I usually have no difficulty in knowing what it is I want and am able to say, and sometimes the ideas commence to queue, sometimes in orderly fashion and sometimes anarchic. When this happens I just write and see what the outcome is and then review after a gap of hours, usually overnight. Sometimes, when sufficient research for the subject has been undertaken, the amount of change is small, but as has happened with the writing for Tuesday, it has been necessary to rethink and then rewrite the entirety because of the information which became available and time taken to reflect on the issues under consideration.
Usually when the idea flow, the connection between them are tenuous and only occasionally the connections, if they exist, are clear or emerge through the process of the writing, reflecting and rewriting.
The subjects which from the core of this writing will appear unconnected- the organised return of the British Olympians to their original and sometimes continuing home areas was covered extensively by national and local TV and to less extent by the national media. The Conservative Party through their spokesperson on sport attempted to get in on the act with critical speech on government policy and practice, significantly underestimating the mood of the nations and causing his party untold political damage. Rightly the media gave way to the two more important matters of the day, The actions of Russia faced with an organised attempt to isolate the country from its neighbouring states as they are encouraged to join NATO and become part of an expanding Europe. The issues here are complex and not what they appear on the surface, but how any western country can appear to support the actions of Georgia in bombing and setting upon its allegedly own people needs to be emphasised. The other issue is where in the simplest of terms America will vote a Blackman as President, the Democratic party by the narrowest of politician machinations having set on this course instead of the first woman Presidential candidate.
Then there has been the coincidence of two new MySpace Friends -Art and Artists and hmmm Creative Partnerships from the Arts council of England Exciting minds, both of which have been added to my list of Top Friends with the latter having the potential of greater significance for the future of British society than the Olympics 2012 and their legacy.
With such an agenda plans for Wednesday were abandoned except for watching Sunderland at Notts Forest on Sky hoping the club will be able to repeat the Friendly win on the first day of my recent visit to Nottingham for the first day of Championship game between Durham and the County. I will also need to comment on last night's win by Newcastle at Coventry and England's thrashing South Africa at cricket also at Tent Bridge Nottingham, looking forward to a weekend where the next two the five game series is to be played, Newcastle is at Arsenal also on Sky and where I will be going to see the second home game of Sunderland where I would be surprised if the city's first ever Olympic Medallist was not introduced to supporters sometime during the afternoon.
Art and Artist is a curious but interesting site run by an artist from Germany which at present only includes interviews with three new artists yet with 4500 friends and approaching 1000 comments. Invited to comment on the Blogs my attention became focussed not on the three artists whose work is of interest to me in so far as it is ever possible to experience visual artwork through this medium, but on the response of some 50 members to the Question What is Art? Oddly although everyone is given the opportunity to comment on the individual comments of everyone else, no one until the approach to me has chosen to do so. What does not surprise is the limited view and understanding of Art expressed by artists and those interested in art in their published public comments.
Almost everyone has attempted to define art as an earth planet human activity and only a few showed any understanding of Art as a separate force from earth humanity and which can only be defined once you have understood and accepted the infinite nature of space and time. Obviously there are those who genuinely believe that it is only possible to define Art as am earth human being activity but such views are at a similar level as those who argue that Christians, the Jews and the Muslims are followers of the only true religion.
There were also contributors whose vision appears restricted to defining the difference between professional and amateur artists, as if this has anything to do with the significance of individual art works, and those who appear more concerned with defining what is good or bad art or real and unreal art rather than the encompassing breath and depth of art. The aspects on which most contributors are in agreement is that most artists are compelled to do what they do irrespective of the level of food, shelter and things acquisition which the doing provides, or does not, and that most also hope that their work will have an impact on others individually and society in general as a force for good often associated with love, truth and beauty a la Moulin Rouge, the film whereas the reality is that art also encompasses hate, deceit and ugliness.
I hope to show the connection between this and what is happening in relation to Georgia and Russia and the American Party and Convention system later.
