Autumn Leaves

The last time we spoke it was July, the sun blazed down and warmed the cockles of our hearts and maybe even the heart of your cockles. Now here we are in October, it's just past 11am and the sky is dark with rain and falling leaves.  The cycle of nature reminding us that we are part of a world that changes. But what will never change is my sense of duty and service to my dearly cherished flock...hello flock.

I know that some of your will have been following the progress of The Guru as a theatrical megastar on the other blog but today we have other fish to fry. It is Friday after all.

Mrs B and I have recently retuned from a pilgrimage to the Mediterranean, first class of course.

Our vessel of choice, a cruise ship - the Celebrity Eclipse. There were actually no celebrities to be seen anywhere on the ship but there were lots of stars and they are the reason the cruise was so enjoyable.

Speaking to the HR manager onboard, I discovered that there were 73 nationalities represented in the crew. From the UK to South Africa, the USA to Indonesia and Macedonia to Mauritius. 

I didn't spend a lot of time with officers and mangers though, I enjoyed talking to and interacting with waiters and stewards and I was reminded of the sacrifices these men and women make as they went out of their way to make our holiday enjoyable and memorable.

The working conditions for cruise ship crews have been well documented, but hearing first hand about how a man will leave his village in Bali to spend 9 months at sea, was eye opening. Yes, they can send home their wages to support the family they have left behind, but that family includes two young daughters who he is missing growing up.

One of the waiters spoke about how he promised his family to return home to Bali when the fruit ripened on the trees and started to fall - he was due to fly back the day after we docked. Indeed he should have flown earlier, but an OPEC conference meant the airport was closed. 

This warm funny man, Made, with a huge smile and a talent to entertain, even invited us all to visit with him. 

Our steward, Marijan, from Macedonia - with an excellent  grasp of English and obviously an intelligent well read man who enjoyed talking to me about 'Of Mice and Men', which he saw I was reading.

Aleksandr, also from Macedonia, our wine waiter (he earned his tip). Clever and articulate, honest and decent and with the potential to go so much further in life than being abused by snobby, Daily Mail reading idiots who occupied tables near ours. 

I have to say there was a lot of moaning and whinging about poor food and service but in fact the food and the service was excellent - some people are just never satisfied. But Made and his madcap helper Deepuksing (from Mauritius) just kept smiling and serving.

I have to mention a young man called Ryan too, a waiter whose smile lit up the room. He was from China where I suspect he wasn't born with the name Ryan, but here he was, making a place and a name for himself in the world. 

There was Ketut, another warm friendly soul from Bali, who really did all he could to make sure we were spoiled rotten. 

It was Aleksandr who asked us one evening how it felt to be waited on, to be the centre of so much attention and I replied that for two weeks I would manage! A little flippant, as you might expect, but again, this made me think. 

After two weeks I could return to normal life, making my own cup of tea, managing with yoghurt and fruit not bacon and egg every day for breakfast. No more bow ties for dinner, just a lap tray and The Great British Bake Off on tv. 

Normal life - for Aleksandr, for Made, for Ryan - for all of them: more smiles, more service, more abuse from ignorant, xenophobic middle class snobs.

They have my respect and admiration and the next time I hear someone talking about immigrants from eastern Europe coming to take jobs in Mansfield, I will think about Marijan...who took a job no one from Mansfield would ever dream of taking on. Cleaning toilets and making beds so that Mrs B and I could be spoiled for two weeks.

In 'Of Mice and Men', John Steinbeck wrote -

"Guys like us got nothing to look ahead to”. 

That quote is not aimed at the stewards and waiters on the Celebrity Eclipse but at those passengers who looked right through them as if they were not there, or who thought it OK to abuse them as they were there to serve.

The men I met do have something to look ahead to - even if it's only ripened fruit on a tree in Bali.

Thank you to all of those men and women who made my two weeks in the sun so happy. 

Drag Queens On Trial

Not just Drag Queens...

