#InternationalMensDay #IMD #IMD2013

I am not an international man because I do not recognise the bullshit values of male honour, patriarchal family structures and patriotism. These are the ways patriarchy oppresses men and are not something to be celebrated: 

http://www.internationalmensday.com

Bat Contradictions: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/15/batkid-san-francisco-charity-make-wish

I do find this story heartwarming and at times it brings tears to my eyes when I consider the community spirit and compassion that went into it. Those bits in the movies always get me from "I'm Sparticus" to It Could Happen to You. And it's great to see people coming together and people embracing the magical and absurd. It is a candle in the darkness. 

But it also makes me think about how this magic event for one lucky kid is such a stark contrast to the lives of many kids. It makes me wonder why something like this happens for a child recovering from cancer and yet children with the preventable and human caused conditions of poverty and war do not get such amazing moments. 

I find myself questioning the value of a charity that provides wonderful moments to individual children who already have some luck and privilege going for them rather than putting those resources elsewhere. Even as I love them for making something so beautiful for all the rightest of right reasons. 

It's a complicated mass of contradictions and overlapping truths really. Like most things in life. 

One thing that I also find conflicting is that part of it involved the helpless woman tied up and saved by a hero trope. Which I'm not sure I'd advocate infusing the next generation with. 

@GBApodcast: What you might have missed:

So recently the feed on my podcast stopped working for a bit. 

The episodes of the GettinhBetter Acquainted (www.gettingbetteracquainted.co.uk) podcast that you may have missed due to feed issues are below. If you follow this link: 

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/getting-better-acquainted/id436643148 

you can resubscribe to the now properly working iTunes feed where they are all now available. Your old feed will look like it should work but it doesn't. 

Samantha Feeney #2 - relationships falling apart, becoming a single parent, getting your life back together and embracing a new start.

John Adamthwaite - playwriting, theatre, how to fit writing plays into your life and if it's a medium that is relevant the modern world.

Charley Lucy Harrison - family, divorce, storytelling, comedy, bitcoin, complicated childhoods, rat based tragedy and everybody's wall's.

Carl Jackson - travelling around the world, neuroscience, culture and the merely real.

Nina Gray - bullying, complicated childhoods, feminism(s), mental health, France, twitter and spider diagrams.

Paul Jerome Anderton - equal marriage, immigration, life changes and the death of his father. Running through everything a sense of history. 

Caz Dyer - changing perspectives and perceptions, Honduras, plans to cycle from the UK to Africa, teenage stories from the POV of an ex "Mean Girl" and an ex "severely bullied geek".

The Osmaston Family Special - A personal journey into the unknown territories of family history featuring rediscovered wartime diaries, the legacy of the British Empire, childhoods in India filled with tigers and elephants, engineering the industrial revolution, walking on graves, landed gentry and confronting the judgement of my 15 year old self.

And...

Tony Hickson - knife throwing accidents, impersonating Elvis on Channel 5, being a paparazzi photographer, transgressive art, travelling with the Circus, the World Gurning Championships, and serial killer puppet shows.

#RemembranceSunday: There is NOTHING honourable about war!

WW1 was not a time when people gave their lives for our freedoms. It was a time when the ruling classes of many countries slaughtered a generation of men. And in that atrocity the conditions were created that led to WW2. The war was not a war to end all wars it was a war that spawned war. We are currently engaged in wars. We have not learned from our remembrance. We don't call our wars world wars now because they don't involve the civilian population (of our country, not in the countries that receive our troops and our drones.) 

The brave and not brave men and the women and children who also struggled through these atrocities should not be forgotten. And part of that remembrance is the responsibility for us to remember things accurately and in context. 

The wars have never been an abstract thing for me. My father was in the army during WW2 and whilst he had an incredibly lucky war many of his friends did not. He has always talked about it. I am proud that my Grandfather was a conscientious objector in both world wars (luckily his hypocratic oath meant he wasn't imprisoned or murdered for this principled position the way many "free" men were.) And I know many people who have or had grandparents who fought in the Wars. The sympathy and empathy we feel for these people we know is the same we should feel for those who are at war now.

Also our "freedom" is not unconditional nor universal. The men and women who fight our wars don't do so to give future generations freedom. They do it because they are ordered and paid to do it. They do it because they have little or no choice. 

Peace offers freedom and we don't have peace. Some of us, the lucky and privileged ones, have the illusion of peace. The illusions of freedom and choice. But that is not the case either globally or nationally. 

Remember the dead, grieve for them. I can understand donating to the veterans  although since it was the state that harmed them arguably it should be the state that gives them reparations. 

There are principled and reasonable POV's in terms of wearing or not wearing a red or white poppy, donating to or not donating to the poppy appeal, observing or not observing the silence. But patriotism and mythologising are not a part of that. 

