I read today an interesting article in the Financial Times on the portrayal of sport in fiction. The main argument of the piece is that American authors have never been afraid to tackle the subject and have covered sport extensively, and well. Meanwhile, British authors have been far less inclined to cover sport in fiction, and have been far less convincing when they’ve tried. Reading this piece alongside an article from the Observer covering similar ground a couple of years ago, has left me wondering about sport in fiction, and how sport could work in British fiction.

I think the FT article covers the whys and wherefores far better than I ever could, but there does seem to be an explanation in the make-up of your archetypal American and British writers. Obviously we’re veering into a whole world of horrible stereotyping, but many American writers seem far more interested in physicality generally and writing appears to have the potential to be a rugged pursuit – maybe Hemingway’s legacy, maybe something older and deeper. It doesn’t seem so weird for an American author to like sport. And sportswriting on the whole seems more respected and something of a craft, and is generally better than what you’ll see in the UK (although there are plenty of exceptions).

British writers (especially of the literary variety), meanwhile, seem much more removed from sport. Perhaps it has its roots in class, maybe something else, but the literary and sporting worlds seem very far apart. There almost seems to be a distrust between the two.

Yet I still hope there is room for an English sporting literature. Sport is pretty much one big analogy for life and life’s struggles, and American literature has shown it is a pretty broad and reliable canvas for covering the big issues and themes that great literature should. And perhaps that is the key to success – the fiction can’t just rely entirely on telling the story of sporting events. On any given day the reality will outstrip the fiction on that front. The fiction needs to use the sporting theme in a more nuanced way. It can’t be all cup finals and gold medals. It needs to tinker around the edges, tease out those details that will make a meaningful book.

I think there is one major issue, beyond the literary establishment appearing not to have much appetite for sport. It is that the obvious sports to cover, football or cricket, whilst ingrained into our culture and microcosms (for want of a better word etc) of that culture, are team sports and so pretty difficult to write well about. There are too many characters, too many teams. Plus, with football the action is too frenetic. Cricket, as a pretty close cousin to the more literarily inclined baseball, has more of a chance, but there is a real risk of a writer falling into village green clichés.

I’m no fan of golf, but as a more solitary pursuit it seems a more likely candidate for producing a great English sporting book. All those long walks ruined would allow plenty of opportunity for soliloquies on whatever the author might fancy. Tennis or boxing as individual sports could work well too, as we’ve seen time and again in American writing.

Maybe a lead needs to be taken from the few successes of British sporting writing. The Damned United fused real people with fiction, and focused on one dominant character in a compelling way. Fever Pitch looked at sport from the spectator’s perspective. The individual within sport seems the more obvious path to success, both critical and commercial.

Or perhaps as sport is such a neglected subject in English literature it offers authors the opportunity to tackle the subject in a far more inventive and experimental way. As there is not the baggage of thousands of great sporting novels to live up (or down) to, it feels like there is a certain freedom on how to approach the subject in a way that would challenge yet connect with a readership.

If a writer could successfully articulate the frenzy of the football pitch or the rugby field, or the tribalism and belonging of fandom, or the media saturation and hype that surrounds us, or ideally all of those themes, they would probably have something pretty special in their hands. Sport is an important part of my life, and I think like many people, I like literature that reflects my life and expands upon it, showing me new avenues, or familiar ones in a new way. I hope something interesting on the British sporting experience emerges soon. I’d buy it.

Image from Galt Museum and Archives, via Flickr

No great sweeping theme for today’s post. Very little content or insight either. Think of it as an embellished placeholder post. Or some awkward filler. I would be a great salesman, y’know. You just want to read on, don’t you?

Tyranny of Stats

I know I harped on about stats the other week, saying how wonderful they are and all that stuff, but they have a dark side, dear reader. And that dark side in WordPress (and I imagine every other blogging platform) presents itself in checking the stats over and over to see if anyone is reading. Get a spike in numbers and feel the endorphins flood your system. People are reading your work! Hurrah! So, you check again and again, to replicate that feeling, get another rush. Nobody interested? You check just as much – you are always just one heavyweight incoming link or Freshly Pressed listing away from that bar chart looking much healthier.

It is not the most constructive behaviour. But I do think it is probably a good motivator to write more. I know success makes me want to write again, and writing helps stave any tetchiness I might have about having zero views that day.

