This Beautiful Creature Must Die

Now far be it from me to contradict Lord Morrissey of Mancfester but as that song continues… ‘a death for no reason and death for no reason is murder’, it is surely wrong. Death for no reason is manslaughter. Murder is pre-meditated, i.e. thought about and usually for a reason. You could also argue that the ‘turkey you festively fry’ was killed for a very good reason – to feed you.

Anyway the beautiful creature to which I refer is our drama group Weekenders. I started the group in the Spring of 2002 so we have been running for slightly longer than the 3 years I gave it at the outset. Throughout that time Pete and I have been the permanent fixtures and Katy, Becky, Rachel, John and, latterly, Charis have ably assisted us along the way. We have survived a venue change midway through, I say survived in actual fact I think that gave us a new lease of life to keep going.

The high points have been many. The best nights were always the unplanned, impromptu ones, the worst the well planned badly received ones. We have put on a number of pantomimes, we’ve created music videos, we’ve done dance routines and we’ve sung songs. My personal favourite moment was when we rehearsed a short play we created that used the slight bleakness of The Smiths classic How Soon is Now to convey the crushing hopeless loneliness that young people can feel when they feel like outsiders. We contrasted that using Gene’s ‘Olympian’ (‘I wanted to be there with you for I can only be normal with you’) to suggest the euphoric feeling of finding yourself with trusted friends who sustain, support and affirm you. When I think back to the rehearsal of that, not the final performance which was good but not as good, it brings a lump to my throat and it is all I can do to not cry such was the power and beauty of the performance.

And that really was the essence of what we were trying to do. We created a space, a place where kids could come along and try to find themselves in a supporting, non-judgemental environment. Where they can be as ‘normal’ as they want to be. I think we succeeded largely. Yes there were some that didn’t get it and they didn’t last long but in the main they did and when they all did together the feeling was like no other.

So why am I ending it? Well to be honest those great nights aren’t really happening any more. 9 years is a long time and we are tired of doing it.

What will I do now? Still not sure, I do want to write up our BCLC exploits as I think there are some very valuable things we learned from doing that whole thing but I do need to work with people in some context.

Perhaps I will find my inner clown at last and take him on the road.

Strike another match go start anew….

Oh Manchester, so much to answer for

Hi, I’m Steve and  I watch Coronation Street. I have tried to give it up many times but I just keep going back to it.

It is probably very apt that I keep going off the Street and then coming back as the show itself is not averse to revisiting fertile storyline ground. At the moment we have Kevin and Sally in marital dispute, we have Leanne Battersbee and Nick Tisley revisiting their old romance (Nick to Peter Barlow last night: “first love, you don’t forget that”, not even, it would seem when the man you fell in love with metamorphosises more often than Dr Who), we have Peter Barlow getting on and off the wagon more often than a rag and bone man on a council estate, we have John/Colin, fresh from prison for kidnapping Rosie Webster, on a Harold Shipmanesque killing spree, we have Tracy Barlow generally being horrid. Honestly you can stop watching for a year or two then tune back in and after a few moments working out X has left Y and moved in with Z you could be right back where you were,

One of my favourite programmes at the moment is Charlie Brooker’s How TV Ruined Your Life (best line, to the ‘Dorrito gang’, ‘just eat your crisps and f**k off’) where he argues, with his usual blend of wit and force of personality, that TV has completely distorted our view of the world. This is a view I  share, we have an idealised, stylised view of everything that bears little resemblance to our actual experience and yet we fall for the ‘dream’ every time.

And so it is with Corrie, every time I see Sally and Kevin split up I hope that one day they may be reconciled (like the Jews and the Arabs?), I hope that Peter can beat his demons and stay off the booze and that one day Tracy will actually say something nice with some sincerity.

If there is one great thing about a programme like Coronation Street it has to be the message that redemption is possible no matter how much you screw things up.

And so I will stick with it in the forlorn hope that one day they will actually give the role of Nick Tilsley to someone that can act.

Who Can Say?

It must be a long time since I regularly posted on here since this is the first time I have used a Horrors track in a title and I have liked them for over a year now.

I should be posting a lot more as I am starting to get a sense of where I want to go on my personal journey of faith and where we want to go as a family. For me, this is likely to be the last year of Weekenders, or rather the last year of my involvement in it. Would be great to think that it will live on beyond my tenure but I can’t see it, Katy is hoping to go to Uni and Pete has never shown any real interest in leading the group.

I have been doing a lot of juggling this summer, trying to perfect some tricks and just get more solid with it. This has reminded me of my earlier ideas to take up some sort of clown persona and go out and ‘do my thing’ to schools/church groups etc. So I think I will be some sort of vagabond, name wise, and my main message will be that you have to get the basic things right in your life. If you get your relationships with yourself, those around you and God in balance then you can go on to live a pretty good life. Of course that is 3 elements which, by an amazing coincidence, is exactly how many things I can juggle competently!!

Once I have the act thought through more I will video it and post its development on here somewhere.

For the family, we have been looking for somewhere we can belong. Somewhere we can put our faith up to some rigorous intellectual challenges as well as build some significant relationships with our friends, both old and new. Not managed it yet. We tried Sanctus but it didn’t work because of their location and focus on the city centre. Anne tried the Baptist church, which was lovely and is probably somewhere we will do the major religious festivals, but that was too much like a step backwards after all we have done with BCLC. Katy has been keen on SOS at our former church but I do not want  to go back there.

So we must look to something new. My latest idea is to organise a ‘retreat’ style weekend away, somewhere we can exercise mind, body and heart. Our plan is to invite all our favourite people from all the things we have attended over the years (Swanwick, Greenbelt, church etc.) along with friends with whom we have never had a spiritual connection before, to a weekend of yoga, meditation, eating, worship, drinking, walking, playing. The idea would be to get ‘specialists’ to help with the planning (e.g. Bob and Cath could organise a walk, Pete could do some games, Stuart could do some worship etc. etc., you get the idea)

A lot to work out but we are keen to try to get it going. Will it be what we are looking for? Who can say?

Off the beaten track

I have just found something that I have to write about. It isn’t anything to do with BCLC I don’t think and if you go to this site you will realise that I have scuppered my own chances of a ‘bit of excitement’ as my wife is an avid reader of this blog. But I will risk that and your patience by saying something about this. It was in the paper today, well the Metro, so some of you will have come across it at the same time as me.

I know people for whom this would be absolutely ideal. It would make them smile again, it would improve their home life, heck it might even get things back on track with their partners. But if it didn’t they would at least be living something more than the half-life they are living today.

I know that some people will not be able to use something like this responsibly and some people may get hurt but we don’t ban cars because of the odd crash and we don’t ban drink because people get drunk.

I think it’s fascinating and empowering, but not for me.