An opening

Cynic though I sometimes am, I warmed to the Olympics opening ceremony.   Yes, I know it cost a lot and I know the performers were volunteers and that there are numerous problems with corporate sponsors and the treatment of dissent.  I might not have watched the ceremony had my daughter not been one of the volunteers but, once I'd got used to the style, I found a great deal to love.

It's easy to be critical of the account of history, especially since there was so little time and so much was going on.  I glimpsed the suffragettes but only learned later that the Jarrow marchers were also present.  Perhaps the Chartists were somewhere around though I don't think the Tolpuddle martyrs or the Diggers were included.  They didn't represent the the Commonwealth either - perhaps the execution of Charles I was judged unsuitable for all sorts of reasons - and Britain's uncomfortable colonial history was omitted.  But Blake's "Jerusalem" made a good starting point and the complexity of the Industrial Revolution - with its excitement, achievement and damage - was stupendous.  I'm still thinking about the implications of conflating Shakespeare's Caliban with Isambard Kingdom Brunel.  Perhaps because it appeals so strongly to my imagination, it's made a slight adjustment to my views of the 19th century.


I expect most viewers took what they wanted from the ceremony.  Some of my friends lauded J.K. Rowling. There was great enthusiasm for James Bond, the Queen and the corgis.  Mr Bean had even more fans than Simon Rattle.  I was thrilled to see a huge CND symbol in the arena, even though I understand that it was there as part of the history of Britain in the late twentieth ceremony.  But a huge number of people were excited when the letters "NHS" appeared.  Most people in Britain still agree that being able to go to the doctor and be treated in hospital when necessary without worrying about money is one of the great achievements of Britain's welfare state.  As the story of the health service was entangled with children's books, it wasn't surprising that villains from children's literature appeared to attack children in hospital nor that nurses and a number of Mary Poppinses finally defeated Lord Voldemort.


But perhaps the best thing about the opening ceremony was that it showed so many people what they love about Britain: its countryside, its industrial achievement; its literature;  its music; and above all the huge mixture of ordinary people who mostly live happily together, enjoy life and like one another.  It was an optimistic and hopeful picture of life here today, appropriate for the short period in which, in theory, there should be an Olympic peace.  I liked the way the peacemakers handed the Olympic flag to representatives of the armed forces, because, if we're ever to build peace, we'd be wise to involve armies in the movement away from violence.  


The parade of the athletes, many grinning broadly as they entered the stadium, fitted well with the show as a whole.  I know it's not always like this but I'd like to think of the Olympics as somewhere in which competitors form friendships across national boundaries and despite suspicion and conflict.  I'm also happy to celebrate the huge variety of people who take part in sports for love of it and who often aren't very well-known.  Since I joined a fencing club, I've learned about the amount of dedication shown by people in "minority" sports.  At my fencing club the coaches are unpaid (but qualified) volunteers and members of the committee donate their skills in such roles as web-designer, accountant, social secretary and armourer so that the club can keep its fees down and welcome members of the basis of interest.  It's given me a great respect for people involved in sport.

It seems that Danny Boyle's vision is one of peace, freedom and equality - one in which the contributions of all people are valued.  It's a fantasy, of course, and I see the strength of the objections.  People say it all costs too much in an age of austerity,  that it's a bit unreal and that sport isn't for everyone.  People quote Juvenal and talk about "bread and circuses" - some of them go on to ask "where's the bread?"  I can see their point.  They see sport and the arts as an extravagance when we need to to campaign once more: for the health service, for workers' rights, for food for the hungry, for an end to torture and oppression, for the welfare state, for equality, for freedom. I want all those things but I want circuses as well.  

Juvenal saw bread and circuses as something that distracted the people from Rome's serious political purposes.  He didn't like the people much.  For him they were the enemy of political decency - and he didn't reckon he belonged among them.  But I am happy to be one of "the people."  For me there's a different way of expressing what I want.  Just over a hundred years ago a poem declared that a life devoted to work and survival was not enough.  Two lines have often been repeated:

 Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;

 Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

 I want a world in which people experience delight as well as having enough to eat.  I don't think art and sport necessarily turn us into passive consumers of whatever the government says.  They can bring people together and widen their knowledge and understanding of the world.  They can set the imagination and intelligence alight, and bring people who would not normally encounter one another the joy of engaging in a shared activity.  They can give us some idea of how much better the world might be, even though they leave us with the task of achieving it.  

Photo by Nick Webb, courtesy of wikimedia commons.