But it probably shouldn’t be the only motivator, or I’ll end up with linkbait-y rubbish, or needy rubbish, or ill-conceived/planned/executed rubbish like this post. Yes, it has been a slow day, stats-wise.

Gone to Lunch

I remember getting my first job, in my mid-teens, and being a little disappointed that I wouldn’t get paid for my lunch break. Obviously some of this was down to a huge level of naïveté about the working world, but in my defence there was an expectation from the employer that I remain on the premises through said lunch break and generally be on hand. Which seemed like a pretty bum deal for £2.22 an hour. Or £0.00 an hour for my lunch break.

So, I’ve always been a little protective of my lunch hour. I’ve read enough stories of bacteria-infected desks and that the average actual lunchtime taken is 22 minutes or whatever to know that you have to be proactive to keep your free hour free.

It is always good to set a precedent, so from day one in a job I’ll go out for lunch. Then there is no chance of being forced to work through it. Plus, I sit staring at a screen all day. An hour off is probably sensible. And if I do that from the start nobody will act surprised when I put my coat on at 12.30.

Now, heading out is fine during the summer. I can go for a walk. I can sit outside. If it is too busy, I can sit inside somewhere, and there is room, as everyone else is outside enjoying the weather.

However, the winter is more challenging. I’m less inclined to stay out in the cold, driving rain. The indoor-y places are full. But full indoors is probably better than damp, cold outdoors. I’d dive in a pub, but that would ruin the healthy drinking plan. So, I head into a coffee shop. And people are either consuming food and drink not bought on the premises, or are eking out a cup of water/tiny cup of coffee for several hours. And taking up precious space! Space for me! If they can afford a Mac they can surely afford to buy a proper coffee, or buy one more than once every three hours. Anyway, I’ve been on this rant before, so I won’t bore you any further…boy am I repetitive.

Fantasy Baseball Failure

So, it’s not that long at all until the new baseball season. And before the new baseball season comes fantasy baseball league drafts. And every year I try to be ahead of the game, find that breakout star, avoid that surprise bust. And inevitably, obviously, I fail. This year I’m leaning heavily on the Bill James Almanac and the Hardball Times Annual. Fascinating stuff, but I think I’m probably beyond help. I may just pick the players with funny names. Or those that are reported to be in the best shape of their lives. Or who wear their socks up. Any of those systems are likely to be as effective as my study, and much less time-intensive.

Wondering what to write next

As all the above illustrates quite nicely, I’m not feeling too inspired this week. I would ask for suggestions or ideas, but I know I am too unreliable for that – I’ll only ignore/forget them and then write some rambling nonsense about something else entirely, and disappoint you, me and my three other readers.

Image from OSU Special Collections & Archives, via Flickr

Visiting an art gallery is one of life’s great joys as far as I’m concerned. There is something pretty special about being so close to art, and often great, historic art. And something pretty special about being able to experience it on your own terms. In film or theatre the director, to varying degrees, dictates what you see, when you see it and how you see it. A musician presents a composition in a particular way. Yet in an art gallery you are free to take it all in at your own pace, view it in all manner of ways, and I expect have a far more personal experience.

It may not be the most intellectual response but I’ll often walk right up close to a picture or a sculpture and try to see how it was done. Seeing the actual brushstrokes a great artist made kind of humanises the work of art for me – it goes from being a hallowed object to something more real that someone once worked over, sweated over, worried about. I think I picked this up from going to art galleries as a kid, and the curiosity has stuck. Seeing how a piece of art is put together makes it feel more believable and obtainable (in the sense that I can understand to a small degree how such a work could be completed. Not that I’ll be painting any great works anytime soon), rather than something otherworldly and fully-formed. The mystique and the myth of art is stripped away a little and you see just what humans can achieve, and get a tiny insight into how.

But it doesn’t completely destroy the mystique. In fact, I think it enhances the magic to be up close and see the artist’s workings, and then move back and see the painting (for example, and I’m probably mainly thinking of paintings here) take shape, the strokes and lines blur and collect themselves into something beautiful, transcendent, challenging, or whatever it may be. In some way it is almost like the picture being painted before your very eyes, if that’s not a really trite comment to make.

