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Soul Telly, Snacks & Reasons to be Cheerful.

11 Saturday Apr 2020

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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85% Cocoa, Ashes to Ashes, Blackadder, BREXIT, carrot batons, Celebrity Gogglebox, Chaucer, Chipsticks, Chocolate Fingers, Chocolate Rolls, Dave, Dr Who, Fawlty Towers, gogglebox, Hummus, Ian Dury, LEAVE, Life On Mars, M&Ms, Maltesers, Marmite Toast, Patagonian, Pinot, Plebs, Reasons to be Cheerful, Remain, Shameless, Sorry, The Blockheads, The Detectorists, The IT Crowd, The Sweeney, Thunderbirds, Tyrell's Naked Crisps, UK Sample, Wordsworth

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Love Gogglebox. Every fidgeting, gasping, shrieking, bantering, bolshy, camp, caustic, crass, deep, playful minute of it.

Gogglebox is soul telly.

There is no better reminder in these C times of why things will be alright. Gogglebox reminds us that the genius of every British sitcom from Fawlty Towers and Sorry to Plebs, Shameless and the IT crowd is rooted in the fact that basically they’re us, but with a director and a cameraman attached. But there’s more to soul telly than meets the eye. And its just one beautiful piece of the puzzle

In the words of the master Blockhead, Ian Dury, that timeless funk-punk Chaucer, Gogglebox brings Reasons to be Cheerful, 1, 2. 3.

So let’s pick through those Reasons. Starting with the biggie. No. 1. Gogglebox is Soul telly. And I really need to be clear about what I mean when I say Soul Telly so we don’t get muddled up. For me there are many kinds of telly so I break them into four buckets just for my tiny brain to order them better.

First there’s Brilliant telly. Now Brilliant Telly is the Oh my God have you seen…? format of telly that people refer to as having ‘water cooler’ cache [though I prefer to call them Kettle Conversations as we’re keeping this British!]. Brilliant telly is the likes of: Blue Planet, Peaky Blinders, Killing Eve, The Nest. Brilliant telly goes off like a rocket and lights up culture and conversation.

Then there’s Reassurance telly. We all know this one. It’s the t.v. solution to ‘now THAT was a shite day. Is it wine o’clock yet? Right answer. Yes.’ Once the liquid and the nibbles are sorted [more of the later], next step, reassuring telly. The increased likelihood of Reassurance telly viewing can be mapped in direct relation to the degree to which you’ve had a shite day, are knackered, and simply can’t be arsed to start a new box set, navigate Catch Up or start a movie. At the intersection of all of those variables a moment occurs. ‘Modern Family? Love it. I’m well in the mood for that. Pass the Chipsticks and that full-fat hummus, right now.’   Reassurance telly is telly that is an old friend. You know each other and you are happy in each other’s company and it requires little effort on either part. And the biggest upside? You know you’ll have a good time and you shall go to sleep quietly happy.

Then there’s Nostalgia telly. V. different to Reassurance telly. Nostalgia telly does a very particular job. It is the televisual equivalent of sticking your thumb in your mouth and having a good old suck. Nostalgia telly is when you purposefully call up something that is as much a part of socio-cultural memory and history as it is of your own personal intimate memories. For me that can be anything from The Sweeney [the original] and Thunderbirds [the original] to Dr Who [the third one]. Granted some telly does a weird slip-shift thing between Brilliant and Nostalgia – Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes are a perfect example of this. But don’t be fooled. These anomalies are Brilliant first and foremost. Nostalgia tends to announce its presence – like the screen format giving away the fact that it was built for the old television format. Porridge. Fawlty Towers and BlackAdder fulfil these things nicely.

And finally there’s Soul telly. And this is a transcendent level. Soul telly seems to be able to reach something that, to punk an old beer advert, other telly cannot reach. And Gogglebox is one of those for me. It is not just something I look forwards to; or something I love to watch with my family; or something that just makes me feel better.  It fundamentally restores my faith in a very British humanity. This is not solely reserved for reality formats. The Detectorists, a masterclass in gentle, wry, rolling storytelling  is one of the most sublime pieces of soul telly I have ever seen.

NOTE I have not included the slightly difficult 5th child. Shite Telly,  as I didn’t want either to pretend I give a shit or to intellectualise what is effectively shite by its very nature. And to be fair it demands a whole journey into the underworld of its own.

