Wyn is part of a double first name and not part of his surname, but, please, grant me some poetic licence!)
Postscript: Technically, I was a reasonably good rugby player in my day, but a bit too soft and small even by the less-than-gargantuan average size of players back then.
I played hooker and modelled myself on the Irish stalwart Ken Kennedy who had developed the role of hooker from one of a fat violent plodder who only scrummaged to that of a mobile player who could pass, kick, tackle and run with the ball.
(I was stunned a couple of years ago – in a good way – to be told by a former school-days teammate who now follows Saracens RFC, that their hooker, the South African international Schalk Brits, played much the same way that I did. Wow! It might be factual b******s, but as compliments go, it doesn’t get much better!)
Actually, I was a county player at schoolboy level and good enough later to get picked to play for Scottish Universities and a couple of invitation teams before giving up in my early 20s due to my dislike of psychopaths and rugger-b*****s. (Oh, and there was also that occasion when I couldn’t sit my exams because I’d spent all term training, playing and touring!)
The Scottish Universities XV, 1981, pictured on the lawn by King’s College, Aberdeen. Yours truly is second right on the back row.
The Scottish Universities’ shirt design, above, was in the style of a rugby league jersey. It was, for those days, a none-too-subtle, two-fingered salute to the Scottish Rugby Union as it had refused to support the team financially because the coach, Mal Reid (suited and booted in the pic), was a former rugby league professional.
(There is an interesting-if-old article about Mal here. The former Glasgow player referred to in the piece, Walter Malcolm, is pictured, above, in his younger days immediately to my right.)
I’ll allow myself a couple more anecdotes from those days:
I had a false start to my tertiary educational experience which is why, although I am a graduate of The University of Dundee, my academic not-quite-alma-mater was in London. And it just happens that as a callow 18-year-old, I travelled from the big city to Dublin to attend a girlfriend’s 21st birthday party.
Her dad, Bobby, was a past-President of Wanderers rugby club, a team that shared the old Landsdowne Road rugby ground with the Landsdowne club itself. So, it was no surprise that I found myself cheering Wanderers in a game that Saturday and was bought beers in their clubhouse after the match by Bobby (who knew everyone and more on the south side of Dublin). We hadn’t been there long when he said “Come on Phil, I’ll introduce you to Robbie”.
Now, I recognised ‘Robbie’ before I’d been told his surname, it was Robbie McGrath, the then Irish international scrum-half. “Phil”, said Bobby, “this is Robbie McGrath. Robbie, this is Phil. Phil plays rugby too”. “Great” was the reply “and who do you play for?”. If only I’d thought to lie, but I told him the truth: “Er, North East London Polytechnic second team”. It was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. If McGrath had thought to laugh out loud, then he hid it well and was a generous and encouraging soul. A terrific player and a decent bloke too!
I dropped out from the polytechnic at the end of my first term before enrolling at Dundee for the following autumn and, after a year or so, I was picked for the university’s first team.
In those days, penalties around the defenders 25m line were often ‘run’ by the attacking team and not kicked for goal (muddy grounds and no kicking tee made it harder to slot home any kicks).
When penalties were ‘run’, the opposing scrum-half would tap the ball and pass it to the so-called pivot whose back was turned to the opposition. The scrum-half would then run around the pivot whilst the attacking forwards would charge en masse towards it. The point of it all was that defenders didn’t know to whom the pivot would pass the ball – the scrum-half on his run-around who would then open out play to his backs, or to one of his forwards charging at full tilt to smash into the defenders, closely followed by the rest of his pack.
Now, the pivot was always the hooker and it was the defending hooker’s job to sprint towards his ‘oppo’ as soon as their scrum-half had tapped the ball; the intention being to ‘smash’ the pivot just as he received his scrum-half’s pass.
Usually you never made it before the pivot switched the ball to his scrum-half or to one of his rampaging forwards, which is how, when sprinting at full speed, I once managed to crash-tackle Iain Angus McLeod Paxton who was also sprinting flat-out, towards me. Paxton had just been picked as the Scottish international Number 8 and that season (1981) was when he won the first of his 40 Scottish and 4 British Lions caps. We both stood up after the collision (and I was delighted that I’d stopped him so abruptly), but to this day I wonder whether he, like me, felt that every bone in his body had been dislocated? I somehow doubt it – and there’s the difference!