The Kitchen Table Trio have decided to produce Drag Queens on Trial by Sky Gilbert. There may be some who think we are doing it just to have fun, and that’s partly true. It will be a real challenge for the actors to make themselves into real drag queens that the audience can accept as more than parodies. We need the audience to connect with the trials these three characters undergo. You see, although this is a comedy, full of adult humour, there is a real hard truth at its centre - the world likes to judge others...and we are the world!

The production will be staged just after World Aids Day  (December 2013) which also happens to be the anniversary of the birth of Matthew Shepard who would have been 37 this year if he had not been tortured and left to die on a hillside overlooking Laramie, Wyoming in 1998. 

It is my fervent hope that we can not only have a great time staging the play and give audiences a great night in the theatre, but also raise some awareness around bullying, bigotry and hatred. 

I didn’t know Matthew Shepard so why is this project important to me? It’s important to me because I knew Tony and Chris.

It was the early 1980’s, in Berardi’s restaurant on the High Street in Lincoln that Mrs B and I first met Tony.

Tony was a waiter, he was good at his job and he had a way of making you smile and his personality added immeasurably to the gaiety of life.

Tony was a lovely man and when he was diagnosed with HIV, Mrs B and I were able to offer him just a little support.  Some human contact when so much of the world shunned him.


Sad to say it was during this time that I saw how bigoted and hateful some of the people I worked with could be. Refusing to treat Tony as a human being just because of the hysteria surrounding HIV/Aids and the rampant homophobia that could be expressed without fear of any consequences - this was, as I said, the early 1980’s.

Mrs B and I will always remember Tony with great fondness - ‘celery hearts’ always bring a smile. 

Being asked to help carry his coffin on the day of his funeral was something else I shall always remember.

I was volunteering with the HIV/Aids Support Group by then and met and came to know several other men who were facing the end of their life surrounded by the love of friends but also homophobia and bigotry and just plain hatred.

I like to think I did what I could to show them that there was some decency to be offered and accepted from relative strangers. Accepting people for who they are has always been important for me.

It was also the early 1980’s when I met Chris. Chris was a drag queen and like Tony he would die far too young.

I clearly recall sitting in his flat, drinking coffee, whilst he told myself and a colleague about the men that had beaten him up, simply for being himself. 

Jump forward to 1998, Laramie, Wyoming and the death of  Matthew Shepard.
Killed just for being himself.

How many others have been beaten, killed, committed suicide through bullying just because someone else thought they were less worthy of life?  Because their path through life is different - not better or worse, just different.


Drag Queens on Trial is a comedy but behind the laughs it puts us all on trial - it makes the world look at itself and asks us what gives us the right to judge others: gay, straight, drag queen, transexual...whatever you call yourself that is what you are and the rest of the world should just accept it.


So, in December come and see the play but between now and then, and hopefully after, don’t judge others who simply want the same right as you - to be themselves.

HRH Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge

I know what you are thinking, what awful things are you going to say about the little baby?

Wrong.

You wound me with your cynicism. Naughty naughty Guru-ites.

My message for today is about childhood and growing up, though it does seem that some us manage to grow up and yet retain a certain childlike quality and innocence.

Just a few weeks ago we were lucky enough to find a baby arrive in our lives, a wonderful little creature called Polly.

Polly is the daughter of Miss Twillets, or should that be Ms. Twillets now? I get confused by social gender politics. Anyway, Polly is being groomed by her mother to become perfect marriage material for the new Prince George and I think he'd be lucky to get her...even though she does suck her thumb.

In reality we don't know what Polly will achieve in her life, she's too young yet to express any hopes and dreams for the future but those around her can dream and do I'm sure hope for a long and happy life for this little girl, Princess Polly of Mansfield.

Polly might not have a real title, and she will not have access to all the things George will have - but she does have one thing he will never have - the freedom to grow up and become what she wants to be.

Longevity seems to be a family trait in the Windsor household, it may well be that the Queen will carry on for another 10 years or more, then King Charles and Queen Camilla will have their shot and that may take us on another 20 or so years, making George 30 when his dad becomes King William.