So, Reasons to be Cheerful – part 1.

Soul Telly.

Now Reasons to be Cheerful parts 2 and 3 exist, in my world at least, directly in relation to part 1. This may be currently due to the lockdown and the country calling on us to park our arse on a sofa and crack on. But to be truthful, it’s not that much of a change for me. 

When I’m not wandering around the Downs in my over-tuned trainers pretending I’m Wordsworth, or perched at my lap top typing stuff like this, or undertaking any of the various other task-based living that makes up my day, I can be found parked in a blue, poplin armchair in front of my television. [I can’t bring myself to call it a smart screen TV as it isn’t – it’s my mother’s old telly which I’ve never upgraded.]

Sometimes I am doing this with my children. And sometimes alone. But for the purposes of this piece I’ll stick with the version that includes nearest and dearest. When we do, as has already been pointed out, there is always some form of snack close to hand . 

Which neatly brings me to Reasons to be Cheerful – part 2. 

Snacks.

Yup. Snacks – or nibbles. Some form of savoury snack is always welcome – piles o’ toast. Crisps, chips n dips. [Naked Tyrells for me]. Or sweet stuff. Maltesers, M&Ms or some such chocolate. Chocolate Fingers. Whatever. [Be warned, it’s a bit of a push dragging 85% Patagonian cocoa chocolate with organic caramel splinters into this environment – a little like trying to watch Corrie with Donatella Versace but – everyone to their own.]

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Make no mistake, snacks are REALLY important to the Reasons to be Cheerful. They are not discretionary. They are a pivotal part of the whole shebang. But, again, I cannot be generalist here. In this instance, for me, snacks require a nature of self-containment if not portability. Snacks need to come in a packet, bag, sachet, wrapper or box. Cakes should be of the already individually-portioned, or of the complete-format variety – for example; chocolate cake rolls or eclairs. Though I LOVE Marmite toast, marmite toast is a step or two beyond ‘snacks’. It is for want of a better word – un-contained. Toast? Fine. But Marmite Toast. It requires toasting – and the buttering – and then spreading.

It is no surprise that every one of the gorgeous, funny and highly individual families and units on Gogglebox always have some form of snack on the go, from expansive picnic-like extravagances, red wine and chocolate, to cup-a-soup, glazed eclairs, and spray cream. They play a profound role in the dynamics and integration of the people in the room. A catalyst to lean in.

One question that does arise in my mind though is why Dave, one of the Malone family’s dogs, doesn’t eat the piles of snacks and treats on the table? Plastic props? Discuss.

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Which also brings us to Reason to be Cheerful – part 3.

Company.

There is something simple and human about the intimacy and proximity of the people in Gogglebox and the company they keep [even when they are not always human]. And once we’ve got beyond the slightly self-conscious construct or conceit of us watching them watching telly – a simple truth reveals itself to me every time. 

We’re going to be alright. If this is a half decent mirror of British society, give or take a little tweaking around the edges, we will be fine.

I am uncertain as to the degree to which they programme tries to ensure that it is being ‘UK SAMPLE’ representative but there seems to be a reasonably decent balance between types and natures and backgrounds in the Gogglebox regulars with little preference shown to any one unit. 

And as if we needed proof of the great leveller of it all, Celebrity Gogglebox simply proves that however extraordinary the things people do, they are still ordinary people. Whatever makes and bakes their fame, they are still broadly the same: same quirks; same glitches; same beliefs; same values; same need for simple acts of togetherness and belonging.

I am reassured by the fact that if I were to put a camera on myself I am no different. When I sit and watch The Detectorists while stuffing Tyrell’s Naked crisps in my face, nibbling a Malteser, or scoffing hummus with carrot batons [I just HAD to use that word], I am them. And they are me.

I am no different to any of them really. And the reason that makes me cheerful is this:

Before the big C popped up, we have been living arse-deep in divisive shite. If it wasn’t the strange and quite unpleasant hectoring and bullying of BREXIT, the utterly slippery nature of how all sides presented themselves at any given time, and the civil war of LEAVE and REMAIN, it was the hysteria of identity politics, with seemingly intelligent people sucked into messy, unravelling justifications for carving society into finer and finer pieces in some insane slice and dice race to the bottom of the self-assertion barrel. And however good the cause that one or other crowd or tribe might ignite, the nasty social smack-down bullshit of the echo chamber prevailed, and it got uglier and uglier and noisier and noisier. Cheerless, Soul-less. Charmless. Over protesting. Needy. Crooked. Divisive.