Perhaps because I did not identify myself as a creative until in my mid forties, and only then began to understand the significance, and that I was not able to begin to be an artist and produce artwork until I was sixty four, five years ago, I have moved beyond the hope that my work will impact on individuals and affect society and I am content with just doing what I am driven to do, although this is not also to say that I hope my work when it is completed or when I am no longer able to work, it will have a life independent of me for like human beings art tends to be happy art if it is recognised as art. There is a role for unhappy art and unhappy human beings but I cannot cope with too much unhappiness at anyone time.
It is a fortuitous coincidence that within a day of being contacted by the new friend with a preoccupation about the nature of Art and of the Artist I was also contacted by Hmmm, a new Arts Council My Space Site on Creative Partnerships which is a flagship government sponsored creative learning programme designed to develop the skills of young people across England and designed to transform teaching and learning across the curriculum.
The aim is to forge inspiring partnerships between creative professionals and young people across a wide range of projects. The project support thousands of innovative long-term partnerships between schools and creative people, from architects to scientists to multimedia developers and artists.
They cast the net wide in projects as they believe creativity is not a skill bound within the arts, but a broader ability to question, make connections, and take an innovative and imaginative approach to problem solving. It immediately struck me that this programme has the potential for a more important and lasting significance than the success of the Beijing Olympics and that hoped for in 2012.
My personal interest among my range of many interests is that schools should be asked to measure their intakes, (I prefer measure, to testing), for creative personalities, and then provide the understanding, help and support necessary to enable such children to find satisfying and socially beneficial outlets for their creative energies instead of what often now happens if they become destructive, often self destructive and anti social. This poses a challenge for those in government and social planning and development because every society needs a level of anti social behaviour, especially at points when societies have become locked into negative situations and understandings. A balance has therefore to be achieved between meeting the needs of the society and the needs of the individual creatives especially when they become teenagers. This is also true for political and religious questions. The one aspect of Marxism which I have continued to uphold and which he took from Hegel, is the dialectic, the concept that an equilibrium can only be achieved as a consequence of the process during with opposing forces, sometimes extreme forces become fused. The cynical in me could argue that you have two individuals one black and one female who wants to be president of the USA and therefore has to become the party candidate so they fight an intense, bitter and personal campaign in which they attempt to foster their own standing and attack the standing of the other until one is able to claim victory over the other and hen the concentrate on a creating a unity behind the successful of the two and repeat the process with this time as heads of the two power political organisations and then having divided the nation, the victor announces that the first task is to unite the nation and set aside political differences to achieve the common good.
The government and the British Olympic authorities are handling the unexpected success of the team brilliantly, attempting to immediately establish the successful athletes as icons and trend setters in their local communities, with the triple aims of encouraging as many as possible to engage in sporting activities at a level appropriate for their age and physique and which will have health and other social benefits as well as individual ones; of mobilising the public, especially those living around where 2012 events will be held, giving support to what is and will happen in their communities, and becoming volunteers, and thirdly to attract as many young people as possible to as many different sports, especially those where there has not been much interest to-date, to ensure that we have a range of competitive young people across the board at the 2012 event, and subsequent ones. A fourth by-product is that it should have become easier to encourage more commercial enterprises to sponsor and become financially involved in 2012 and supporting teams for the various events.
Measuring the legacy of all this will be nigh on impossible and the tendency will be to concentrate on the future use of new buildings, both the competitive arenas and the accommodation facilities. The immediate product of revolutions is rarely if ever beneficial to the existing population but visionary change can more easily be stifled or sent off course down a blind alley. Conservatives are more likely to achieve radical change than Liberals who are usually forced into supporting the status quo in order to survive.
Of course we will not be able to progress developing British societies through sport and creative activity if the economic situation continues to deteriorate and we are thrust into ongoing confrontation with Russia. Unravelling what has happened in Georgia and the true positions of Russia, and the other members of the eight top economic powers club requires the time which I have not chosen to allocate so far. My present understanding is that the decision of the other powers to accept the unilateral declaration of Kosovo led Russia to escalate it moves for the Georgian provinces to seek their independence, to the extent that it provided all those wishing to have Russian citizenship in addition to those who already possessed Russian citizenship and had previously moved into the satellite and neighbouring countries.