So, it felt good to walk into an art gallery this week and see a group of people squinting at the walls asking How did he do that? It was one of the final days of the Alex Hartley exhibition, The world is still big, at the Victoria Miro gallery. Now, I don’t pretend to have any real insight or knowledge of the modern art world, it’s just the gallery is a five-minute walk from work, I’d really enjoyed their Francesca Woodman exhibition and reading their email about this exhibition had piqued my interest.

The exhibition saw Alex Hartley explore ideas around habitation, community and sanctuary. In more basic terms, it involved large photographs of desolate and/or remote landscapes that Hartley had doctored with a variety of materials, adding three-dimensional living spaces to the photograph.

From a distance the pieces looked incredibly realistic, of strange pods and constructions built into the landscapes. They immediately drew me in to see what were Hartley’s additions and what were just parts of the photograph, creating a pretty pleasing ambiguity between the elements of the work. What was ‘real’ and what was not?

There was real skill and playfulness in some of the structures, especially the tunneling into the photographs, that encouraged more than one person to crane their neck into a pretty odd position and try to look down the snaking tunnels, see what was there, speculate on how it was done.

The pictures were not just a party trick though. I found them really very moving, with the idea of carving a home and a refuge in an inhospitable world. While there were allusions to the kinds of buildings favoured my yr counter-cultural/commune/drop-out kind-of-people I felt there was something broader being said about how any of us look to make our own place in the world. The wilderness on show could easily be as symbolic as it was literal. Don’t we all want somewhere we can escape? Isn’t stepping out of our front door overwhelming and scary sometimes, no matter where we live?

Hartley took the theme to its logical conclusion, building a real dome in the garden of the gallery and inhabiting it throughout the exhibition. Perhaps this made it a little clearer that his strange structures could really be placed anywhere and still have an effect, a meaning and a purpose.

The exhibition closed today (and don’t you just hate reviews that talk about things you can no longer see?) but Hartley’s Nowhereisland project is part of the Cultural Olympiad and is touring south-west England this year. If you come across his work you really should check it out. And take a good look close-up too.

I thought I’d offer something of a musical interlude, to break up all my pretentious waffling. So, here’s the platters that matter folks – a few tracks from some much-anticipated albums. Well, much-anticipated by me anyway.

Lower Dens – Brains

The first Lower Dens album is on my ever-increasing list of albums I’ve found on Spotify, would like to buy in real, tangible form, but just haven’t got around to yet. Funny how the internet changes out habits, eh? Anyway, this is from their next album and already feels like a big step forward. Nice motornik rhythm going on, so is an early contender for my Slave Ambient of 2012. Pretty soon I’ll get sick of the formula of guitar-y stuff with that kind of beat behind it, but Lower Dens have been canny in courting me before that sickness sets in. Good work chaps.

Lambchop – Gone Tomorrow

I think I’m looking forward to the new Lambchop record more than any other this year. It’s a hackneyed phrase (but when has that ever stopped me?), but on the evidence of this track and the other released track from the album this is a proper return to form. Not that Lambchop have ever really properly dipped in quality, but if everything is as good as these two tracks we could have a pretty special Lambchop album on our hands. Which is quite an achievement for a band that’s been around for what, 20-odd years?

Lightships – Two Lines

And finally, a new track from a new project from Teenage Fanclub’s Gerard Love. Now, not only are Teenage Fanclub one of my all-time favourite bands, but Gerard Love is my favourite member. Sure, having a favourite band member is a little ‘teenage’ (Ha! Geddit?) but in my defence: 1. I first got into TFC as a teenager 2. With three band members sharing songwriting duties equally it kind of makes sense that I might like one more than the others. That is not to say I’m some sort of Gerard Love obsessive or anything. Or that I don’t like the other guys. Because I do. Well, anyway, this track is lovely.

SPECIAL BONUS STUFF!!!

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Not a new one, but I’m on a bit of a National tip right now, and it’s my blog to put up what I want and veer wildly away from the point of the post etc etc.

