oh my. Some people have a heart. Today it's the BBC, giving me a chance to watch the first episode of the Apprentice, which I missed last week. Something to look forward to after my evening class. Teaching that is.

There's a strange air in the air. Clear sky, I'm elevated and elated, don't know why. Observing how the last of the sun turns Glasgow red, than brown, now blue. How the lights switch on, the yellow lights of houses and street lights, red lights of the tale end of cars heading home north, white lights of cars going home to the south. I realise that each of the high rise buildings I can see from this west end window on a hill is one I know and one I know people in. At the weekend, as I met friends in a tea house, every single person who walked in was someone I knew, and for once the big anonymous city has become a nutshell, in which I comfortably belong. No big feeling, just feeling normal. And all the bad stuff that came on top of me, that I caused or experienced, wasn't a big thing, it brushed off. Maybe it's the sheer clear sunshine of the last few day, the end of long dark nights, who knows...

Oh, Glasgow city council folks. I love the newly done road markings, great stuff. Oh, neighbours with dogs, could you please stop using the pavement at my door as a poo corner. Maybe it's lucky to step into the brown turning black stuff, but when it's about to cover the pavement, there's little luck in stepping into the turds, more in not stepping into it.

On the serious side of things, NCADC has now closed the office for the north of England and Scotland, while Glasgow City Council has signed a new contract of dispersal of asylum seekers, this time for families only. Interesting, after all it's here that we don't ever want families of failed asylum seekers to be removed. Bring on more campaigns. Recently published statistics indicate that less asylum seekers make it into the UK, more are removed, and less applications are successful. Without wanting to simplify things, it's getting harder to get asylum in the UK, and you can't convince me that people applying for asylum are getting less genuine. If someone well documented by AI as a political prisoner, now in Glasgow as an asylum seeker, after 5 years still doesn't get refugee status, the system is wrong, and the people aren't. There's a long long road ahead, with many small steps. The closure of NCADC is a real setback. Let's hope they'll get funding to at least continue the main office. Off to class now.

The NTS does not have a building to call its own, and has turned this weakness into a major strength. It's a simple idea really, with far reaching implications. The company strives to be inclusive and not to have a centre, in order to best account for the diversity of Scotland, but also to reach the people where they are, rather than ask the people to come to where the NTS is. Unlike any other national institution, NTS attempts not to be based in the central belt of Scotland where about 80% of the population lives, but to include the very rural and remote parts, as well as the Highlands and Islands.

The first production, "Home" is conceptually spot on as far as these ambitions are concerned. It consists of 10 different pieces of innovative theatre, all presented in a location which is not a theatre, in 10 different locations from Shetland and Stornoway to Glasgow. Thematically, they all explore the theme of home, but linked to the locality of performance, thus ensuring that a diverse exploration of what home means is achieved. A very fitting theme for the launch it appears. It has received a lot of attention, even before the staging of the shows.

Unfortunately though, I can only be at the Glasgow performance, and so everything I say is necessarily limited to this tenth of the project. I was excited by the idea that the performance would take place in one of the landmark tower blocks of Glasgow, 25 Soutra Place in Cranhill, Easterhouse. This is an area which suffers multiple deprivation, and the tower blocks have been home to mainly asylum seekers since 2000. It's a place I would not visit at dusk, so putting on a show outdoors in front of the tower block, with the action inside being filmed and presented to the audience on a screen, was daring in itself. A fabulous idea, and a massive spectacle of using seven flats, abseiling cameramen, massive lightening and sound systems, as well as a cast ranging from Billy Boyd of Hobbit fame to local youth theatre groups.

So, did it meet the expectations? The spectacle was amazing, it had to be said. And wee Tom (aged 5) didn't take his eyes off. The wind and cold were almost unbearable though, and the late start and longer duration of the play made the audience truly suffer. It was probably one of the coldest nights of the year, and the strong winds are always worse at the high rise buildings. It was hard to concentrate on the play, hard to understand what was said as the wind blew the voices about, in spite of amplification. The performance was visually stunning, the use of music gave it speed and linkage. What didn't work so well was the acting. Maybe it was due to a crossover between theatre and film - while the actors were in theatre like spaces, their acting was brought to us on screen, resembling more TV or film. The acting style was more theatrical though and as a consequence, slightly overdone. The scenes were all very short and didn't allow for character development, but I don't think that was something the play attempted to focus on anyway.

Thematically, "home" was explored through the relationship of two brothers and the relationship of the younger brother to his dead father. Mum, granny and ex girlfriends played parts as well, as did daddy's urn of ashes. Personal issues of identity and conflict were framed by surveillance state actions, half linking in with the current terrorism bill, cctv and the loss of civil liberties in the name of national security. Iraq featured heavily too, but in a slightly generalised way, as did nuclear power and its potential of being used as a deadly weapon. The surveillance theme worked well to an extent, as the tower block was in fact surveilled by the cameramen and us for the duration of the performance. However, it was too weak and too general a context to reach the realm of social criticism, and both the themes of Iraq and uranium lost any relevance to our times and place by being transformed into generic issues of leaving home and fictitious ideas respectively. The only moment of transcendence was the turning of tables against the MI5 kidnappers by the children of the tower block, in an act of defiance and reclaiming of their home, which was a hopeful and empowering end to the show.

I had expected that the location would also have an effect on the people portrayed in the play, but although one of the characters was suposedly from Iraq, there was no mention of asylum seekers. Similarly, the use of a general Scottish accent clashed with the location. It would have been more suitable to use Glaswegian dialect, anchoring the play both by language and character selection in 25 Soutra Place, Cranhill. The  most interesting conversation, which brought up contaminated soil on which the audience now stood, and the transformation of the old canal into the M8 motorway just next to us hinted at the possibilities of the play, had it had more length, depth and not been limited by the sheer spectacle of the performance. There's great potential, truely innovative ideas, and I look forward to future productions.

