My “pseudo friends” the Morley Borough independents continue to fight political warfare with the local Labour Party through the pages of the local rag. This time, the issue is over the non-reappointment of David Dewhirst, a School Governor who is also the Chair of the Body I serve on. I was surprised to read that he had not been re-appointed as a local authority representative at the end of his term, although I have to admit that I wasn’t aware his time was up, having had Town Council clashes with recent meetings. I also wasn’t that aware (or interested) what type of Governor he was as it shouldn’t actually make any difference to how the role is carried out. He is a well known Labour Party Activist and somewhat of a political animal in his views, although he is also a Head Teacher in the day job and makes a good Chair. He stepped into the role after the original Chair stood down last year after a long stint, there being no obvious candidate at the time. Over the last three weeks and several letters, The political bun fighting implied that this whole business had thrown the school into disarray and there were various accusations of lack of communication on both sides, neither of which sounded totally convincing. The alternative appointee is young Gareth Beevers who certainly lives close to the school but he is no intellectual heavyweight and doesn’t have the years of Educational experience the former incumbent has. It seems to me that the appointment was political, although I’m sure it probably was back in 2001 as well- that’s what City Councillors tend to do when they are in control. There was the suggestion made that if DD still wanted to be a Governor there were plenty of opportunities at other schools, but the idea of GB taking up such an opportunity wasn’t mooted.

Anyway, my Minutes of the last Governor meeting turned up this week and it seems that this had all been predicted and planned for last July- the Governing Body was keen for him to re-stand and in the event of him not being re-appointed by the LEA he was going to be co-opted before election of Chair so that he could carry on in the role. This annoyed me somewhat as this was not mentioned in any of the correspondence- after all it deflates the spin considerably and doesn’t make Finnigan & Co look quite so cruel and uncaring when looked at in context. Who writes these letters from local Labour party people, is Alistair Campbell still on the payroll?

I was vaguely tempted to write in but why bother, that is simply sinking down to their level and it is rather stinky down there, in amongst the fag ends, leaves and dog turds. Instead, I can vent my spleen and blog about it here, knowing it won’t get edited or omitted, but probably unread and/or ignored!

By the way, if anyone is concerned that I may be betraying confidences, whilst Governor meetings are generally closed meetings, the Minutes of the meetings are public documents and are readily open for inspection by the public (other than confidential Minutes related to items such as salary etc.)

I was at an event for Town & Parish Councillors last night, organised by the Police Authority. A number of senior Bobbies pontificated on concerns close to the audience’s hearts, namely Anti-social behaviour, Neighbourhood Policing and Response times.

The subject of travellers inevitably came up. I was slightly stunned (and rather pleased) to hear a particularly robust explanation of a particular approach to policing based on intolerance of crime rather than the normal softly-softly wait for the court order approach. The senior officer described what sounded very much like borderline harassment through intense scrutiny of the travellers (who she deliberately referred to as “Gypsies” several times)- frequently visiting, checking for documents, tax discs, making them pick up fly tipping etc. and advising them that the farmer who owned the land had filled his muck spreader with pig excrement and was happy to take his tractor round the field. It seems it was successful, they upped and went.

When I say pleased, I don’t mean that I was pleased the Police were harassing particular members of the public with a different lifestyle, more that I was pleased that the Officer didn’t feel the need to use the woolly phrases of left liberal speak such as protected minorities, human rights, dignity and that really scummy one- appropriate behaviour. (i.e. what the speaker considers acceptable).

Unsurprisingly, a Councillor savaged the Officer verbally later on, saying she had Gypsy roots in her own family and it was an outrageous slur on an oppressed minority, at which point two or three others in the audience clapped vigourously in approval. However, there must have been another fifty of so in the room who remained indifferent to her outburst. The Officer pointed out that this was not general West Yorkshire Police policy for all Gypsies, many of whom do not cause trouble. That one particular encampment it seemed had been particularly anti-social…

I’ve been a bit busy in my spare time since Monday, when the collection of four large boxes resulted in finding that our new studio was a voyage of discovery rather than the plug & play solution promised in the blurb. Sharp words have been sent via email concerning all of the various missing bits & the apparent lack of testing although most of it seems to be working fine so far, touch wood.

I can see my weekend being rather busy soldering up temporary cables for specialised bits not supplied that should have been- a relay-switched 12v on-air sign triggered by a jack plug closure and a three jack plugs to joystick socket for triggering the computer playback.

