Oz here we come!

Well here we are again! Expecting a great time at the 30th Sydney Mardi Gras and better still back in the company of Andy & Robin for some good times! Jetting off on 15th Feb until 9th March I have been silly enough to get tickets (St V's Day) for the Barbara Dickson concert at the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline - she will back back on hole turf! Her new CD is great "Time & Tide" - not like me recommedning sounds! I suppose we should have been packing, so it may turn out to be a disaster! Although it may pale into insignificance, as at the weekend we raided Homebase for wallpaper and decorating stuff which has meant I have had to strip the walls in the living room so we can have the decorator in when we are away! See why things are rather chaotic! My virgoen aspects hate mess!
So off to Yorkshire tomorrow to see mother and drop Damon off in Rochdale - I know loads of miles out the way buy hey ho - he's a pal! I will probably not get away until the afternoon as I have meetings for GETRA and Unison before I go. Oh local news made the front page of the Fife Free Press this week because of the the state of the local area and my involvement with the residents group GETRA - must get their web sorted www.getra.co.uk when I upload it all!
http://www.fifetoday.co.uk/fife-free-press-news/EXPOSED-St-Clair-Street-drugs.3727794.jp
Just in case you want to check it out. Not really good reading and missed all the positive aspects of living here but that's reporters!

Gerry & Bruce

On Friday 16th November 2008 we attended Gerry & Bruce's post Civil Partnership celebration in Pollockshields Burgh Hall Glasgow - and very good it was to! We stayed overnight with in a Glasgow guest House which has a very gay feeling to it - mainly as it is a very gay household! Made very welcome and if you need to chack it out go to www.get-me.to/glasgowguesthouse

Now needlessto say I was fliting about with the camera and gave Gerry and Bruce the DVD without making a copy. Jaki and Derek took pictures and here is Derek with Frank and I - Jaki was at the other side of the camera! We wish Gerry & Bruce all the best for their future.

What a beginning to 2008!

Well as you can see I am really making an attempt to keep this up to date - a New Year resolution so we will see how long this keeps going! I hope I do especially with our forthcoming trip down under to Australia! The travel plans - staying with our good mate Robin as a base they internal travel (in Oz not in Robin) neglected to take into consideration the Cyclone season - looks like the worse for 30years with 8 major cyclone forecast! It's been a raining summer too but they are not complaining after 10 years of lacking in the stuff we get plenty of - rain!
So back to the drawing board on this one but I'm sure we will resolve the local hiccup!
How did the New Year start - well a visit to the local A&E went well and they looked after my sliced middle finger on the left hand! Did not bother about the garden hoe hitting me in the face when I was putting the Xmas tree stand away, and the chronic chest infection is a minor problem which has put all the others into context!Hence writing this blog at a silly time in the morning!
Sadly Andy's father was laid to rest on Saturday, so need to have a chat to him, although send a condolence card and various text messages it's not the same as having a real good talk!
Project wise looks like I'm going to be out of action for the next few days so plenty of time to make sure I keep this up to date!

A Merry Yuletide to you all!

Wow only when we were at Kathleen's 40th soiree last night did I realise how long it has been since I have "blogged" to the world out there! Another "mea culpa" moment but the excuse is the usual one so very busy!
First things first - the project is now back on a sound footing with a lottery grant of £10k to help us look at what we do and how we do it! After 10 years of hard work we really do need to go through what I am sure will be a worthwhile but painful exercise! The Red Ribbon Appeal also boosted funds and will pay for the various pieces of information that goes out throughout the year.
Unison has preoccupied my time a great deal as I am acting as the Equalities Officer since my lovely pal Marie escaped from the Council and consequently the union. Early retiral is great but she has so much to offer and a vast experience to boot. I have a lot of concerns now Marie is no longer an official in the branch but am sure the retired members section will welcome her with open arms!
The Unison LGBT policy weekend in Edinburgh at the beginning of the month was a great success and a lot of work to boot! Gladly I handed over £300 from the Fife Unison Branch to BEST! What a good organisation we have here!
http://www.burma-trust.org/freedom02.php We hope to have active links with the student studying PHd at St Andrews University! For those who don't know here is some information about events in Burma and BEST with Murray here to the fore in activism! Burma has been ruled since 1962 by highly repressive, authoritarian military regimes. Since 1988, when the armed forces brutally suppressed massive pro-democracy demonstrations, a junta composed of senior military officers has ruled by decree, without a constitution or legislature. The most recent constitution, promulgated in 1974, permits both legislative and administrative restrictions on religious and political freedom.