You should tell me what new stuff you’re listening to, if you’re so inclined. I love comments, and I may even remember to reply to them. In the meantime I’m going to have a little think about how on Earth bloggers managed before they had YouTube et al to go to for filler posts…

Image from Nationaal Archief, via Flickr

What with being around five years behind the rest of the internet, I only recently watched this video from the writer Harlan Ellison, ranting at expectations that writers need not be paid for their work. It is a pretty funny rant, but pretty flawed. I found it kind of funny that the keeps using the word “essay” rather than the correct phrase “filmed interview about a TV programme” to make a point about being paid for his work, as if his every utterance is on a par with a carefully constructed and argued piece of writing. I have no problem with him wanting paying for everything and anything he does, that’s up to him, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves – talking about Babylon Five is hardly on a par with the finest literature.

And then there is an unsettling moment near the end when he says, “You’re undercut by all the amateurs!” The argument that writers should be paid for their work seems a reasonably solid one, but with this statement the argument seems more like those that get paid should continue to be paid, and those who do not yet get paid, should get out. There is no protectiveness towards young writers getting exploited, there is just defensiveness towards protecting his own patch.

I read today a far more recent, less rant-y, much calmer, yet equally financially focused piece from Margaret Atwood, from her book Negotiating with the Dead: A Writer on Writing. She writes on the perils of making writing pay, and the perils you then encounter if you can. It seems like a serious artist needs paying to be taken seriously, but if the serious artist makes money (especially whatever is perceived as too much money) then there is a fight for credibility and the serious artist is no longer seen as such.

It appears that the writing world is full of such circular arguments, elitism and distrust. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to be a writer? Or certainly why anyone would try to make money out of it. The Ellison video and Atwood extract also made me wonder: why does it always seem like it is those writers who are paid the most that go on the most about money? Does getting paid for writing make you fixated on money?

Which brings me rather awkwardly around to the subject I’m wont to go on about from time to time – where blogging sits in the future of writing and the future of yr social media/internets/etc etc. What of those pesky amateurs undercutting the pros?

I guess if you go along with any Death of Blogging thesis then you’re likely to argue that people are blogging less (if they are, I’d look it up, but y’know, nobody is paying me) then that is because blogging is an awful lot of work for very little reward. And I guess on the surface you would be absolutely right. There hasn’t been a Blogging Goldrush. Nobody is likely to retire off of their income from AdWords.

There are ways blogging can lead to money (scam-ery, creating content people might want to pay for – if you’re really lucky, getting picked up by the mainstream media to do what you do already – if you’re even luckier), but it has become increasingly clear that if you’re blogging for profit you are probably going to have a bad time of it. First, because if you’re writing to make money from blogging, your writing is probably going to be horrible and will only be read by other bloggers wanting to make money blogging and we’re at best in another circular argument and at worst in some horrible pyramid scheme that is just bound to end in tears.

So, with the Blogging Goldrush over before it began we’re just left with those people who get a kick out of putting stuff up on the internet in the hope that other people see it and respond. Now, this might have led to 99 per cent of all the crap that clogs up the internet, but still seems like a more noble, or at the very least, achievable aim.

Yet, wait! The pool of potential bloggers gets filtered down even further. Now, with the likes of Twitter and Tumblr, all your urges to put stuff up on the internet are fulfilled in a far less work-intensive fashion. You are the curator, you don’t have to sweat creating anything. You get the social interaction as well as the satisfaction of presenting something as your own and as a mirror of your soul or whatever, without having to spend time churning out words.

This leaves us with…those people left who want to write, are happy writing, and want to share their thoughts and ideas without having to wait ten years for a proper, real writing job. I’d like to think that this leaves us with a stronger core of bloggers/writers (with the exception of me, obviously, I mean what is this stuff?) and a better quality of blogging/writing, as it has weeded out those that aren’t that fussed about writing after all.

And perhaps some of us don’t see getting paid for writing as the holy grail. Maybe we fear a life of hackwork just as soul-destroying as any menial job. Or we want to say things that the mainstream media won’t publish. Or want to make links between subjects that the paid press aren’t interested in making. Maybe we like the immediacy, the connection and the community with like-minded people.

I’m not saying that amateur writing is necessarily the more honourable or pure route. But I do think there is something to be said of writing that is not dictated by economics – be it writing something because one hope it will sell, or writing something just because the market has commissioned it. Blogging may not pay the bills, but its freedom is not something to be easily dismissed. Unless you’ve already made millions from writing, and then you probably don’t give a shit. You’ll just be waiting for the next lorry-load of cash to arrive. Whilst yelling at those amateurs to get off your lawn.