In Gogglebox. I see a celebration of shades of same. Not difference. And I think right now, out there, the majority of people are proving everyday in so many ways that shades of same are a beautiful thing. Something we’ll all stand up for and fight to protect. And it is not isolationist to look to our own first before we look to others across the world. We must secure the integrity of our society first and foremost. We’re no good to anyone elsewhere if we don’t. 

And if Soul Telly, Snacks and Company underwrite that sterling effort… I’m in.

Bowie, Ply Personae & The patina of our most vibrant selves

12 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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Alfa Romeo Junior, anaglypta, Bowie, Cork Wedges, Five Years, Garage Band, I'm a Space Invader, I'm An Alligator, Ibiza, Life On Mars, Moonage Daydream, Patina, QueensWay Ice Rink, Wakeman

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Yes.

Another.

Yet again.

Bowie pokes and provokes something within me that I am compelled to share mostly to myself. Hopefully it is in some way vaguely interesting.

Or maybe it will just reveal that I need my head ever more extensively read.

So. Last night I watched the documentary, Bowie. The Last Five Years.

I now find myself subsequently splintered into the myriad selves that his staggering catalogue of music has served since I first heard Life On Mars wafting from the room of my school friend’s eldest sister.

(She fulfilled her role perfectly. Pretty. Unreachable. Cool. Mature beyond her years. And… she had Cork Wedges.)

It’s a God awful small affair.

Bowie is linked to so many seminal moments in my life; so stitched into so many shards of my existence – the most profound backing track of me.

In this way I am a cliché. One of millions carrying the same banal truth.

Though I now realise that it takes rare moments, rude awakenings and sometimes brilliant documentaries to remind me of the fact.

I have always hoped that somewhere in the world there is a White Light filter; a magical prism lens that, when placed in front of your average ordinary person, splinters out the White Light of them – that of the façade and myth – into a rainbow of different truer selves.

This prism would reveal the fact that we are in fact Ply People – a highly compressed super glued set of layers – each layer a recording of a pivotal, seminal or catastrophic moment from our past – an emotional freeze frame of us in that moment. Each layer revealing different ages, contexts, emotional maturities, worn identities, degrees of hope or disappointment, insight, arrogance, insecurity and confusion.

As to whether this sandwich of recordings play constantly or are frozen until taken off pause by some impact I am uncertain.

I have a feeling that they are mix of the two. Equally I believe that they not only have different speeds, but also directions, and occurrences. Add to that that I also believe that they have different textures and densities, and one might see how the Ply of us could easily render every human being as a wholly unique and individual organism. Before we get anywhere near the sub atomic genetic junk and data of us, or the direct environmental effect of the context in which we exist.

As with all ‘memories’ or recollections, each of these snapshots of ‘us’ in that moment, are rendered in different opacities and intensities; sometimes the information is dense and knife sharp, other times a wafting vagary, more a feeling and some olfactory signature bundled into a misty strip.

Like a Garage Band lay-down, imagine each of them roughly placed across the whole at different junctures and depths, arranged in such a way as to make sense of the particular moment to the whole in which they exist. Each of them ramping and intensifying and fading or cutting in and out as necessary or demanded: or perhaps continuously rendered for the duration of the whole.

I don’t think the Ply Persona is the same as multiple personalities hosted in one person, as the layers I am speaking of are not separate personas to the degree that they are other to me or notionally different people to me (though if a grown up psychiatrist that actually knows about these things corrects my observations I would be delighted!)

So this is my theory.

The Ply Persona is a compound effect of the most evolutionarily powerful moments in our lives -moments that cause a progressive shift or change in us; moments that have shaped us in a way that is indelible; in a way that will never be undone; where decisions we have made, feelings we have felt, things we have seen or heard, connections we have made, actions we have undertaken either indirectly or directly, things we have created and revelations we have unveiled mark us.

Having watched the first Bowie. Five Years documentary this had already started to reveal itself to me to some degree.

To be frank, at the moment I watched Rick Wakeman unpick the chord sequence of Life On Mars on a simple keyboard, the film of it intercut with footage from Bowie’s Be-suited glam film rendition, I cried.

I am not quite sure why. I think I know why.