The absence of Zeus

I wasn't planning to see the Olympic flame.  There's so much that's wrong about the Olympics, especially as it's currently run.  I worry about the way Londoners were uprooted, and the excuse for surveillance and repression - similar concerns have been raised about most cities where the Olympics have been held.  When I'm told that London's aim is to rival Beijing, this adds to my concern.

Then there are the lesser worries.  The sponsors are omnipresent and often absurd.  There are concerns about drugs and cheating.  These aren't new.  The Victorian establishment may have idealised sport, by which it meant the amateurism of gentlemen, but the roots of the Olympic games are rougher.  I've been looking at the kind of competitive sports described by Homer - for instance, the funeral games described in Book XXIII of the Iliad.  There's nothing gentlemanly about them.  The competitors want the very costly prizes promised to the winners and they are quite happy to cheat if that will help them win.  The most common form of cheating involves asking for help from a friendly god, as the gods are usually willing to skew the results by tripping up an opponent or giving horses extra speed and strength.  And when the event is over, there are rows between the competitors and appeals to the judges.  Modern-day sports seem pretty fair and restrained by contrast.

But the Olympics evoke the idea of Greek sports so perhaps it's only right that I ascribe my encounter with the Olympic torch to the intervention of Zeus.

My plans for the day were simple: I would mix some necessary work with a trip to the supermarket and a necessary journey to the bank.  If I got those done in the morning, I'd have the rest of the day clear.  I didn't count on the rain.

It wasn't ordinary rain.  It was a long, drenching downpour accompanied by long rumbles of thunder and occasional lightning.  It was more dramatic than any rain I've seen this summer - and that's saying a great deal.  I noted that the Olympic torch relay, which had reached Nottinghamshire, had been halted by the weather - and that the torch itself took a lunchbreak.  That was when I began to blame Zeus.  After all, he's the king of the Olympian gods and responsible for thunder and lightning.  I wondered idly whether Zeus sent the weather as a sign of his displeasure or a particular indication of his pleasure.  Whichever it was, it delayed my plans.

I reached Nottingham and the bank just before closing time.  There was a high stage in the Old Market Square.  To one side was a large, shiny cauldron, ready to receive the flame. Crowds and souvenir-sellers were beginning to assemble.  There was a light drizzle and the sky was getting greyer.  I wondered how long it would be until the next downpour.

Curiously, I began to wander round the sponsors' stalls.  They wanted to give me free things - strange items that made loud noises, objects with a possible sporting connection or even free drinks.  There was the opportunity to be photographed with an Olympic torch.  I took it, as the queues were short.  I had no problem with accepting gifts from a bank, an electronics firm and a soft-drink manufacturer - after all, it wouldn't make me more likely to buy or recommend their products.  I noticed that Nottingham people were much keener on collecting freebies than on buying officially branded Olympics souvenirs - there wasn't much enthusiasm at the stand selling mementos of the torch relay.

Gradually the dark clouds receded.  Instead the sun came out, the rain evaporated from the pavements and Nottingham was filled with an unfamiliar warmth.  Perhaps Zeus was being benevolent - or perhaps he had lost interest in the torch-bearers.  Most likely he was absent.  I know from Homer that he often goes on trips, sometimes pursuing women but often to attend feasts.   Once Zeus had departed, the weather had an unfamiliar warmth.  

I strolled away from the market square towards Nottingham Contemporary.  A few people were sitting on the base of Weekday Cross and the outdoor tables of the bars and cafés were all occupied.  A waited and gradually a gentle crowd - mostly parents with young children - gathered.   Mostly they were quiet but a group of Brownies sang while brandishing a large replica torch made from cardboard.  Sponsors arrived and distributed flags and souvenirs.  The Nottingham Contemporary zebra emerged from the gallery and shook hands with the children.   Community police and organisers erected barriers to close the road but there weren't enough barriers to line the pavements - but the children sat patiently on the kerb, waiting.  If there was any shoving or complaining, I didn't see it.


The first part of the procession was a convoy of police on motorbikes.  The children applauded and waved their flags.  Some of the policemen waved back.  There were lorries, cars and vans (several from the sponsors) as well as occasional cyclists.  No-one was sure whhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/o they were but we applauded generously as they smiled and waved.  A coach driver did an imitation of the royal wave - or perhaps his arm was getting tired.  One cyclist carried a typed sign telling us that the flame would arrive in six minutes.  Suddenly I realised that the people smiling and waving from one of the cars were Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.  They had an Olympic torch with them and had been skating with it in the Ice Centre.  Now they were on their way to take the torch at the next stage and run together with it to the Old Market Square.  I managed to take one, rather blurred photo - proof that I had seen them.  Then we waited again.