There are obvious parallels between the behaviour of Russia with, Britain and France for example in relation to their former empires. Britain and France are now attempting to play a leadership role trying to prevent the escalation of what has happened and Britain in particular through my local Member of Parliament David Miliband needs to avoid appearing to defend Georgian action and attacking the Russian position outright. My understanding is that it was Georgia that used bombs, rockets and arms against people within its own stated border, many of whom were long standing as well as recent citizens of Russia. What would we or America done if we had been in the same position?
I originally wrote this watching the tens of thousands of citizens of Edinburgh greet the open bus carrying Chris Hoy and the three other Scottish medallist through the streets of the Royal mile and I did not see one Union Jack being waved throughout the hour long journey and everywhere there was flying the National Flag of Scotland. The only indication of a British Team was the track suits worn by the Athletes. There is no doubt that the move for a separate Scottish Team in 2012 will grow apace. It was also interesting that during the opening ceremony a Scottish band of pipers was used and that Scotland the Brave was heard at least half a dozen times, and at the time I wondered who and what was behind that. Before the bus journey there was a carefully orchestrated reception at Edinburgh Castle for the four Medal winners with Sport Scotland in the Chair and Wendy Alexander the Deputy First Minister welcoming and congratulating them on behalf of the Scottish Government, mentioning that the first Minister would hold a reception at the Parliament building in mid September. This and the pre arranged questions was well done.
One could never envisage a British government using troops and their weaponry against the Scottish people, especially in a situation where the overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence such as is my understanding of what happened in part of Georgia. There is also the problem of our dependence upon Russian oil where forty percent is provided although in turn Russian needs the revenues to develop its own economy. And I do not want to hear about election fixes by those who forget how George Bush first came to power. I have previously commented that whereas once there were over 50 coal mines in the North East there are now only Museums but at the Port of Tyne here in South Shields there are mountains of coal reserves brought in from Russia. So are we really going to do more than words whatever Russia does in relation to Georgia and other countries on its borders where there are significant populations of Russians.
One of the reason why perhaps Georgia and Russia felt able to use weapons in an attempt to settle their conflict is the commitment of American, Britain and Europe in varying degrees to Iraq and Afghanistan, and potentially to Pakistan, already a nuclear power and which is now the target for militant Muslims to take control. It is interesting that the Democratic line is that American troops should be used in Afghanistan and not Iraq a similar argument being used by the Conservatives, thus confirming the problem for democracies having to appear to go with the public flow regardless of principles, values and what one believes to be right.
The biggest uncertainty is over the future Foreign policy of the U. S. A. as the country moves into the final phase of the Presidential election process and I will return to this issue having watched the Democrat Party Convention over the past two days. It has been an amazing and at time a sickening
Other notings
What was the public reception for the Rebecca Adlington motorcade on Tuesday and that given to Welsh medallists at Cardiff? How far was that in Scotland organised by the Scottish National party?
I enjoyed the evenly matched League Cup game between Newcastle and Coventry but what is going on behind the scenes in relation to Milner and Owen. I enjoyed the quip of one cycling medallist that where was the media when the team was winning world championship medals - and then answered the question focussing attention of Joey Barton going to Prison.. There are just a few days left in the summer transfer market for the big surprises to occur. I tried to become an online member of Newcastle's member's club as a means of buying individual tickets but the internet site is hopeless. Now I have received an application through the post. It is interesting to learn that for the first time in a decade the stadium was not sold out for the opening home match of the season and at last it looks as if people are going to more selective and not given unconditional support regardless of performance and achievement.