Or should that be Three cheers for the marchers of March? I’m hugely encouraged by today’s ‘strikes’ by school pupils globally protesting against climate change. Of course the usual suspects will be up in arms about the kids missing a day of their education, but, frankly, if you are not educating youngsters to think and act for themselves, then your educational system is not up to very much, is it? Conversely, if you are educating them to be independent thinkers, with an eye on their futures, then don’t complain as and when they take action against the very real threats that exist as to their future.
Whilst opinionated b******s may sneer, I’ll personally raise a loud cheer For the youngsters whose action I hope will gain traction: To live sans a climate of fear.
I wasn’t over-enamoured with the ‘yoof TV’ movement of the 1980s and 90s, partly due to its progenitor’s ‘Marmite’ personality (although in fairness to Marmite, quite a lot of people like it, but did/does anyone actually like Janet Street-Porter? This guy certainly didn’t) and partly because, as with each generation, it sought to take aim at the earlier cohorts’ mores and extinguish them before clapping itself on the back for being the only radical generation ever.
Punk rock was certainly like that as well. Its commentators look back on it as mould-breaking, but, to be honest, it was only the decadal equivalent of the 1950s Teddy Boys or the Mods and Rockers of the 1960s or even the androgynous Glam-rockers of the early and mid-70s.
And what did punk rock’s mould-breaking lead to? The bl**dy New Romantics, that’s what! Oh, and 20-something years later, a middle-aged ‘Johnny Rotten’ advertising Country Life Butter on TV. Some revolution that was!
It’s obvious then that I don’t think that Street-Porter’s yoof TV movement was as radical as I suspect she thinks it was, but, as with all generational torrents, something washes up that is, indeed, memorable. So, from Street-Porter’s yoof TV era, what or who was it?
Kim Taylor, that’s who.
“Who?” you ask.
Kim Taylor, you know, the TV presenter who fronted the Rough Guide shows and was something of a style icon. The lass that wore sunglasses all the time and was a bit sardonic.
Remember her now? The former presenter who’s just died.
“Oh”, you say, “Magenta Devine. I quite liked her on the Rough Guide. I wonder what happened to her after that?”
Hmmm! So do I.
A lass changed her name by design And wore sunglasses all of the time, But I’ve heard now she’s died So could front a Rough Guide To the Heavenly Kingdom Devine!
It’s that time of year again when students of the RGU Gray’s School of Art short-course on B&W film photography finalise their exhibition prints.
It’s always helpful to get an exhibition print ‘in the bag’ early on during the course as it takes some of the pressure off. I managed to do that this year, which was just as well as I then struggled for weeks to make progress on any others. Finally, I got a couple more finished just in time to be considered for the exhibition. Phew, panic over!
The short-course exhibition encompasses more than just B&W film photography, it includes exhibits from around 500 students covering: Drawing, Printmaking, Painting, Jewellery, Ceramics, Fashion, Printed Textiles, Kilt Making, Bag Making and 3D Design. All-in-all it’s an impressive show and, for anyone local to Aberdeen, this year the exhibition runs from Monday 11 March to Friday 22 March with the following opening hours:
(Parking restrictions operate from 08.00 – 16.00, Monday to Friday).
The private viewing, at which light refreshments are provided, is on Sunday 10 March for exhibitors and their families and friends (in other words, anyone can go because, for a limited period only, I am friends with the world!) and that takes place from 10.30 – 14.30.
To date, I cannot recall any risqué photographs being shown (or taken!), we leave that sort of thing to the life-drawing classes, but I suspect we’re all just ‘too British’ to indulge in taking pics of models in the ‘altogether’, which made me think…
A man with a camera once said Shooting nudes just filled him with dread! He’d lose his composure On over-exposure So focused on landscapes instead!