Eventually there was another convoy and we could glimpse the torch behind a coach.  Then the torch-bearer came into view.  Someone said he was called Baz and that he ran a boxing club.  We clapped, cheered, waved and made a noise - and, as the torch-bearer raised the torch aloft, I found I was unexpectedly moved by the event.  The wasn't a glossy star or a photogenic youngster but an older man who looked like someone I might meet in the post office, greengrocer's, library or bus queue.  I was pleased with how he looked and that I could applaud a local man who had helped others through sport.  He ran holding the torch with the smoothness of an athlete.  


I suppose we saw him for a minute at most.  He ran comfortably down the hill to the next "kiss-point" - the toe-curlingly embarrassing name for the point at which the flame is passed from torch to torch.  But for a moment I did feel, against all my expectations, that I had witnessed something that mattered - something as simple as a man holding a torch and running down a Nottingham street.


It doesn't solve any of the problems with the Olympics and I still have considerable respect for the anti-Olympics protesters, who are asking necessary questions.  But the part of the torch relay I saw was impressive, for all its questionable history.  I hope that the children who watched and cheered remember the event.  I'd like to think that they might take from it a sense that they can witness and take part in history and that important events take place in their own streets.  Unlikely, perhaps, but there was a gentle kindness in the occasion that let me dream, if only for an hour or so.


Later I mingled with the huge crowds in the Old Market Square.  There too I noticed an unfamiliar gentleness.  Local schoolchildren were performing on the stage as the flame burned in the cauldron.  Then the flame was transferred to a small lantern and taken away.  Apparently even the Olympic flame has to be put to bed at night.

Bringing home the Ashes

They made me play cricket at school. Looking back, I approve. Cricket was widely seen as a boys' game and it was good to have the opportunity. I didn't even mind too much at the time.

Like every sport, cricket had its dangers. There was the hard ball hurtling in my direction and the scorn of the games mistress - and fellow players - every time I ducked or missed a catch. But I soon developed a strategy that made the game a source of pleasure. I made sure I had a book in my pocket and volunteered to field on the boundary line. Very few teenage players - boys or girls - can hit a cricket ball to the boundary and there was a convenient hedge nearby. I and my book would adjourn to the other side of the hedge where I would read in the sunshine. Books I enjoyed at the time included Dorothy L. Sayers' Murder Must Advertise. I quite like fictional cricket matches.

This probably doesn't make me the ideal audience for Michael Pinchbeck's new play, The Ashes, which I saw at its final preview performance - it runs till late September. I wasn't really in the mood for theatre when I headed to Nottingham Playhouse. It didn't help that the lovely Cast bar, where, as a Backstage Pass member I have a discount, told me there was a 45-minute wait for food - even cold nibbles. It was only 50 minutes to curtain up. I settled down with a beer and surveyed the crowds. They were mainly male, which had a definite and unusual advantage - no queue for the ladies' loo.

It looks as though The Ashes will be a popular play. Harold Larwood, the cricketer at its centre was a Nottinghamshire lad who played for the county. The crowds in the bar included more cricketers and cricket fans than I usually observe at the theatre - but perhaps I was just more aware of conversations about cricket. It could be a tricky audience, I reflected, picking out flaws in details or cricketing stance. Looking at the length of the two parts of the play, I was further concerned. The first half was a mere 45 minutes and the second 75 - against the usual logic which makes the second act shorter than the first. I was full of doubts as I settled down to watch.

I already knew something of the subject of the play. The Bodyline tour, as the 1932-3 Ashes tour of Australia is known, is still discussed, often in relation to class as well as sporting ethics. In the 1930s the distinction between "gentlemen" (upper-class amateurs) and "players" (working-class professionals) remained an important one, although the national team drew from both groups. Discussions of the bodyline strategy, in which batsmen risked serious injury from fast bowling, often focus on the contrast between the public-school and Oxford-educated team captain, Douglas Jardine, and the two Nottinghamshire ex-miners, Harold Larwood and Bill Voce. This, as a friend pointed out, set up the risk that the play would be worthy and obvious. I settled in my seat without great hopes.

Within the first five minutes I realised that the play was going to work. It doesn't aim at naturalism - just as well, since the Playhouse stage isn't big enough for a cricket pitch - so all the actors, including the leads, took other roles as required, changing both attitudes and accents. However the actors convinced within each role they took. The cricketers in the audience plainly approved too. They were quickly receptive to references I found obscure and their appreciative laughter made the theatre a comfortable place. It was plain that the play was not going to be dully worthy.