The way England fast bowlers demolished South Africa after they had won the toss and elected to bat was also amazing but the supporters who had paid their £35 for an afternoon and evening of cricket went home content but after seeing less than half the normal hours of the 100 over game as the match was over after 37 overs with 63 unplayed. It was good to see the Trent Bridge again but I wondered what the Nottinghamshire members who had met on my visit felt about the situation. Was a one sided victory in a third of the time allocated what they really wanted to see but it was great for the British morale.
Usually when the idea flow, the connection between them are tenuous and only occasionally the connections, if they exist, are clear or emerge through the process of the writing, reflecting and rewriting.
The subjects which from the core of this writing will appear unconnected- the organised return of the British Olympians to their original and sometimes continuing home areas was covered extensively by national and local TV and to less extent by the national media. The Conservative Party through their spokesperson on sport attempted to get in on the act with critical speech on government policy and practice, significantly underestimating the mood of the nations and causing his party untold political damage. Rightly the media gave way to the two more important matters of the day, The actions of Russia faced with an organised attempt to isolate the country from its neighbouring states as they are encouraged to join NATO and become part of an expanding Europe. The issues here are complex and not what they appear on the surface, but how any western country can appear to support the actions of Georgia in bombing and setting upon its allegedly own people needs to be emphasised. The other issue is where in the simplest of terms America will vote a Blackman as President, the Democratic party by the narrowest of politician machinations having set on this course instead of the first woman Presidential candidate.
Then there has been the coincidence of two new MySpace Friends -Art and Artists and hmmm Creative Partnerships from the Arts council of England Exciting minds, both of which have been added to my list of Top Friends with the latter having the potential of greater significance for the future of British society than the Olympics 2012 and their legacy.
With such an agenda plans for Wednesday were abandoned except for watching Sunderland at Notts Forest on Sky hoping the club will be able to repeat the Friendly win on the first day of my recent visit to Nottingham for the first day of Championship game between Durham and the County. I will also need to comment on last night's win by Newcastle at Coventry and England's thrashing South Africa at cricket also at Tent Bridge Nottingham, looking forward to a weekend where the next two the five game series is to be played, Newcastle is at Arsenal also on Sky and where I will be going to see the second home game of Sunderland where I would be surprised if the city's first ever Olympic Medallist was not introduced to supporters sometime during the afternoon.
Art and Artist is a curious but interesting site run by an artist from Germany which at present only includes interviews with three new artists yet with 4500 friends and approaching 1000 comments. Invited to comment on the Blogs my attention became focussed not on the three artists whose work is of interest to me in so far as it is ever possible to experience visual artwork through this medium, but on the response of some 50 members to the Question What is Art? Oddly although everyone is given the opportunity to comment on the individual comments of everyone else, no one until the approach to me has chosen to do so. What does not surprise is the limited view and understanding of Art expressed by artists and those interested in art in their published public comments.
Almost everyone has attempted to define art as an earth planet human activity and only a few showed any understanding of Art as a separate force from earth humanity and which can only be defined once you have understood and accepted the infinite nature of space and time. Obviously there are those who genuinely believe that it is only possible to define Art as am earth human being activity but such views are at a similar level as those who argue that Christians, the Jews and the Muslims are followers of the only true religion.
There were also contributors whose vision appears restricted to defining the difference between professional and amateur artists, as if this has anything to do with the significance of individual art works, and those who appear more concerned with defining what is good or bad art or real and unreal art rather than the encompassing breath and depth of art. The aspects on which most contributors are in agreement is that most artists are compelled to do what they do irrespective of the level of food, shelter and things acquisition which the doing provides, or does not, and that most also hope that their work will have an impact on others individually and society in general as a force for good often associated with love, truth and beauty a la Moulin Rouge, the film whereas the reality is that art also encompasses hate, deceit and ugliness.
I hope to show the connection between this and what is happening in relation to Georgia and Russia and the American Party and Convention system later.
Perhaps because I did not identify myself as a creative until in my mid forties, and only then began to understand the significance, and that I was not able to begin to be an artist and produce artwork until I was sixty four, five years ago, I have moved beyond the hope that my work will impact on individuals and affect society and I am content with just doing what I am driven to do, although this is not also to say that I hope my work when it is completed or when I am no longer able to work, it will have a life independent of me for like human beings art tends to be happy art if it is recognised as art. There is a role for unhappy art and unhappy human beings but I cannot cope with too much unhappiness at anyone time.