Some kind of postscript

There is probably a distinction to be made between writing for nothing for yourself (ie blogging, self-publishing) and writing for nothing for a corporate entity that is likely to make money off your work. While I see the latter as more of an issue, I can certainly understand why people would do it, to get their foot in the door. Big multi-nationals doing this seems initially more suspect, but at least the writer is guaranteed exposure. I think I feel more uneasy with smaller journals and the like asking for submissions and either not paying contributors, or even worse, asking for payment from the writers themselves. This kind of exercise makes me feel far queasier than Big Media shenanigans as the writer isn’t really getting any noticeable benefit beyond seeing their name in print. They might as well take the blogging/self-publishing route, be in full control of their work and save themselves a few quid.

I’m also aware my argument have a number of flaws. Well, what did you expect from an amateur, eh? Anyway, I welcome any corrections, additions, abuse etc.

• Image of man writing from the Smithsonian Institution, via Flickr
• Image of lady with crazy machine from the Reanimation Library

I’m fully aware that I’m probably the 53,821st blogger to stick this song up on his/her blog, but y’know I was busy before Christmas and this is my party and I’ll put up flogged-to-death videos if I want to. It seems like the phrase du jour is “*insert track name here* is my jam” – well if I was pretentious enough to go down that route I’d be saying “Live Alone is my jam”, and considering I’ve used the words “du jour” already in this post, I’m clearly pretentious enough. So: Live Alone Is My Jam.

I generally found LCD Soundsystem to be one of those bands it was easier to admire than love. They clearly ticked a lot of yr standard boxes for cool/alternative/etc music, but there was always a suspicion for me that it was all a little too planned and considered. It was kind of like all the ingredients had been put together for the hippest, coolest band ever, but there was something missing – I guess whatever element it is great bands have that you just can’t plan for.

Maybe it’s soul? Maybe that’s a little harsh.

Anyway it seemed like James Murphy was not only too clever for his own good, but knew he was too clever for his own good. Like waves of cleverness and archness folding in on itself. From day one, with “Losing My Edge” and the like he was acknowledging his pose and his stance and ultimately his weakness. Now, this made LCD Soundsystem infinitely more interesting that yr standard New Hip Act. But it could be kind of infuriating too.

I do think there is room for cleverness in art. I think, in fact, it can be a pretty key component in its appeal. The standard appeal of art, as far as I see it, is in empathy. We like to see stuff we can relate to. We want to know we are not alone. We want to know someone else out there feels as we do. We want to be free to project ourselves on others.

Now cleverness fulfils something similar, yet far more nuanced and less conscious. I think if a band makes a clever lyrical or musical reference, and we get it, then we feel a connection too. It might not be an emotional connection, but it is an intellectual one, of a sort. And we all feel good if we feel clever. So, perhaps clever music like LCD Soundsystem’s works because it makes us feel clever too. We’re in on it. We get what the cool guy who digs through record crates is doing.

I’m pretty sure similar arguments could be made for literature or films or TV. I love the farce and the jokes in Frasier, say, but I also like getting the references to the snobbier, cleverer stuff. I like books that don’t necessarily spell everything out, that give me enough credit to understand the allusions or whatever other stuff the author is throwing in there beyond just the plot.

Sometimes I don’t just want the sense of empathy that art offers. I want it to stroke my ego too.

I’m not a big man, I admit.

And perhaps that is where the weakness of LCD Soundsystem came in – not enough heart. Sure, it was there sometimes, but there were times when it felt like a rather dry exercise in hipster satisfaction.

So, then this, their last song comes along and hits me right in the gut. Every time I play it. I’m not sure I want to pick apart why too much. Maybe it being a cover version helps. But then, it is a cover of a Franz Ferdinand song – another band I admire, like in parts, but feel are just a little too mannered at times. Perhaps the cleverness and archness from both bands cancelled themselves out. Perhaps that is a silly idea. Maybe it is just a great video. Maybe just a great song. Maybe I missed the point before. Maybe James Murphy played it straight for once. Maybe I should just stop worrying about the head-stuff and let the heart-stuff have its moment and not ask why. And just listen.