I have the unfortunate privilege of being represented in the UK parliament by Ross Thomson, a young conservative MP who has appeared, on more than one occasion, to show himself unsuited to public office.
As reported by The Scotsman:
His ‘off-duty’ antics while on a supposed fact-finding mission to Iraq deeply offended families of soldiers that had been killed there while on active duty;
He considered a clearly hoax smartphone app called “instantgrammes” to be something that seemed to make ordering class 1 drugs online “sound cool”;
He was obliged to pay back a travel and subsistence claim in which a friend stayed with him overnight at a hotel at taxpayers’ expense. This took place after discussing “possible employment opportunities [with his friend], which was followed by a drinking session in Edinburgh”.
Since then he has been escorted by police from the Stranger’s Bar in the Houses of Parliament over allegations of drunkingly groping other revellers, something he denies.
Although no action was taken subsequently by the police or the House of Commons authorities on that occasion (because no-one concerned had made a formal complaint) the latter may now take action over an earlier incident as an official complaint has since been made by a Scottish MP concerning that previous episode of alleged inappropriate behaviour.
According to the Daily Record, the complainant “was frustrated at what he saw as Mr Thomson’s denials about his behaviour [about the most recent allegations]”.
Meantime, the locals are revolting…
Here’s the limerick:
One cannot escape the furore Or the lewd and libidinous story ‘Bout an errant MP Whose downfall we’ ll see In the heart-Land of Grope and Tory!
À gauche I possess a gammy shoulder and a sore thumb-cum-wrist joint, whereas à droite it seems that I’m developing Dupuytren’s contracture in my hand, otherwise known as Viking’s finger or claw! (Oh, and I just broke a tooth.)
Meanwhile, my friend has just the one malady, a musculo-skeletal pain en bas à l’arrière which, I am told, is extremely uncomfortable at times.
So, does a chap just hang around feeling sorry for himself and radiate sympathy to a fellow invalid, or does he write a limerick?
No contest! Here it is (with my apologies to sensitive readers):
There once was a chap couldn’t sit ‘Cos he’d broken his bottom a bit. He said that: “I fear There’s a hole in my rear And a crack that runs right down the back of it!”
…when I see that print coming in the developer, it’s as if I win the lottery” (Don McCullin)
It’s approaching the time of year when students on the Gray’s School of Art ‘short course’ on black and white film photography begin to panic and wonder if they’ll ever get a print worthy of the end-of-course exhibition. I’ve got one, thank goodness, as it takes the pressure off, but I’d like a couple more.
I had high hopes for at least one other (my ‘ice-cream buddy’ has seen an early version of it and has asked for a copy when it’s finished!), but I have just spent a frustrating hour and a half in my own darkroom and can’t seem to get it right. Nevertheless, I’m already in awe at a couple of pictures that my friends on the course will be showing so I think that bodes well for the exhibition.
This has all coincided with a documentary on the veteran photographer Don McCullin entitled ‘Looking for England’ that has just been shown on BBC 4. He’s an interesting character, albeit of his era, who is renowned for his compelling, if at times horrific, photographs of various global catastrophes and warring outbreaks.
The Nikon F camera that McCullin was carrying when it famously stopped a Khmer Rouge sniper’s bullet when he was accompanying government soldiers across a Cambodian paddy-field in the late 1960s. He recounts the experience here: http://www.aaronschuman.com/mccullinarticle.html
The documentary is on the BBC iPlayer and worth catching if only to view the developing landscape of ‘Englishness’ throughout McCullin’s life from his street photography of the 50s and 60s to the modern day.
It also shows some clips of him in his darkroom, as he prefers film photography to digital:
I have a dark room, and I still process film, but digital photography can be a totally lying kind of experience; you can move anything you want… the whole thing can’t be trusted, really.
I don’t know if it’s intentional, but the programme also coincides with a retrospective of McCullin’s work at Tate Britain that runs until May (memo to self: organise that weekend away NOW!).
Here’s the limerick:
A photographer was heard to remark That shooting with film was a lark. ‘Tis a thing that envelops, Consumes and develops And one that keeps you in the dark!
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