It is a fortuitous coincidence that within a day of being contacted by the new friend with a preoccupation about the nature of Art and of the Artist I was also contacted by Hmmm, a new Arts Council My Space Site on Creative Partnerships which is a flagship government sponsored creative learning programme designed to develop the skills of young people across England and designed to transform teaching and learning across the curriculum.
The aim is to forge inspiring partnerships between creative professionals and young people across a wide range of projects. The project support thousands of innovative long-term partnerships between schools and creative people, from architects to scientists to multimedia developers and artists.
They cast the net wide in projects as they believe creativity is not a skill bound within the arts, but a broader ability to question, make connections, and take an innovative and imaginative approach to problem solving. It immediately struck me that this programme has the potential for a more important and lasting significance than the success of the Beijing Olympics and that hoped for in 2012.
My personal interest among my range of many interests is that schools should be asked to measure their intakes, (I prefer measure, to testing), for creative personalities, and then provide the understanding, help and support necessary to enable such children to find satisfying and socially beneficial outlets for their creative energies instead of what often now happens if they become destructive, often self destructive and anti social. This poses a challenge for those in government and social planning and development because every society needs a level of anti social behaviour, especially at points when societies have become locked into negative situations and understandings. A balance has therefore to be achieved between meeting the needs of the society and the needs of the individual creatives especially when they become teenagers. This is also true for political and religious questions. The one aspect of Marxism which I have continued to uphold and which he took from Hegel, is the dialectic, the concept that an equilibrium can only be achieved as a consequence of the process during with opposing forces, sometimes extreme forces become fused. The cynical in me could argue that you have two individuals one black and one female who wants to be president of the USA and therefore has to become the party candidate so they fight an intense, bitter and personal campaign in which they attempt to foster their own standing and attack the standing of the other until one is able to claim victory over the other and hen the concentrate on a creating a unity behind the successful of the two and repeat the process with this time as heads of the two power political organisations and then having divided the nation, the victor announces that the first task is to unite the nation and set aside political differences to achieve the common good.
The government and the British Olympic authorities are handling the unexpected success of the team brilliantly, attempting to immediately establish the successful athletes as icons and trend setters in their local communities, with the triple aims of encouraging as many as possible to engage in sporting activities at a level appropriate for their age and physique and which will have health and other social benefits as well as individual ones; of mobilising the public, especially those living around where 2012 events will be held, giving support to what is and will happen in their communities, and becoming volunteers, and thirdly to attract as many young people as possible to as many different sports, especially those where there has not been much interest to-date, to ensure that we have a range of competitive young people across the board at the 2012 event, and subsequent ones. A fourth by-product is that it should have become easier to encourage more commercial enterprises to sponsor and become financially involved in 2012 and supporting teams for the various events.
Measuring the legacy of all this will be nigh on impossible and the tendency will be to concentrate on the future use of new buildings, both the competitive arenas and the accommodation facilities. The immediate product of revolutions is rarely if ever beneficial to the existing population but visionary change can more easily be stifled or sent off course down a blind alley. Conservatives are more likely to achieve radical change than Liberals who are usually forced into supporting the status quo in order to survive.
Of course we will not be able to progress developing British societies through sport and creative activity if the economic situation continues to deteriorate and we are thrust into ongoing confrontation with Russia. Unravelling what has happened in Georgia and the true positions of Russia, and the other members of the eight top economic powers club requires the time which I have not chosen to allocate so far. My present understanding is that the decision of the other powers to accept the unilateral declaration of Kosovo led Russia to escalate it moves for the Georgian provinces to seek their independence, to the extent that it provided all those wishing to have Russian citizenship in addition to those who already possessed Russian citizenship and had previously moved into the satellite and neighbouring countries.