If his dad manages 30 or so years on the throne then by the time Prince George becomes King George, he might be as old as his grandfather is now.

60 plus years waiting for the job you never asked for.

By the time she is 60, Polly could be retired to her villa in Tuscany. She will sit by her pool reflecting on a long and happy career as an actress, a dancer, a business woman, a hired killer, a flower arranger, a champion Beagle breeder, the scientist who discovered a cure for the common cold,  a teacher, a journalist, a fashion designer etc etc. She might have been a wife, mother, grandmother, she might even have been spotted by a dashing young Prince George at Pushy Fit classes.

Polly is a Thursday's Child - she has far to go and where she goes will be pretty much up to her.

George is a Monday's Child - fair of face he may be, and he may get to travel far and wide but he will never have the freedom to be what he wants to be. By the time he is old enough to realise he is trapped, it will be too late to escape - unless he makes the sacrifice of giving up on the throne to pursue happiness in whatever form happiness takes for plain George Cambridge.

I think Polly is the lucky one, and the fact that the world is not clamouring for her picture now doesn't mean a thing.

Her story will be written on blank pages, she will be the author of her story.

You know as I write this I find myself hoping that George manages to escape the shackles of the court, and the expectations of a Royalist driven agenda, the supporters of  St Diana who think of this baby as some sort of second coming. If by some chance he wants to be a potter or a bee keeper or a ballet dancer or just live with his 'friend' Gerald in a quiet village in Cambridgeshire and write books on needlecraft, then we should all let him be who he wants to be...it's not going to happen though. The brainwashing will already have begun.

It's all a matter of luck - where we are born. For every child complaining to his parents that the X-Box is broken, there is another child somewhere in the world living in a box, being nibbled by rats as they try and sleep.

For every child throwing a tantrum because they didn't want sauce on their chicken, there is another child who is on the verge of starvation.

For every child who is complaining that they NEED the latest fashionable trainers there is a child whose feet are blistered from the miles they walk to find water.

Mansfield isn't glamorous at the side of Kensington but Polly's home is a palace compared to a cardboard box.


Yes, Polly is lucky. She will be surrounded by love and by people who want her to be happy in her life and to become all she wants to be.

So, George Alexander Louis; I wish you a long and happy life but in my heart I wish you had the freedom to be just George.

A Review...

Daddy

Devised and presented by Andy Dobb & Jack Burrows

Create Theatre Thursday 18th July 7.30pm


Two good friends decide that they are going to create a piece of theatre based upon their experiences of being and wanting to be a father. The result was presented to a small but appreciative audience, in a sweltering hot studio at The Create Theatre last night.

The piece was well structured and the journey was easy to follow as they discussed the very real and honest path they had trod in reaching their relative positions as a Daddy in Residence and Daddy in Waiting.

Presented as a work in progress, scripts in hand, Dobb and Burrows occasionally lost their way but I didn’t care because I knew, that they knew, what they were doing.

The very brave decision these two men had taken was to open their hearts to the world, to share their real and sometimes brutally honest story with us but to do so laced with physical humour, terrible puns and some real laugh out loud moments.

I will not divulge the exact content of the piece as that would destroy the chance of any future audiences  responding to the power of the piece, and have no doubt it has real power and tremendous potential.

This would not be a ‘Drew Review’ if I did not offer some criticism.

My first criticism would be about the pace and timing. I know this would come with rehearsal so I’m not going to dwell on that.


My second and final criticism is - it may have benefitted from an external eye.

Not to tell them what to say or how to say it but to offer the unbiased perspective of the audience thereby allowing them to further explore the themes in play. With such an emotional  piece, such a personal piece, it must be hard to be totally self critical all of the time.

For example, I would have pushed this piece to be even more gritty in the dramatic sections as I felt there was a slight pulling back on occasion from really hitting the audience with what were some very uncomfortable truths.

Overall, I loved it, I found it funny and moving and it touched some very real emotions within my own experiences of life. I know this was equally true for other audience members.