And, while I’m here, here is the trailer for the doc of their last show…I don’t really know what to make of it. But his apartment sure is shiny and white.

I’ve always had a hunch that proof is better than assumption. Which is a pretty silly hunch to have, if you think about it. Or a rather sensible one, I don’t know. Maybe I should test it or something.

Anyway, for some time I’ve kind of flown the evidence flag at work and elsewhere. I remember having battles of a sort with marketing teams who were convinced they knew what a particular demographic wanted, despite having no stats to back it up or any anecdotal or qualitative evidence from that group. As far as I can tell, they’d never even met this particular group of people, and had no inclination to do so. They just knew. They were experts. They had qualifications, experience, a feel for such things.

I was much happier looking for some evidence and letting that inform what I did. Maybe I just wasn’t as confident as they were in my own abilities, or in my gut instinct. But I think I just figured that actually seeing what happens was more robust than working on a set of assumptions or basing any decision on how I think, or what I’d like.

Working around evidence and stats and suchlike has been a whole lot easier because I’ve worked mainly in web-based roles, so there is already a lot of analytics-y stuff at my fingertips. Plus I’ve found quoting concrete facts like “95% of people leave your page in 10 seconds” holds a lot more weight in meetings than “I’m not really feeling your page”. Taking all that personal preference stuff out of the equation makes it harder to argue. Objectivity over subjectivity, or something.

That’s not to say I’m some sort of number-crunching robot. I never really liked maths. But I’ve found stats a really useful, and reasonably foolproof, way of getting to the heart of what people need and want. Somehow it feels more human and empathetic than relying on gut instinct or experience or whatever. Working in the charity sector I almost feel like there is less room for error. It matters that I get my job right. And looking at stats, analysing behaviour and asking people what they want and all that other stuff is much more reliable than just deciding I think we should do it this way because I know best…

All of this seemed to me self-evident (take “evidence-based medicine” as a concept, for example – I mean what other sort of medicine is there, or should there be?), but as I said, it was a bit of a hunch. So, it was a relief  of sorts to read Moneyball and see that this philosophy was already pretty well accepted and proved in some quarters.

For those you who have no knowledge of Moneyball or the principles it promoted, or just want to read me flail around trying to explain it, the book chronicles the shift in thinking in baseball from gut instinct and experience to looking for proof. Essentially, how the Oakland Athletics and others moved from scouts to stats. A scout might see a player and think he looks great, but that might not turn out to be the case. Alternatively, a player might not look the part, but stats of his performance might show him to be more effective than appearances suggest. And that gave smaller clubs an advantage – they could spot the players who were good, but not obviously so.

Anyway, Moneyball principles have been applied to all sorts of areas and it seems like evidence-based work is more popular than ever. Knowledge really is power, it seems, to fall back on a comfy cliché.

And I was pleased to read yet more evidence for this kind of stuff, this time from a psychological perspective, in the New York Review of Books review of Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking, Fast and Slow. The book, and the review, are about ‘cognitive illusions’, ” false belief that we intuitively accept as true”. Kahneman argues that we have two modes of organising and accessing knowledge, System One and System Two.

System One is the intuitive, instinctive mode – where we can instantly come to a decision. This obviously had evolutionary benefits way back when big beasts were out to eat us and seems to happen with very little effort. System Two is more reflective and conscious and critical. This is the mode that finds evidence to help make a decision. Yet System Two involves effort and time, and we’re lazy. Hence System One so often wins out and we’re left with an “illusion of validity”.

Well, that’s my summary of a book review of a book I haven’t yet read, from an author I hadn’t even heard from this morning, psychology not really being my strongpoint. But it appeared to back up what I’ve found and read so far, and certainly gave me a lot more to think about. We all fall back on System One thinking. I know I do all the time, despite painting myself as Mr Evidence or whatever. But I think I feel even more likely to push myself to be less lazy, and think I now have a tinier idea why I should too.

And perhaps it explains some of our behaviour, and trends in behaviour, too – although I’m aware I’m at risk of taking something of an ill-educated leap here. It certainly made me think about this interesting, and dare I say inspirational, post on the future of blogging. Blogging may be less popular, less cool and less widespread than it previously was, but it is no less vital. It feels very much like the thoughtful, considered System Two of social media to the more immediate and frankly easier System One of Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr et al. The latter can be maintained with a few words, a few clicks and we can fall back on instant thought or curation of others’ work rather than our own creativity. Blogging, however, takes much more effort – but is probably more worthwhile and rewarding for it.