This is the second thing I’ve bought from them and I currently have a 50% satisfaction rate, although the first thing was an RDS encoder board (in a jiffy bag) so they would have been hard pressed to cock that order up.

By the way, RDS is Radio Data System, the thing that makes your Radio say “MorleyFM” if you happen to be in the area on December 13th for 12 days…

Another by the way…the MOAS panto will be Snow White, 9th-12th February at Morley Town Hall. There were two letters of praise for last weeks show in todays Obtiser, I’d be more convinced though if one of them wasn’t from the Hubby of one of the Soloists!

The MAOS (Morley Amateur Operatic Society) have been running a 5 night musical extravaganza this week in the Town Hall. They normally do an annual Panto there (in February, it’s a Yorkshire thing) and another show in the Leeds Civic Theatre, however, the Leeds Civic is closing (to be relaced by a new venue) and the Society presumably decided that it was safer to come back to Morley this Autumn.

The Alexandra Hall is by no means an ideal theatre venue, being a concert hall with platform stage and no wing space. There are staircases down either side of the platform with a crossover passage behind. A further staircase leads down to two dressing rooms and the platform of the smaller Morleian hall which doubles as additional dressing room space for shows. The society has a fit-up stage made from scaffolding, dressed with red borders, proscenium pieces and a gold front Tabs (which looks rather lacking in fullness when in (i.e. the curtains are closed). With wing pieces and cloths, it makes a passable stage but it must be an absolute pig for the performers getting on and off in the cramped space beyond.

Another thing that lets the venue down is the lighting- all energy lamps and fluroescent fittings which have to be switched off in a number of visual jerks. A sound and lighting rig are imported though, which do their job admirably- the performers are brightly lit and clearly heard.

The Society has a number of talented performers and many of the numbers were very well done indeed, particularly the South Pacific, Fiddler on the Roof and Oliver! numbers. The kids performed well, with just the right mix of enthusiasm without the sickly fixed smiles of the precocious stage school starlets. The set was simple (a sort of leafy abstract jungle) and it was nicely reinforced by a Powerpoint presentation that was informative visually without being too much of a distraction.

The show wasn’t perfect, by any means- some singers were flat or struggling on occasions and one or two of the props went wrong, including a broom head during the matchmaker routine which amused the four dancers without them actually corpsing. The choreography mostly worked well & the energy of all the performers was excellent.

The blanks of Annie’s Gun (the Wild West Annie, not the one with the dog) made everyone jump and the finale of Barnum! numbers brought the house down, there were even some circus skills in evidence (although the harlequin clown appeared to be juggling with only two balls, a detail that probably passed most of the audience by).

I’d like to recommend that everyone goes to see it, but alas, all good things come to a close. However, they will be doing a Panto in February!

(I just did a search to see what the next show is. Whilst I didn’t find that, I did find that they are actually the MORLEY TECHNICAL INSTITUTE AMATEUR OPERATIC SOCIETY and a registered charity, with the following purpose: THE OBJECT OF THE SOCIETY IS TO EDUCATE THE PUBLIC IN THE DRAMATIC AND OPERATIC ARTS AND TO FURTHER THE DEVELOPMENT OF PUBLIC APPRECIATION AND TASTE IN THE SAID ARTS (FOR FURTHER DETAILS SEE RULES)..

I’m also pleased to see that they make a (small) surplus on their turnover of circa 25k, although their accounts appear to be late!)

In case the reference of one extreme to the other was a bit oblique, in 1982 I swapped a very cold Norway for a very hot Saudi Arabia, although it has to be said that society was also diametrically opposite as well!

Saudi struck me as what I initially took to be a very racist place. The Arabs were top of the pecking order, with Yanks trailing second place. Canucks were third, Brits were fourth, followed by white europeans. Filipilos did most of the practical graft and at the bottom of the pile were Koreans who appeared to make up the road gangs. There didn’t seem to be too many Indians (or Pakistanis) although I later discovered that they tended to work in the Countries with former British influence, where you were likely to find Cable & Wireless.

I eventually realised that Aramco was not strictly racist, they just chose employees to meet their skill requirements and paid the going rate according to the home economy (which hurt when I found that Canadians were earning twice what I was, but that is market forces for you). They quite happily gave a new Indian employee Bachelor accommodation on site in with my Brit friends because he was a Brit according to his passport and the colour of his skin was irrelevant in the decision.

There was one genuine bit of institutional racism they could be accused of, however. If we weren’t Muslims, we were infidels and all second class citizens, or maybe third class, as Muslim women were of course second class by culture but probably technically had rank over us…