It moved me in a way that no one single self or moment could explain. But my Ply Persona could. My Ply Persona could point simultaneously to multiple profoundly shaping moments in which Bowie had become both generally and that song particularly inextricably linked to me. And when I hear chords lyrics and refrains of the greatest emotional value to me, the collective  is triggered all at once. Emotionally cacophonous: as if I had pressed play on hundreds of precious recollections at once, and felt every emotion simultaneously therein.

There are many Bowie threaded Mes. They read out like a ticker tape

The Me that was desirous of my Friend’s sister and the mourning of the naïve of that youth lost. The Me that sat through Top Of The Pops and Star Man at Christmas amongst the fall-out of my parents’ highly acrimonious divorce.. The Me that coveted my favourite tape in the player sitting on the sunshine soaked floor of the dining room in Thurlestone that looked to the sea. The Me that sat in the café of Bayswater Ice Skating Rink with my best friend Mark, both of us deeply enamoured by a blonde haired girl (Kate I think her name was) in a decorated Denim Jacket with troubled eyes; all to the backing track of Sound & Vision. The Me that realised in the first flush of what I thought was Love that throwing darts in Lovers Eyes as voiced by The Thin White Duke and The Bard was more than just a shared Elizabethan conceit. The Me that remembers the top floor flat in North London and the stereo on which I first listened to Let’s Dance, my girlfriend draped on the sofa in a pink and blue patterned Foundry Dress, over laced shock pink pixie boots with the remnants of an Ibiza tan and the smell of Habanos cigarettes. The Me that listened over and over to the drum section on Scary Monsters Super Creeps waiting for the revelation of how I might ever capture that spirit and vibe. The Me that can smell the rehearsal room at Nomis Studios on Sinclair Road the week before Live Aid and feeling the world at my kick-pedal and high-hat feet to the strains of Thomas Dolby playing the opening chords of Heroes. The Me that watched Life On Mars and realised that I wasn’t the only person who lived and felt the way I did growing up in 1970s Britain. The Me in my old Alfa Junior driving around the outer circle of Regents Park with Louis and Livia, my beautiful children, in the car with me, on a summer’s day with Moonage Daydream powering out of the stereo wondering whether anything could be more perfect (and realising that it couldn’t). The Me that still felt deeply the abstracted pain of Isolation and Ending that the metronomic intro drum beat of 5 Years signifies, on re-listening only a week ago.

The list of how Bowie is written into the layers of my Ply Persona goes on and on. To the degree that it has slightly taken me aback.

But it does explain the strange and abstracted sense of grief and loss I felt on the news of his death. Again, in this I am the cliché. A common emotion shared by millions.

What is more interesting to me is the way in which it clarified and coloured the nature of Ply Personas for me.

This is where a perhaps clinical truth (I am looking once more to the psychiatrists in this) is rendered clearer through the application of an artistic interpretive filter – in much the same way that the dense data and imaging of the Hubble Scope has been separated, coloured and tinted to reveal its depth and majesty. The arts inform and illuminate the sciences.

The pure clinical science of the raw images reveals nothing to people like me. It is beyond my ken. But illuminate it with an interpretive humanity and artistic majesty and it moulds and moves and shapes itself into a constellation through which I can travel, its breath-taking expanse and complexity revealed to me. An inner space is revealed.

I am perhaps applying the vanity of my idea to all, so I should better apply it purely to myself. I’ll start there.

I, me, has I believe a Ply Persona. And the gift and revelation of the creative fillip of Bowie’s music illuminates it suddenly in the same way that when one peels back the corner of some time worn Anaglypta paper on the wall of a flat or house you are renovating, a pinstriped rainbow edge is revealed. And as one pulls harder the other older layers of paint, paper, colour, texture, era, fashion, pain, laughter, boredom, anxiety, hope, optimism – all those layers of all those lives lived in the same place, in one way as one but in so many ways highly individual and complex and rich – reveal themselves.

Bowie’s music is what colours those layers in me.

These two documentaries have revealed to me that the patina of me is made up of where various parts and glimpses of these layers of me, these snapshots of me and the emotional ‘Now’ of that moment, show through.

Like the anaglypta paper, or an often over-painted piece of furniture, these show through, are revealed, at those points of greatest openness, weakness, wear or tear. Where the percussive blunts of my life chip away the present surface layer to reveal those beneath.