I’m quietly hopeful that Moneyball/System Two/whatever-you-want-to-call-it thinking has a future, be it in the workplace, the sports field or in social media. But I do think there is still work in convincing people that this philosophy is just as human, and just as meaningful, as any gut reaction or thought based on experience. Illusions and assumptions are there to be challenged. In being the most effective means of working, we hopefully reach and help more people, and in a better way. And used right, that can’t be a bad thing.

• Top image from the National Archives, via Flickr
• Men with car image from the Reanimation Library
• Baseball image from State Library and Archives of Florida, via Flickr
• Man vs Machine image from the Reanimation Library

I’ve been involved in amateur dramatics for many years now, generally veering more towards the amateur than the dramatic. And for about ten years or so, with the odd break, every January I can be found acting (at least in a sense) in one of the truly British theatrical forms, pantomime.

Pantomime is certainly not cool. There are odd pantomimes here and there that are acclaimed by the critics, but that acclaim is generally within a context of surprise. As in, who knew pantomime could actually be good? It is hard to take seriously. It is a Christmas show aimed primarily at kids. The professional pantomimes more often than not star D-list celebrities. It can be a bit, well, tacky.

And it is frankly a bit odd, particularly I imagine to the outsider. Pantomimes are generally based around fairy tales, yet are populated in part by women dressed as men (especially playing the ‘hero’ role) and men dressed as women (particularly as the ‘Dame’, a motherly comic role, and quite distinct from any sort of drag artistry).

There is lots of audience participation and a fair bit of ad libbing and addressing the audience directly. While not everyone is cross-dressing, everyone is singing, dancing and telling bad jokes, sometimes with a little bit of a risqué tinge. Oh yes, and as I reiterate, it is primarily for kids.

And kids love it. Panto might not be fine art, but it often the first experience of theatre a child has, so plays a vital role in the continuing patronage of theatre.

It also upholds one of the last surviving English folk traditions. Yet, at its best it is not a stale museum piece, but as vibrant and relevant as any newly penned satire. Pantomimes are written and rewritten over and over again, and so include jokes and references to current affairs, and can (indeed should) adapt to more modern tastes and sensibilities, whilst maintaining its traditional framework – the good guys always win, the bad guys always lose, and nobody dies. Within that framework, anything goes.

Panto is also, at its best, a pretty sneakily complex form. This isn’t a straight play. The audience interaction, be it the actors addressing the audience directly, making asides to the audience mid-scene or encouraging the staple “He’s behind you!” shouts when the villain creeps up on stage, make it a far less passive spectacle than your standard live entertainment.

This, along with standard tropes (from characters, to plots, to lines) and self-referential scripts, means the show works both as a story, and as a commentary on the story itself. The audience is watching a show that knows its a show and isn’t afraid to say so. It’s positively Brechtian, I tell ya.

I find it fascinating that panto on the surface appears to be somewhat disposable and low-brow as an art form, and yet smuggles in incredible levels of complexity and nuance, breaking down the fourth wall, working on a number of different levels, and toying with and subverting traditional and archetypal story forms. It shows that art can be challenging without the audience realising. Theatre can be anarchic, raucous and experimental, yet not be completely unintelligible, or antagonistic.

There can’t be too many art forms that regularly encompass political commentary, gender commentary, surrealism, slapstick, subversion of standard storytelling, audience participation and intertextuality, yet are still a whole lot of fun and manage to avoid any pretension whatsoever. If only this paragraph could have avoided such pretension…

There are jokes for the kids, and jokes for the adults that go over the kids heads – and panto was doing this years and years before Pixar started pulling off the same trick. So, when it is executed right, panto is perhaps the most inclusive form of theatre, appealing to the very youngest to the very oldest.

And it is a lot of fun to be involved in. The group I’m a member of is church affiliated, but has a community feel far beyond that. I get to spend time with a broad selection of people, of different ages and backgrounds, who I would probably have never ever met without the common ground of pantomime and other amateur productions. I hope it has, in some small way, broadened my horizons a little.

