This highlights that the putative European Constitution may, if we sign up, mean that women won’t be able to get abortions if it is identified that the unborn child has a severe genetic disease like Down’s syndrome, because this may be regarded as practising eugenics and therefore prohibited under the Constitution. The abortion debate is obviously a highly emotive one. But to me, this seems wrong. Under this rule, we would force a woman to bring into the world a severely disabled child (with an obvious major impact on her life, raising questions about her ability to cope) once a foetus has been identified as likely to develop into a severely disabled child, but if before any testing has taken place, a woman decides, say, that she would be unable to cope with an unwanted child, disabled or otherwise, she can abort a foetus that would have developed into a healthy child. That seems a strange result to me. Also, I admit that my views tend towards pro–choice and I shy very much away from the idea that the law should force a woman to continue to carry a foetus which will result in her having a child she doesn’t want, for whatever reason.

Prog-Rock action

Went to see Steve Hackett (former Genesis guitarist) last night at Queen Elizabeth Hall at the South Bank Centre. Musically, not my normal thing, but my drum teacher was playing. Interesting gig. An all–seater auditorium, which always makes it a bit strange and lots of really die–hard fans who knew all the songs. Steve Hackett reminded me of a younger Bricktop from the film Snatch, perhaps mainly because of his yellowish tinted glasses. They played well. Of course I didn’t know any of the songs. He played some old Genesis stuff, some old Hackett stuff and some stuff off the new 2003 album. While on the subject of music and my drum teacher, I must give some thought about what I should do with my drumming — whether it’s worth keeping it up and trying to find some people to play with or whether it’s too late in life to get to the level where I can play with other people. Whenever I see live music I always think it’d be fun to be a bassist. In my role as a total dilettante, maybe I should take up the bass!

Went out with the police on a Bikesafe London day on Saturday, but I did not get around to posting about it over the weekend. Interesting and worth doing for any London bikers who happen to be reading this. Also, sponsored by Transport for London, bringing the cost to you down to the bargain price of £25 including lunch, so a good way of getting some money back from Ken for once.

The nowhere land of self doubt

Having read that last post, I feel almost churlish in giving my half–assed opinions about what was certainly an intelligent, original piece of work, put together by acknowledged experts. The difference between serious art and popular entertainment is interesting. Last night’s endeavor was serious art. Therefore unless you are Lloyd Newson or something, who are you to say whether it worked or whether it didn’t? And if you are Lloyd Newson, you wouldn’t comment. As someone who has never done anything creative in their life, it occurs to me that I don’t feel comfortable opining like I have in the post below. Whereas I am quite happy to say that T.A.T.U are absolute crap, despite not being a musician.

Thinking more generally along similar lines, it’s funny. I, like most people I suppose, am just an average, mediocre bloke. No–one gives a shit what I think. Despite being nearly 30, I still seem to be surrounded by my elders and betters, except where I am surrounded by my youngers and betters. What are we non–brilliant people supposed to do? Just have the chutzpah to wade in with a view about everything and the hell with it if we couldn’t have come up with something half as interesting ourselves? Or creep around like mice because somebody always knows better? Do I have anything to add, to anything on this planet? It’s frustrating sometimes. Maybe it would be nice to do something creative, for once. But what?

When you’re five, you’re a unique, special little child, full of possibilities. But once you’re in your late twenties, you’re probably just another fattening, balding (if you’re a bloke), eminiently replacable, average boring twat. When there’s 6,325,433,285 people in the world, there’s always going to be someone who knows better. In fact, someone’s probably already said this, better. So what do you do? The traditional response I suppose would be to have kids. Maybe one of them will turn out to be the next David Beckham. But I am sure that this is the wrong answer. The wrong answer. Everyone has the potential to do something half decent on this planet but no–one (in particular) is likely to. It is only by ignoring the odds that anyone is going to achieve anything. And that, I guess, is why a bit of chutzpah is no bad thing. Stuff it. Ballett Frankfurt, my comments stand. But thank you for an interesting evening. Now I guess I ought to start thinking about what the hell my own work is going to be.

Further dancefloor action

So I went to see Ballett Frankfurt perform Kammer/Kammer last night at Sadler’s Wells. My quick, initial reaction is that this was not a typical dance thing at all. Innovative use of video, with videographers on stage and flat–screen TVs around the audience. Often, the dance would be going on behind pieces of the set, so the only clear view you could get of the live performance was via the screens. That sounds a bit pointless and crap, but it was very well done and actually quite cool in practice. Overall the piece was more like theatre than dance — lots of speech and storyline. It seemed to be two intermingled plays about homosexual obsession. One involving Catherine Deneuve, for some reason. All in all, I’d say it was clever, looked cool, but didn’t completely work for me. The fact that it was “dance” and there were a few people dancing about at times, meant that they attempted to get away with things that they couldn’t have in a “straight play” — I felt that, in the end, they left the story and some of the ideas truncated. But, for me, the dance element did not do enough to take over in developing those ideas. The piece had gone too far into being narrative theatre and didn’t quite seem to work out as narrative theatre. Interesting and visually striking, nonetheless.

Times/Times

Dance Insider

Guardian/Guardian

Labels: contemporary dance

This is an amusing overthetop satire about the alleged dumbing down in education.

Murder on the frikkin dance floor

Went to see Jonathan Burrows at the Place Theatre last night. Now this guy is, I understand, something of a big swinger in the contemporary dance world. But to the non–afficionado — I’m thinking about most of my mates here — this performance would have been regarded as a classic example of why contemporary dance is a load of old rubbish. It was two bald blokes, one chunky, one skinny, sat on wooden chairs, making various gestures and sounds for 45 minutes, according to notes to which they kept referring at the foot of each chair. But it made me think about what my attitude to dance is. I really don’t get dance. It’s quite an inaccessible art form — audiences tend to be quite educated in it, or even participants themselves. And for some reason, you feel you need to “get” it. Whereas music, you can just listen to. But I really don’t know what I am supposed to be taking away from dance and I feel that I ought to know. That’s not to say that the opportunity to sit quiet for an hour and just watch movement with greater intensity than you would normally is uninteresting, even if you treat it as a kind of personal meditation time. So in summary, not a bad evening, but I couldn’t say whether the work itself was a work of genius or something that me and a mate could have put together with a bit of thought. No doubt the Guardian or something will enlighten us.

Aside: The woman in front of me seemed to find the whole thing immensely funny and kept cracking up whenever a new movement was introduced. While there were moments of mild comedy that, say, raised a wry grin from about half the audience, I think that this woman must have been high. Either that, or she should stay away from Russ Abbott videos. She’d go into apoplexy with amusement. Now I’ve said that; she was probably mentally ill or had Tourette's syndrome or something, and I’ve just been incredibly insensitive (Sir Alex!!!!).

Labels: contemporary dance

This is interesting where it talks about why blog websites seem to be such a load of old pony.

This is a funny flash animation about how not to drive.

Lawyers amongst you may find that this article in the Times about Counsel strikes a chord at times.

Dire-ised

So webloggers are digging out their childhood diaries from the attic and reproducing summary extracts on their sites? Maybe I should get a piece of this action. So not only do you get to read about the tedious minutiae of my everyday life, you’d get to read about the even more boring minutiae of my life as a ten year old. A kind of Cider with Rosie for the 1980s. But I suppose scrumpy in the hay loft or wherever would be replaced by a bottle of “Thunderbird” and maybe a bit of “doobidge” in the Forbury Gardens. Second thoughts, I don’t think I’ll inflict it on you.