Perhaps the ply persona reveals to me the simple truth of being human: our irrational, unreasonable, random and chaotic selves are really just the evidence of when some or many of these layers reveal themselves unexpectedly: momentarily. Our moments of madness. Indecision. Rash reaction. Just scrappy imperfect windows into the previous Mes that mostly sit glued and compressed into one Whole.

So David, bless you wherever you are. For revealing something to me. By accident or design.

I’m a Ply Persona.

I’m Anaglypta.

I’m a mamma-pappa coming for you.

I’m a Space Invader.

I’ll be [forever]

a rock ‘n’ rollin bitch for you.

 

Brent, Bowie, Prosperity & living a very British dream.

01 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by Thin Air Factory in Uncategorized

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A life On The Road, Alan Bennet, Alan Milman, Amish, Awkward, Banality, Barrat, Bowie, Dad's Army, David Brent, DAVOS, Extras, Father Father Burning Bright, Frozen, It's a Wonderful Life, Kaiser Chiefs, Lady In The Van, Life On Mars, Living The Dream, Multinationals, Navy Seals, Pilkington, prosperity, reality tv, Ricky Gervais, Rock N Roll, Rolos, TEDx, The King's Speech

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I have just painfully struggled my way through the film David Brent. A life on the road. Struggled because I was meant to – this format of comedy celebrating its own ability to raise the desperately bleak uncomfortable human truth of our everyday mediocrities, misfits and mishits to artistic degree. Struggled because it is ferociously painful and cringe-worthy on purpose. Struggled because his character is mostly so repellent.

(I also struggled because in comedic terms it over eggs the point, over cranks the cringe and over renders the desperate side of Mr Brent with less finesse and subtlety than I had hoped for. The original series of the Office through which David Brent entered our cultural consciousness was for me a far subtler and richer human stew. This felt like a side gag escalated to movie length. A back story narrative thread built into a one and some hour screenplay.)

I am not a massive fan of Ricky Gervais. His sneery cheap shot approach to ironic belittlement and provocation sometimes just leaves me a little cold, its cruelty only ever saved and salved by Merchant, Pilkington and the whole surrounding cast of Extras.

BUT.

Saying that and having almost switched it off at so many points, the gift for my patience (or stubbornness) came in the last 5 minutes (as I am assuming they’d planned).

At the final gasp, with his perfect shiny dream of rock stardom in tatters, the uncomfortable Brent is saved by the until then unnoticed and desperately awkward affections of the lady in accounts; his silent admirer for so long. She has looked through and beyond his vulgar and desperate showboating and seen insecurities run riot in a man who perhaps deserved a second chance. A real one. A flawed, awkward, imperfect diamond of a chance perhaps – but in spite of and because of its clumsy nature  – a real human and ordinary one.

David Brent is blind to his real dream state. His notion of prosperity is rooted in social status and the trappings that come with it – rock n roll – the irony being that he impoverishes himself in pursuit of it (cashing in various pensions to try and realise it).

Prosperity is defined as something that encompasses wealth but in reality includes other factors such as happiness and well being. But we seem to have lost the ability to comprehend and measure the balance of material riches with those of a more emotionally fulfilling and human kind.

A concept of Prosperity that balances emotional and spiritual contentedness with material security and pleasure seems just beyond our ken, destined to see saw from one extreme to the other. Achieving that balance is somewhat akin to the parlour game challenge of patting our heads while rubbing our stomachs at one and the same time.

David’s painful journey to realisation and possible redemption for me is a beautiful summary of the state we’re in. Much like his enthralment to rock n roll stardom and public recognition as the source of his happiness, we are distracted by the Kardashian model of prosperity – a very American model of perfection. Perfect teeth, cheekbones nose and ass: a magazine home, a windswept and unusual partner, a face-book page crowded with a multitude of cool and just so ‘friends’ – a model of prosperity that is the antithesis of what might actually make us happy. An impossible dream that leaves us feeling lesser and unsatisfied. A model built to relentlessly disappoint.

The flawed awkward joy of his second chance is a very British thing. As a nation we are truly at our happiest amongst the flawed and the awkward. We are enamoured most by the almost and the not quite. Perfect things leave us wanting and dislocated. We rarely trust perfect.

But, we seem to be transfixed by the pursuit of it, to the degree that like David, we will impoverish ourselves in our pursuit of it. (Credit card debt in the UK is staggering.)