There are obvious parallels between the behaviour of Russia with, Britain and France for example in relation to their former empires. Britain and France are now attempting to play a leadership role trying to prevent the escalation of what has happened and Britain in particular through my local Member of Parliament David Miliband needs to avoid appearing to defend Georgian action and attacking the Russian position outright. My understanding is that it was Georgia that used bombs, rockets and arms against people within its own stated border, many of whom were long standing as well as recent citizens of Russia. What would we or America done if we had been in the same position?
I originally wrote this watching the tens of thousands of citizens of Edinburgh greet the open bus carrying Chris Hoy and the three other Scottish medallist through the streets of the Royal mile and I did not see one Union Jack being waved throughout the hour long journey and everywhere there was flying the National Flag of Scotland. The only indication of a British Team was the track suits worn by the Athletes. There is no doubt that the move for a separate Scottish Team in 2012 will grow apace. It was also interesting that during the opening ceremony a Scottish band of pipers was used and that Scotland the Brave was heard at least half a dozen times, and at the time I wondered who and what was behind that. Before the bus journey there was a carefully orchestrated reception at Edinburgh Castle for the four Medal winners with Sport Scotland in the Chair and Wendy Alexander the Deputy First Minister welcoming and congratulating them on behalf of the Scottish Government, mentioning that the first Minister would hold a reception at the Parliament building in mid September. This and the pre arranged questions was well done.
One could never envisage a British government using troops and their weaponry against the Scottish people, especially in a situation where the overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence such as is my understanding of what happened in part of Georgia. There is also the problem of our dependence upon Russian oil where forty percent is provided although in turn Russian needs the revenues to develop its own economy. And I do not want to hear about election fixes by those who forget how George Bush first came to power. I have previously commented that whereas once there were over 50 coal mines in the North East there are now only Museums but at the Port of Tyne here in South Shields there are mountains of coal reserves brought in from Russia. So are we really going to do more than words whatever Russia does in relation to Georgia and other countries on its borders where there are significant populations of Russians.
One of the reason why perhaps Georgia and Russia felt able to use weapons in an attempt to settle their conflict is the commitment of American, Britain and Europe in varying degrees to Iraq and Afghanistan, and potentially to Pakistan, already a nuclear power and which is now the target for militant Muslims to take control. It is interesting that the Democratic line is that American troops should be used in Afghanistan and not Iraq a similar argument being used by the Conservatives, thus confirming the problem for democracies having to appear to go with the public flow regardless of principles, values and what one believes to be right.
The biggest uncertainty is over the future Foreign policy of the U. S. A. as the country moves into the final phase of the Presidential election process and I will return to this issue having watched the Democrat Party Convention over the past two days. It has been an amazing and at time a sickening
Other notings
What was the public reception for the Rebecca Adlington motorcade on Tuesday and that given to Welsh medallists at Cardiff? How far was that in Scotland organised by the Scottish National party?
I enjoyed the evenly matched League Cup game between Newcastle and Coventry but what is going on behind the scenes in relation to Milner and Owen. I enjoyed the quip of one cycling medallist that where was the media when the team was winning world championship medals - and then answered the question focussing attention of Joey Barton going to Prison.. There are just a few days left in the summer transfer market for the big surprises to occur. I tried to become an online member of Newcastle's member's club as a means of buying individual tickets but the internet site is hopeless. Now I have received an application through the post. It is interesting to learn that for the first time in a decade the stadium was not sold out for the opening home match of the season and at last it looks as if people are going to more selective and not given unconditional support regardless of performance and achievement.
The way England fast bowlers demolished South Africa after they had won the toss and elected to bat was also amazing but the supporters who had paid their £35 for an afternoon and evening of cricket went home content but after seeing less than half the normal hours of the 100 over game as the match was over after 37 overs with 63 unplayed. It was good to see the Trent Bridge again but I wondered what the Nottinghamshire members who had met on my visit felt about the situation. Was a one sided victory in a third of the time allocated what they really wanted to see but it was great for the British morale.