I’ve also learnt how to build sets, paint sets and finally stand in front of 200 people and make a fool of myself. It may not be cool, but it sure is character building. It also feels kind of good to be playing a small part in the continuation of a fun tradition, to (hopefully) offer people a fun night out, and (again, hopefully) provide a pretty good introduction to theatre to kids who would otherwise never experience it. And one things that is pretty cool is that I’ve made a fair few friends in the process too.

Image from National Library of Wales, via Flickr

I’ve avoided New Year’s Resolutions for some years now. It all started with making the New Year’s Resolution to make no more New Year’s Resolutions, which seemed awfully clever at the time, but really probably wasn’t.

Then, I realised that the depths of winter really aren’t the best time to start a healthy eating regime (who wants salad when it is snowing outside?), a new fitness programme (who wants to go running on damp, dark mornings/evenings?) or pledges of sobriety (January is a grand time to go out drinking as all the amateur boozers who make going out at Christmas so painful are nowhere to be seen).

Plus, there is that risk that any resolution-ary activities just seem a little pious. Or perhaps I just have a fear of self-improvement. First, as this requires an acceptance that I need improving. Secondly, it soon becomes evident that accepting that is a whole big can of worms to open. Thirdly, even if I do get to whittle down the ways I could improve to a manageable list, the thought of failing to improve isn’t much fun. Who really wants to deal with a whole bunch of unresolved feelings of self-importance/self-doubt/self-pity? And in January?

However, I suspect that undertaking resolutions need not result in a descent into horrible self-absorption followed by self-loathing when you inevitably fall short. And in such a spirit, I thought I’d attempt to draft some rough resolutions to aim towards in 2012.

It is perhaps worth noting here that these are pretty broad brushstroke resolutions. There may (or may not) be more defined or detailed resolutions lurking in my head that I really don’t want to blog about as:

1. I’d be pretty much setting myself up to fail – I have no interest in setting distinct targets, just to revisit them in December and depress myself thoroughly over how far I’ve fallen short
2. I’d rather not make them public – I love my small-but-perfectly-formed readership, but have no intention of bleeding my heart in some digital fashion for them
3. I’m just not admitting them yet – not to myself, let alone the whole World Wide.

So, without further ado (and maybe there should be a resolution about fewer posts starting with padding like this, and while we’re at it, less parentheses) here goes…

Write better

On the one hand I’d like to blog more – I’ve fallen short of the 100 post mark two years running, it would be a minor achievement to reach that mark, and would be good fun to try to get at least two posts out a week. On the other hand, I’d like to spend more time on writing something decent, rather than just spewing out any old nonsense that comes into my head.

I’m sure there is a happy medium. So, I’ll try to post more, and accept that blogging can (should?) have a certain immediacy and needn’t be edited to within an inch of its life. But I’ll also attempt to write some stuff with a little more thought and attention – this may never see the light of day, but I don’t think it would hurt to push myself to full writing capacity now and again to see what I’m really capable of, or not, as the case may be.

Read better

I have a big pile of unread books. I have also have plenty of longform article/essay-type things to read. I shall aim to spend less time reading free newspapers/sports sections of newspapers/Twitter/backs of cereal packets and more time reading the good stuff.

I shall also try to limit time playing games on my phone/watching crap TV/staring into space wondering what to do – while accepting that nobody really spends every waking hour with their nose in some work of literary genius and it doesn’t hurt to switch yr brain off from time to time.

Drink better

I’m making progress with this – but the quest continues. Rather than drinking lots of average stuff, I’ve steadily, over the years, moved towards drinking better booze, in smaller quantities. This seems to be a generally rewarding strategy. I don’t think I could ever go for the full sobriety option, but the more sober days I can aim for, the better, I reckon.

Live better

See “Drink better” above. I should try to exercise more too. I think it is probably more sensible to start small with this, rather than cook up grand fitness plans only to fail miserably the first week of February. Oh, and I should probably eat less crap too.

Improve my attention span

Working on internet-y things all day, and the general information-overload-cultural-whatever has played havoc with my attention span. I shall work to rewire my brain, or something. I forget. Now, what’s happening on Twitter? And what’s that song playing? And when does that programme start?

Oh – and a very Happy New Year to you all – if I’m not too late with that.

Image from the Woody Guthrie Foundation