Pinchbeck's play places the emphasis precisely where it needs to be: on character and events. There are ethical dilemmas but they are explored through the complex characters at the centre of the drama: Harold Larwood, played by Karl Haynes and Douglas Jardine played by Jamie de Courcey. The performances in these roles were stunning, even within an excellent ensemble cast. When I think of Larwood and Jardine in future, I suspect they'll always be embodied by Hayes' slight and determined figure and de Courcey's humourless intensity. Class mattered, of course, but these characters weren't cardboard cut-outs but people for whom class was one part of their complex individual experiences. The only slight problem came from the inevitable passivity of Lois Larwood (Sarah Churm) whose role was largely limited to staying in Mansfield, following the match at the cinema and expressing an admiration for Gracie Fields. But her final speech conveyed a depth of feeling that went far beyond the words she was given to say.

As a viewer, I was caught up in the English team's determination to win at all costs. This tour came, after all, in the wake of the Great War and members of the team must have spent part of their youth anticipating battle for king and country. But I winced when I saw film footage from the tour, showing the impact of bodyline (or "leg theory") bowling on the batsmen. And the longer part of the play didn't seem long at all as I was riveted by the tensions within the story.

I emerged from the play with a much greater respect for cricketers. As I stood in the bus queue afterwards, some of the cricketers from the audience were still discussing the ethics of bodyline as well as explaining theories of bowling or small aspects of the story omitted from the play. And that, I think, is how it should be.


Please note that the play has an undeservedly short run - you need to see it before 17th September. And apologies for my long absence from blogging. I was simply tired and needed a break. I'm back now.

Bread and circuses

After a busy period at work when I haven't found time to blog, I'm experiencing the delights of bread and circuses.

The bread is literally bread. I've finally explored one of the Polish shops near work and discovered a range of central European breads: heavy rye bread, bread with sunflower seeds and so on, reflecting the cuisine of various countries - not just Poland but also Latvia and Lithuania. They seem to me better than the supermarket "specialty" brands - and cheaper too.

I went to a circus as well - the Moscow State Circus which was touring near me on the day of the Royal Wedding. It was a good counter-balance to that other circus. It had a story too. If I grasped the moral correctly, it was something about taking money from the rich and spending it sensibly so that everyone could enjoy the arts. Just now that seems a pretty good idea.

All round me there's anxiety. Friends find their jobs at risk. (I seem to be safe - at least till next year, and that's ages in the present economic climate.) Health and social care are in the news. The Financial Times has picked up a story about health authorities and hospitals at risk. In many cases the risk has been caused or worsened by the involvement of private companies, who were quick to enter into Private Finance Initiative agreements that safeguarded profits at the expense of the ill, the injured and the dying. Meanwhile the big companies that make money out of caring for frail elderly people and those with disabilities have in their turn been brought close to collapse by private equity companies. From the point of view of profiteers, it seemed a neat arrangement: sell the homes to other companies, agree an ever-rising rent, trust the market - and get out quickly when the economy falters.

Obviously I should have arranged a better pension for myself, according to the right-wingers. That's the same right-wingers who object that my public-sector pension will be too generous (if I ever get there) and who tell me I should find ever more to spend on my children, my parents and every cause and charity near to my heart. But if I do my best, it's never quite enough. According to them, I should also spend more on insurance and save more - but in the present economic climate insurance companies can go bust. Even banks, which may be bailed out, seem a bit of a gamble. They depend on the markets, which depend on an ever-increasing chain of gambles and exploitation.

So besides bread, I comfort myself with circuses. I may have visited only one actual circus in the past month, but I've been making up for it by enjoying other activities which give me pleasure. They remind me that life is more than a dragged-out existence. Life isn't just about duty - we need pleasure too. For some people that means getting out into a new place, whether it's roaming the countryside or strolling through towns. Others enjoy dancing or sport - and my regular experience of wielding an epée makes me understand that these can be sources of intense pleasure. For other people it's watching sport going to gigs that's important. My circuses involve engagement with the arts.

I headed to London to see my parents, travelling as lightly as I could so that I could sandwich my visit with artistic pleasures. I was a groundling for a matinée of All's Well That Ends Well at the Globe - a difficult play that's rarely performed. It's not just its unfamiliarity that makes it one of my favourites. There's a pair of determined, assertive young women - even though the times mean that the best either can hope is an attractive, wealthy husband to lord it over them.