Watching David Brent coincided soon after with the annual Yuletide Curtis-fest of Love Actually. Love Actually is the closest we get to a very British sense of imperfect lives rendered perfect in film – and every one of them, though pulped through the Daily Mail filter of mawkish sentimentality is thankfully still slightly flawed and awkward and uncomfortable.

Unlike its US counterparts, the characters do not always square the circle. The cheated upon wife doesn’t turn into a vengeful super woman, have an extreme makeover, sleep with the football team, take up firearms and beat a horde of Russian special forces or become the new police chief on a mission. She simply gets on.

The hopelessly smitten friend of bridegroom doesn’t get the girl. He doesn’t transform into a lothario or a serial killer. And he certainly doesn’t find a cure for cancer and global recognition as some astonishing cosmic recompense for the loss of his one love. He simply says – that’s enough now – and gets on. He is still the loser in this. But we don’t care.

The irony was that the screening of Love Actually was repeatedly interrupted by a commercial for a viewing App that offered thousands of hours of reality TV. The scripted ugly slutty buttered shiny kind – delivered for what are presented as Fuck You It’s All About Me people.

We like to pretend that our reality TV is so different to the US kind – that it is in some way more real – but we are just aping every piece of Real Housewives, Real Teenagers, Real Truckers, Real Dentists Real Vets fodder that creeps across the Atlantic. Hyper reality is a US confection. And like all of the more recent US dream factory propaganda there is something unpleasant and slightly toxic about them. More importantly there is something unreachable in them – and not in a good way.  We are bingeing on these boxed sets of Krispy Kreme content to the point of becoming spiritually obese.

Shiny is the American way. I am uncertain as to whether it is born of an immigrant nation desperately trying to expunge the dark sigh of bleak want and soiled existence that their ancestors lived under; or whether it is simply that the staggering output of the dream factory has all but obscured the less shiny truths of everyday life. Regardless, there is a chasm of difference between the perfect screenplay of It’s a Wonderful Life and Frozen – stories of perfect redemption – and our British kind. The Kings Speech and Wallace & Gromit come from a very different sensibility. The American ‘Awkward’ is a very different creature to the British one: theirs rooted in eye rolling teen embarrassment saved by a trending catch phrase; ours just rooted in, well, the awkwardness of awkward.

We take a run at shiny but really, our heart isn’t in it – we like people who are not quite 100%. We quite like a bit of a shambles and a rough edge. When all is said and done we’d take dusty Dad’s Army over sleek Navy Seals any old day.

And it strikes me that when we try and engage Brits in embracing a reimagined prosperity – one where we eschew the shiny for something more within our material, environmental and spiritual means – we need to remember this truth.

We need to remember David Brent.

The corporate Davos schtick of Millennials saving the world all by themselves with a smart phone and a face book page, and the hyper intellectual nirvana of Sustainable Living Plans may work at a CEO keynote level. BUT they are simply too perfectly rendered and presented for the ordinary people we are trying to reach – not a hairline crack in their purpose and their intent. They are quite simply unhuman. More importantly, they lack any sense of the banal – the most precious, present state of being we have. Banality. The beautiful kind. The flawed and awkward kind. The silences and shuffling kind. The kind we measure the original, the fresh, the remarkable, the uncommon and the brilliant by.

In the UK we need our prosperity to be aspirational, yes. It needs to make us feel smart and satisfied. But not self-satisfied. And it needs to allow for our flawed and imperfect selves.

It needs to allow for us to fail at it and be OK. To slip and re-offend and be forgiven. A humanity that the US approach to Better sometimes seems to deny.

I am reminded of sitting in a working session in San Francisco with a group of astonishingly intelligent, mission minded and highly driven entrepreneurs and business leaders with a scattering of social entrepreneurs and innovators amongst us for good measure.

In a discussion with a woman who was trying to re-engineer public school meals away from the fat and salt riddled fare that had previously been on offer to one packed to the gunnels with organic greens, fruit, meat substitutes and pulses, the startling difference between the ‘no quarter no leeway‘ approach and the ‘muddle through, get there in the end’ kind was demonstrated in all its glory.

She felt the solution was to create a brutal and absolute transition. Burgers, pizza and donuts one day – tofu and vegan-cheese lentil burgers and multiple greens the next.