Seit Monaten ist das allmorgendliche Duschen ein Glücksspiel. Manchmal bleibt der Wasserdruck für 10 Minuten auf einem akzeptablen Niveau, das es zumindest einem von uns erlaubt, die Seife auch wieder abzuspülen. Manchmal hingegen reicht das tröpfeln aus dem Duschkopf gerade mal für eine Hamsterdusche.

Heute morgen, Samstag, der Tag des Duschens, Spülens, Waschens, ist der Wasserdruck ganz weg. Wir riechen nach Zigarettenrauch (noch ist das Rauchen in Kneipen ja erlaubt) und die Berge von Wäsche wippen unruhig hin und her, während die Küchenschränke vor Leere gähnen. Zum Glück sind noch ein paar Stäbchen und Salatschüssel sauber...

Ein Anruf bei Scottish Water hat uns dann mit einer automatischen Ansage beruhigt, oder evtl beunruhigt: Der ganze Süden Glasgows ist betroffen, und man arbeitet dran. Bleibt zu hoffen, dass der totale Zusammenbruch des Wasserdrucks (der scheinbar in einigen Gegenden so extrem ist, dass gar kein Wasser fließt) nun endlich zu richtigen Reparatur führt. Oder ist das System so marode, dass wir uns auf Dauer mit einem ausgesprochen launischem Wasserdruck anfreunden müssen?

It's lonely out there. Well, not really, I don't give a damn really, because I'm quite alright being lonely and with everything going lobsided, there's still a shoulder and a hamster to cry on at home, friends and family. A blog to dump the stuff too. But sometimes you wonder why bother. Why work your head off when nobody really gives a ...

Well, I could go mental about what happened today but it would be wasted effort and for once focussing on what really matters isn't hard. There's a lesson learned. There actually comes a time when you just know what's the right thing to do and what isn't. And you get on with it.

At the weekend, I went to see Pablo Neruda Presente, a very moving documentary about the great poet Pablo Neruda, a true people's poet of Chile. The images brought back so many long buried feelings of the injustices caused by the cold war, almost overwhelming, there I was going through my deep memories, early passions, linking history lessons with news reals, literature with fact. Suddenly, all seemed to make sense and fall into place, everything seemed connected and related, connections established where before I only saw separate incidents. A visit to Auschwitz at the age of 15, news of "disappearances" in the wake of every US supported government in Hispanoamerica, the all penetrating injust distribution of land in the Americas, and of wealth in Europe, the first meeting of the new local AI group in my home town, and 18 years later, more than double the age on, still the same issues, the same problems. Reading Isabel Allende, who provided the narration to the film now, crying at the end of her novel De Amor y de Sombra, a title which very much reflects Pablo Neruda's poetic path. The anger at injustice, whereever they occur, and the unquestionable effort to do something about them, whenever this anger hits again. All the discussion at uni, at work, the arguments at home about the state of the world. And those chilling words sought for in every poem and novel I devoured, my endless thirst for the perfect poetry, the perfect novel, beautiful, striking, true to life, moving, yet transcending our imperfections in a moment of meaningful art:

Preguntare/is por que/ su poesi/a                 And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry
no nos habla del suen~o, de las hojas,         speak of dreams and leaves
de los grandes volcanes de su pai/s natal?    and the great volcanoes of his native land?

Venid a ver la sangre por las calles.              Come and see the blood in the streets.
Venid a ver                                                  Come and see
la sangre por las calles                                  the blood in the streets.
venid a ver la sangre                                     Come and see the blood
por las calles!                                               in the streets!

Sorry I went a bit heavy there, but seeing the film, the images of the dead in the streets of Spain's Civil War and Chile's Pinochet dictatorship blended so easily with all the suffering in Somalia, Iraq, Burma, Tibet, the Goya painting of executions in the Napoleonic War, the heaps of hair in Auschwitz. Then the little sign of hope, the strength of the human spirit that will not be silenced: Pablo Neruda, Presente. Dead, but among us, with his ideas, his poetry, his words, his wisdom. It's all we have, but we'll never lose it, no matter what.

Have you ever tried putting a harness on a hamster? If you have, PLEASE tell me how to do it without hurting the wee man or losing him. I'm in awe at the endless ways in which Chomsky can twist and turn to get out of the cursed red rope. Any pretence at relative freedom (you can walk about throughout the flat now, promise!) is no good.

I tried to follow the picture manual as best I could, to no avail (incidentally, the picture manual portrays something that looks like a plastic toy rather than an actual hamster. I grant you that it's kinda hard to depict his movements realistically, but at least they could have made an effort to draw something that looks at least remotely like a hamster and not like a puppet toy). Then, somehow, it was on. Not perfect, one leg wasn't where the picture manual said it should be but it seemed to work. Until Chomsky was exploring the underside of the TV unit, and found freedom. Thankfully, he didn't quite grasp the grandeur of the occasion, and the opportunities suddenly wide open to him. So he's back in the cage, madly into his new giant wheel.

Sorry, I know this sort of a topic site but even the more serious amongst my two readers deserve a smile I guess, and work is so all over me that what I really need, and all I can do is laugh at Chomsky. And if I'm fast enough, I'll even get yous all a picture of Chomsky in harness.

The joys of being a company limited by guarantee. Since the charity I work for decided to go down the path of good practice and recommended development, and became a registered company limited by guarantee, I have been receiving the strangest of phone calls. Usually it involves a call centre somewhere in India trying to sell a cheaper phone line, but luckily they had the old phone number and since my colleague left, and with her the phone number, those nuisance calls have stopped. Yesterday, on my own phone number, while I was coughing away entrenched in a bad cold, ...   more »