I hope that Andy Dobb and Jack Burrows do make progress with the piece and that a wider audience get to see these two talented men continue their ‘Daddy’ journeys.

_____________________________________________________________________

Personal Comments: As an aside, the audience contained many other ‘actors’ some of whom offered feedback after the show.  I found this part of the evening particularly uncomfortable and some of the comments were ill judged.

I will state for the record that Andy Dobb and Jack Burrows are on a different planet, no in a different acting galaxy to some of the amateur and apparently theatrically ignorant folk who tried to tell them how to improve their show.

After seeing them work in this piece and taking into account the brilliant work they did with The Odd Couple, I would go as far as to say that they are the preeminent theatrical performers in Mansfield.

I have seen nothing better than the work they continue to do and look forward to pushing them even harder when we start work on Drag Queens On Trial.

(Obviously I am in a galaxy of my own too, a very special galaxy far far away.  I also wish to exclude Rob from my analogy as well as Ed and his mum, plus Vicky and any other nice people who kept their opinions to themselves and just said well done to two splendid lads).

Finally a word for Natalie and Lauren - thank you.

The Dangers Of Reasonable Religion

It's Sunday and here I sit in my nicely tidied office at the Ashram, contemplating the week passed and the week ahead. Suddenly, I decided that I should bother my followers with a little explosion of concern, an ejaculation of anxiety if you will.

Which reminds me, I learnt yesterday that the reason some faiths used to ask women to keep their heads covered is because the superstitious monkeys thought that sperm was stored in hair...stay with me. The hair on a ladies head has the power to suck sperm up her body after sexual intercourse, so you didn't want all that sperm laden hair just staring at you did you? Keep it covered ladies!

I head this story from a lady vicar named Kate Bottley, she is more recently become famous for a viral video clip of her 'flashmob' dancing with the congregation at a wedding.

She is one of those 'reasonable' vicars who swears during ceremonies and offers ice-pops to her congregation on hot days. The sort of vicar who has a quick retort for every dig at religion and offers a 'reasonable' answer to the sort of questions people like me send in her direction.

By the way, I use the word 'reasonable' as it was a word used to me in describing this modern almost secular approach to faith. The actual quote was "it all seems very reasonable, and what's the harm in religion being human".

So, a 'reasonable' vicar, the sort of vicar who avoids the literal reading of the bible, embracing instead both science and faith by  accepting the concept of evolution and thereby undercutting any chance of debating the idea of god or gods in any logical way.

These sorts of 'reasonable' vicars make religion appealing to the masses by basically inviting and allowing you to believe in both fact and fiction and treating them as equally valid.

Kate Bottley is a force of nature, larger than life and someone who would no doubt fight very VERY hard for what she believes in and I have respect for that, we all follow our own path. It's harder to respect an attitude to life that says all we have and all we are, all progress and science and understanding of human development is only ours through god.

How can you argue with that?

It's ALL part of gods plan. Forget the bible, forget the obvious flaws in that story, just believe in god and have faith. We will tell you which bits of the bible are to be adhered to and which can be ignored, you just have faith. Don't worry, just join the queue and believe.

How can you argue with that?  You can't - and that's why 'reasonable' religion is dangerous.

The basic premise of religion is that god exists, that's what you have to accept. That god is real, and not just any god.

You see the 'reasonable' religious are actually as atheistic as me because they don't believe in all the other gods that people have worshiped in ancient Rome or Greece or Egypt for example. They just have their god who we have to accept exists and that there are no others...

How do we know that? How do we come to accept that there is only one god?

Answer... it says so in the bible - the very book that the 'reasonable' religious now say we should not take literally.

You see the real danger is that the 'reasonable' religious make everything seem so warm and human and safe so if you ask questions you seem to be questioning your own faith in humanity not humanities fear of the dark.

The worst thing is that the 'reasonable' religious sneer at those of us that don't believe and they undermine us in very subtle and sometimes not so subtle ways. Like telling me, it doesn't matter what you believe, god is always with you.

How can you argue with that when they seem so 'reasonable'?