I've seen All's Well twice before - and in both productions the focus was on the central relationship between Helena and Bertram. The comedy was played either as abstruse courtly wit, at a distance from the audience, or a cue for over-emphasis with lots of "isn't this funny?" expressions in the hope that the audience would laugh. The revelation of this production was that, for the groundlings at least, the comedy worked and was genuinely funny. It comes, I think, from the shape of the theatre which encourages the actors to establish a relationship with the audience. Comic lines were played with the clarity of the successful stand-up - and were irresistible. I engaged with the play as a whole - how could I do otherwise with my forearms leaning on the front of the stage? - and, when the final scene of reconciliation came, my eyes filled with unexpected tears.

I stayed overnight with my parents, still in their own flat so less immediately threatened by the private profits of the market. We had supper and a quiet evening. In the morning I left with them when they headed out to the shops but my aim was a further exploration of London.

I was unsure of my destination but eventually decided on the Guildhall Museum, which I hadn't visited before, followed by the London Museum, which I hadn't seen for many years. Walking between and around the two, I found myself in a many-layered city, where modern structures of glass and metal loomed high above small Wren churches. There are traces of an even older city. I glimpsed the old London Wall through a museum window and saw what's left of the Roman amphitheatre in the Guildhall Museum basement.

That's the kind of structure Juvenal meant when he talked about bread and circuses: a place where shows of all kinds were put on, including gladiatorial combat and public execution. Being in some ways a typical Roman of his class, I don't suppose he minded the gladiators or the executions. But he was concerned that the citizens of Rome, once the source of democratic power, had been diverted from their proper concerns for the state to making demands for bread and circuses.

I agree with Juvenal that people should recognize and exert their democratic power. But I think he's wrong to dismiss bread and circuses. We all need food to live - not just food for the body but something that nourishes the imagination and tells us that life is worthwhile. It's also the circuses, whether we find them in physical activity, travel, music or the arts, that open us to a wider imaginative understanding of the world. They nourish curiosity and sympathy. They offer laughter, tears and reconciliation.

Yes, Juvenal - I want democratic involvement and responsibility. But I'll take the bread and circuses as well.

Theatre days

It's a few years since I last went to the pantomime.

I love panto. One of my best theatre memories is of a trip with friends to the Players Theatre under the arches off Villiers Street on the London Embankment. There I sat with a beer beside me, join in the traditional chorus of "Oh! the fairies!" and saw a recreation of an early 19th century panto, before the arrival of principal boy or pantomime dame.

Our local panto is usually a sell-out. Some years I'd be too late to get tickets and queue, hopefully, for returns. It's not a starry panto but features excellent panto actors who return year after year and girls from local dance schools as a chorus. And it's written by someone who knows panto-history, has a love of bad jokes and leaves plenty of space for improvisation.

This year, I received an email offering me two tickets for the price of one in the new year. Of course, I'm wondering if I can find a friend who would like to go with me. Many people I know despise panto. They accuse it of vulgarity, bad jokes and misogyny. But the vulgarity and bad jokes are the point. As for misogyny - occasionally there's a dame who has a pretty strange idea of women. But a show in which a woman takes the male romantic lead while a man in a frock wears the most extravagant costumes in the show hardly endorses sexual stereotypes. Moreover, a show in which the audience is encouraged to take part, shouting "Look behind you!", "Oh no it isn't!" and, in Nottingham, "Ey up, me duck!", is a risky piece of theatre owing much to the old traditions of carnival with its exuberant role-reversals.

I'd really like to go to the panto. But the two-for-one offer alarms me. It seems another sign of the recession. Family and group visits to the panto must be down - in times of hardship theatre, the arts and so many other pleasures seem like a luxury that can be cut.

When I'm poor, which happens from time to time, theatre and the arts see me through. My mother taught me that, if you have a choice between dinner and a theatre ticket, the theatre ticket is the better investment because the pleasure lasts longer. You can always take a slab of bread and eat it while standing in the gallery. And my mother taught me the pleasures of free museums and art galleries - places to wander and let the imagination roam. A carefully-chosen postcard of a painting can be carried around for months, used as a bookmark and finally, in an act of generosity, sent to a friend.

But how many theatre companies and art galleries will survive the economic crisis? What will become of the musicians who give so much pleasure? And, for people whose pleasures lie elsewhere, how will the sports grounds be maintained? Will there be bus trips that take us to the countryside and will the paths, moors and beaches be maintained? What will happen to those historic sites that have been labelled "national (or international) heritage"? Somehow, in the disasters ahead, I hope we find time to preserve not just life itself but the things that, for many of us, make life worthwhile. And I hope we learn to share these pleasures more generously.