Don't use Remembrance Sunday to lie to yourself. Teenagers crying in the dirt, covered in blood and full of fear. That's who those poor people in the trenches were. And all over the world we still have teenagers in the same horrible position. They are there because of the intensions and interests not of themselves but of the people running the wars. 

There is NOTHING honourable about war. 

#solidarity with #teacherROAR

I generally have a problem with public sector strikes. But that problem isn't with people fighting for better (or just not worse) conditions. That problem comes from the laws against general strikes, from the laws that dictate you can only strike for your own self-interest, that basically legislate against solidarity. And of course you can only strike if you are in a union (ie have one available and the money to pay into it) which locks out many people from the opportunity to withdraw labour for collective political aims. 

This results in problematic situations where better paid groups of people strike to maintain their own position and their strike makes life terrible for the lowest paid in society. Which is very different from how strikes function in the private sector. One of the many many ways that public and private sector are different!

A transport strike for example may mean un-unionised poor families go hungry because they can't get to work or can't arrange childcare for the extra hours involved. And the strike won't help them get paid more. It won't improve their working conditions. And you aren't allowed to strike for improvement for all. For say free public transport or cheaper public transport. Strikes under modern law are only legal if they are going to divide people. 

The teachers strike is different (although it will of course still divide people.) 

Here is their statement

But the reason it is different is that it is as close to a solidarity based strike as you can get without being arrested. 

Because children are not paid anything to go to school. They have no contract of employment. If teachers lose their holiday and work longer hours and have systematic things put in place to make it harder to teach, and to teach well, then all that is also being done to children. And as usual the poorest children will suffer the most from that. Children don't have power in society and it is up to adults to protect them. 

Parents and teachers should be on the same page on this. Many parents aren't of course, particularly the poorer ones who see better off teachers asking for more. And who have the same kind of problems the poor always get when essential services are denied to them, childcare, salary loss, extra stress during hard times, etc...

But if the teachers don't manage to stem this tide it will be the children who suffer the most. That's the children of public and private sector workers, that's the future adults who will inherit so much shit already to try and deal with. 

And talking about attacking the poor and taking public services away from people, if you think a days strike is bad look at the general policies of the Coalition government. How many disabled people have died due to being found fit to work?

And to address the strawman issues. The actual ones teachers have to list as their main reasons to strike hours, pay and pensions:

Teachers already work long hours. They  work far longer than their hours, and whilst their job isn't manual labour (and I think teachers talking about it as if it is need to spend some time working in a factory) it is tiring physically as well as mentally. They have to create an emotional and educational landscape in their classrooms that will engage 30+ kids (and manual labourers talking anout that as easy need to spend some time working in a school.) My step-dad worked in both and I don't think he'd always say working conditions were better in a factory. I think he got physically attacked more working in schools. 

I'm not saying things are equal. Many teachers and definitely head teachers are paid much more than many of the rest of us (although not teachers starting out who are paying off debt etc... on the lowest band of salary). But at present teachers are losing both time and money. Politicians aren't. Bankers aren't. 

Teachers aren't striking for payrises. They are objecting to paying in more money to a pension pot which (rarely for pension pots in 2013) can currently cover itself. 

Pensions are tricky things. Most people my age assume we won't get them and if we do we'll be much older than the current retirement age. Sure it's hard not to see people who have something good when you don't and wish they didn't have it. And teachers areprivileged individuals and they don't all know it, so many of the things they say can, through a lack of awareness about other people's work conditions, pensions, salaries, be aggravating. But that's a reason to point out their privilege (privilege that is nothing compared to Michael Gove's privilege by the way) rather than going to war against them. They are doing an important and thankless job. And they are often working with and for children who are not privileged. 

And they aren't the only ones. Don't forget that schools staying open longer wont just impact on children and teachers. There are lots of other staff in schools. Ones who don't get teachers salaries; teaching assistants, caretakers, office staff, caterers, dinner supervisors. Their lives and working conditions are also under attack. 

This strike is the closest modern law allows to a strike based on principal and solidarity. If the teachers had the pensions and the hours that they want (ie the ones they agreed to when they signed up for teaching) they would still be fighting the education secretary and the horrendous policies being put in place. They would just have less ability to use the withdrawal of labour as leverage. 

We should all be refusing labour until this government stops attacking the people for a crisis created by and for the financial sector and political classes. Gove's department isn't the only one damaging us. 

We won't of course because we would lose our jobs and most of us can't afford to lose pay permanently. Many of us can't afford to lose a days salary. 

But just because teachers can doesn't mean their cause is wrong. 

I offer up full solidarity to the teachers and to the students and to the parents and to everyone being attacked by this governments policies. 