My concern was that this absolute approach might create an extreme equal and opposite reaction from both children and parents that would negate all her best intentions and objectives. There was no room for dissent or manoeuvre. Not a breath of stumbling or conflicted self. No cracks no dents no imperfections. No flex.

So I suggested that she perhaps set aside a corner of each box – and call it ‘the naughty step’ – that place where fundamentally good but sometimes flawed and mischievous children get put from time to time. And in this corner would be a portion-controlled treat – an echo of the old school meals and less healthy fare. Naughty but nice. And a lot less Amish in its intention.

The expression on her face was a sight to behold. I may as well have been speaking Old Pennsylvania Dutch for all sense this seemed to make to her.

My suggestion that she allow for the human flaw of failing and people’s desire for something other than her perfectly modulated, highly strung and calorie and sodium controlled solution was an anathema to her. All or nothing. Black and White. No fringed and frayed edges. Old diet and food stuffs equal death. There was no leeway in her solution for those who might struggle towards a better solution in their own good stumble-tumble-and-trip time and way.

A big ambitious destination can be an onerous one: daunting and overwhelming when seen in isolation – but as long as the journey to it has some light and shade; some play and humanity with the best interests of our flawed selves at its heart, we’re far more likely to embark on it. But I sense this a very British thing.

Being a bit almost and not quite. Imperfect. Flawed. This is the British way. Saying and doing the wrong thing every now and then. Making ourselves look a prat. Failing. Getting through. The universe of the underdog is our universe. We love them – because they are relatable. This is very different to the knowing and snarky failure of Family Guy and Ted.

And in the universe of the underdog, banality is one of the most undervalued states of our existence – and the most profound. Truly universal, it is one we can all relate to.

Banality and the poetry of its daily occurrence is again very British. The perfunctory observations and recordings of the minutiae and mundane are written into everything from high culture to low art – from Syd Barratt’s ‘I’ve got a bike you can ride it of you like’ and Bowie famously singing ‘there’s lemons on sale again’ in Life On Mars – his paean to the banality of Britain in the 1970s – to the Matchstick Men and Women of Lowry’s town-scapes to Alan Bennet’s forensic interrogation of the very British nature of relationships played out in Father Father Burning Bright and The Lady In The Van: microscopically dissected renderings of uninvited friendships and still-born familial love. There is little to separate the knowing observation of Bennet and the Kaiser Chiefs as they sing ‘I tried to get to my taxi. The man in a tracksuit attacks me. He said that he saw it before me.’

In the awkward truths of hum-drum, everyday rituals is where this very British humanity lies. Bennet captures fireflies of human emotion amidst the ordinariness of shopping lists, bed-socks, Camden Traffic Wardens, NHS hospital porters and the sweet & cigarette shop plying emphysemic pensioners with Benson & Hedges and multipacks of Rolos.

Unsurprisingly, banality is the point where another character from Brent’s creator, Ricky Gervais, and David Bowie, the Glam troubadour of British hum drum collide. The moment is captured in a comedy scene that is, for me, the most perfect distillation and summary of how flaws and banality are celebrated in the UK.

The scene, from Extras, involves Gervais’s star-struck character Andy Milman trying to get into the tiny roped-off VIP area of a club to buddy up to David Bowie. On being beckoned over, Andy finds himself making a heart-wrenching admission of his own mediocrity and failure only to have it thrown both to the crowd and in his face by Bowie with that song:

Pathetic little fat man;

No-ones bloody laughing.

The clown that no one laughs at

They all just wish he’d die.

 

He sold his soul for a shard of fame

Catch phrase and wigs

And the jokes are lame

 

He’s got no style,

He’s got no grace;

He’s banal and facile

He’s a fat waste of space.

And suddenly there is a quiet alchemy at work. Suddenly, we find ourselves beginning to consider the unpalatable – we find ourselves starting to like an unlikable character a little bit. Because his flaws have been writ large for all to see. Cruel perhaps; but human nonetheless.

Banality of this kind and the flawed lives it is rooted in – this is where we need to test the new model of prosperity for British people. This is where we need to find its insights and its language. Not in the boardrooms of multi-nationals and TEDx talks.

So here’s to banality. And flaws. And human stuff. Messy, imperfect, uncomfortable and awkward human stuff – and their role in a new and more deeply connective narrative and model of prosperity. For the UK at least.

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