Words, ideas, videos
Ten days into January and we already have a clear favourite for the Manchester City Council “Brass Neck of the Year” award. Coun Angeliki Stogia (‘We won’t be intimidated by vandals,’ M.E.N., 10 January) is quoted as saying “we want feedback from as many people as possible.” In a letter last week I pointed out... Continue Reading →
Published Friday 8th January 2021 I wish your article about the latest cock-up by Manchester City Council (Chaos as giant ‘window boxes’ installed to ease traffic, MEN, 7 January) came as a surprise. Having placed a bunch of ‘window boxes’ on the road, it suddenly occurred to the well-paid geniuses in the Council’s Highways and... Continue Reading →
The Glasgow thing is starting already. "COP26, the international climate meeting that was supposed to take place in November 2020 but will now - perhaps- happen in November 2021- has changed its meaning from "magnet that will get all the iron fillings pointing in the same direction" (see this December 2019 blog post) to a... Continue Reading →
Letter in the Manchester Evening News- Bill Flynn's excellent letter ('Nothing new in risk to rights of workers', Viewpoints, MEN, 2nd January) gives a compelling and enraging account of the way workers' rights have been eroded over the last 40 years.Thanks to the first-past-the-post voting system and the ownership of the mass media by billionaire... Continue Reading →
Have decided to do some remedial accumulation of cultural capital (RACC). Back in the day, there was a time when I read aloud to myself in order to plough through some Big Fat Works. I'm thinking particularly of Paradise Lost (Milton) and Don Juan (Byron). There may have been others. Well, new year, new resolutions,... Continue Reading →
In which I spitball about the mechanics of how you transrupt ego-fodder, the emotacycle and, the Smugosphere in some detail, (but duck the question of what are the success metrics, how you would know you were succeeding in each of these.) And ultimately, in all of this, the most important thing is not to exhort,... Continue Reading →
Being transruptive for fun and non-profit, (aka for the shits and giggles). Somebody - I can’t remember who - said that philosophers had always interpreted the world, but the point was to change it. Well, I’ve been interpreting social movements’ stasis and sclerosis by coming up with three terms – the smugosphere, the emotacycle and... Continue Reading →
Purpose of post- to nut out some ways of avoiding one of my facilitating blindspots/weaknesses. I just had a flash, to a truly appalling climate meeting I went to in Stirling (up in the Adelaide Hills) a couple of years ago. We were all sat in a circle – so, there’s no power or control... Continue Reading →
Facipulation is manipulative facilitation, where you guide/channel/force people into the outcome that you want, but with the appearance of having "merely" facilitated. I probably encountered it dozens of times before the scales fell from my eyes in October 2006 in Manchester, at the post-Climate Camp 'what next?' meeting. Well, I've been mulling over a subset... Continue Reading →
Who has what skills and knowledge in your group? What would happen if one of the person who is in charge of the website, the social media, the dealing with Freedom of Information Act requests died/left town/turned out to have been a cop all along? What would it do to the ability of the group... Continue Reading →