The responsibility for hardships felt by anyone today fall on the wealthy people in power whose divisive policies are designed to protect and extend the inequality that surrounds us and keep us fighting each other rather than fighting for each other. 

Discussing theology with toddlers:

Child 1: Teacher, what's your name?

Me: David. 

Child 1: David. *thinks* There's a David in the bible. 

Me: Yes, there is. King David. But that's not me. I'm not a king. 

Child 1: No! David is a little boy. 

Me: He was when he fought Goliath. But he grows up to be a king. 

Child 2: Yeah, well our dad is Goliath! 

Child 1: Is he?

Child 2: YEAH!

Child 1: Our dad is Goliath. 

Me: Well that's good for him. I'm not going to be fighting him though. I'm not the same David. I don't fight anyone. 

(Child 1 = 3ish, Child 2 = 4ish, they are siblings.)

Edinburgh Festival: Podcasts and Live Shows‏

Hello everyone,

Dave related Edinburgh Fringe Festival News!

Stand Up Tragedy in Edinburgh:

SUT is a night where people stand up and tell tragedy. We make you sad; we make you think; we make you smile. Expect music, comedy, fiction, spoken word, true stories and more, all playing up to the tragic form but not always taking it seriously. The night ends, not with a whimper, not with a bang, but with a cathartic sing-a-long.

We are booked in nightly as part of the Spoken Word at PBH Free Fringe 2013 performing at 6.30pm at the Fiddlers Elbow from the 3rd to the 14th of August. We're also going to be releasing podcasts daily during the Fringe Festival. We'll be kicking off the daily Stand Up Tragedy season with a really amazing piece of true storytelling from comedian Josie Long on the 2nd of August.

We've been releasing podcasts weekly through 2013 and you can listen to them to get a taste of what is in store. They're available on iTunes, Stitcher Smart Radio and Soundcloud.

We have an amazing line-up booked in including Robin Ince, Rob Auton, Sarah Campbell, Jay Foreman, Superbard and more. We have cabaret acts, harpists, magicians, authors, true storytellers, poets, lecturers and more sharing their tragedies at our shows.

So if you are coming to the Fringe come and see us. We are on the Free Fringe so it is free to come and see us (although we will be passing around a hat at the end).

Getting Better Acquainted in Edinburgh:

"Join Dave Pickering on his journey to get better acquainted with the people he knows. There are lots of shows about famous people. This is a show about the rest of us. Part interview show, part oral history project, the show was nominated for a 2012 Radio Production Award and was featured on the Radio 5 Live podcast special, Helen and Ollie's Required Listening. It has just finished it's first season on Resonance FM"

I am also going to be doing my weekly show Getting Better Acquainted at the Fringe. I'll be documenting the Fringe experience in one or two specials and releasing conversations that I record up there. Before that I'm releasing two conversations with remarkable true storytellers who have performed at Stand Up Tragedy. One with Allan Girod whose performance at SUT can be heard here, and the other with Daniel Simpson whose performance goes out on the SUT podcast on August 4th, but you can listen to him tell his story at Spark London here. Daniel will be performing with us again in Edinburgh.

I will also be recording two live GBA's as part of the PBH's Free Fringe 2013 at 1.40pm at the Banshee Labyrinth on the 12th and 13th of August. The guests are still to be confirmed but they will connected to the Festival. Come and join us if you're in town.

If you haven't heard the show yet there are lots of ways you can: It's available through via Stitcher Smart Radio and it's Soundcloud page. At this moment the iTunes feed is currently playing up but you can still get the first 119 episodes and eventually the feed will catch up. You can also follow it on twitter and like it on facebook.

Spark London in Edinburgh:

I may be missing the next Spark Hackney open mic (which I usually host) but to make up for it I'm running a Spark London workshop in Edinburgh. Again this is pas part of the Free Fringe. It's on the 8th August at The Fiddler's Elbow 12.15 - 1.15pm.

The workshop will explore ways to locate stories from your life with the focus on connecting with an audience spontaneously, without the aid of notes. 

The Hackney open mic isn't cancelled however. Radcliffe Royds is filling in for me and the them is Planes, Trains and Automobiles. There's a 2 for 1 offer if you quote "story time" to the box office. So if you're in London on Monday 12th August at 7.30pm why not go tell some stories at the Hackney Attic.


A Maze of Breaths:

Last month we launched A Maze of Breaths: Spoken Word at PBH's Free Fringe. The Stand Up Tragedy team put the album together. 19 tracks that show the variety, quality and energy of the Free Fringe's spoken word community. The whole album is £5 (or more if you wish to give it) and individual tracks are £1 (or more if you wish to give it). I've worked really long and hard on this over the last few weeks and I really think it's a quality album. It has at least something for everyone and is a mix of poetry, storytelling, music, comedy and everything in between. 

http://pbhfreefringespokenword.bandcamp.com/