"The national races shall enjoy the freedom to profess their religion, provided that the enjoyment of any such freedom does not offend the laws or the public interest."

Most adherents of religions that are registered with the authorities generally are allowed to worship as they choose; however, the Government has imposed restrictions on certain religious activities and frequently abused the right to freedom of religion, through its pervasive internal security apparatus.

The Government generally infiltrates or monitors meetings and activities of virtually all organisations, including religious organisations. It systematically restricts efforts by Buddhist clergy to promote human rights and political freedom, discourages or prohibits minority religions from constructing new places of worship, and, in some ethnic minority areas, coercively promotes Buddhism over other religions, particularly members of minority ethnic groups.

The study of religion and politics within Divinity presupposes religious practices to be understood through interpretive models and social epistemologies in constant interaction with political models of governance in society.

Recognising the democratic deficit and the deep-rooted historical links between Scotland and Burma, Trustees of BEST, Prospect Burma and the Dean of the Department of Religion and Politics at St. Mary's College have negotiated a scholarship for suitably qualified Burmese students to be educated, at postgraduate level.

So now you know and just in case you think policy weekends are all social here we are working hard! It's amazing how the group has come on and new members from all over Scotland keep turning up and making great contributions! It's easy to have these policy sessions but now the work has to start and with new co-chairs and the old exerpeinces hands about I'm sure they will do really well!
So a little catch up on a terrible cold wet and windy day here in Fife!

Another - what a week!

It really has been a series of highs with although expected lows they did not appear! First high was to keep a Unison member in her post at a disciplinary hearing - the management case being strong but natural justice being even stronger! So that started the week off really well. Fife Council launched the Equalities Campaign and I offered this as my contribution alongside a powerful image presentation - the day went really well and I suspect change is in our grasp as far as getting the 6 Equality strands together and talking as one! WOW!

Address for Fife Council Equality Campaign Launch

Unlike previous speakers I have an option in terms of other people’s perception and therefore expectations. I can shield my “difference”, if in terms of difference that means living in a “heteronomaltivity” world. Many years ago now, I chose not to do so and therefore whether wanting to or not, in that simple choice, became a political animal, assertive of my right to be me and not to shield others from my difference.

I often recall my first welcome to Fife in the early 80’s. After having a number of interviews for the social work post, and being at the affirmation of the appointment at a committee interview stage that springs to mind. After the deed was done, appointment confirmed, a smart councillor made the remark “A deary – huh not one of those queer dearies then – we don’t’ have them here” – so welcome to Fife!

My how times have changed. Nothing to do with being “politically expedient” or “politically correct”. The launch of this campaign recognised two things. Change is needed because it is the right thing to do, and it will take time to change the hearts and minds of people used to a living in a “heteronormaltivity” world!

Although now underpinned by the repeal of homophobic legislation like Clause 2a; the introduction of new legislation to protecting the rights of the LGBT community such as the Employment Regulations, Gender Recognition Act and the Equalities Act – a reason I would suggest that we are here, in supporting this raising of awareness, the recent proposed legislation to tackle homophobic hate crime, change is also required within the LGBT communities. We must consign our negative experiences to history and move on. Equally those outwith the LGBT communities should learn something from our struggles and assimilate this learning into their lives and practice. For too long oppression and knowing our place in society has been the reality in our lives.

The importance of the forthcoming LGBT History month next February focused in on Fife as it will be is an opportunity for this to actually happen and I commend the Council, Fife Constabulary and the Voluntary Sector Services for supporting these events.

It is vital that you, as service providers appreciate how subtle barriers to provision and access by LGBT community members to your services can be. The Fife Choose Life Group commissioned research recently, undertaken by Dr Sheila Reid of Reid Howie Associates into the experiences of LGBT people living in Fife and associated with mental health and well being. It makes interesting reading, with the draft findings being launched tomorrow at the Seminar at the Town House Kirkcaldy, and copies available here today.

Here we have research and scrutinised evidence of discrimination and isolation with an expectation that LGBT people assimilate or their needs can be ignored. It is your responsibility to help change this environment of lack of respect for difference. Again not as a cosmetic exercise in getting words correct, although this is indeed a first step as the levels of verbal abuse, often unreported, are extremely high – but as service providers offering support to all members of Fife’s diverse communities.

When a Trans customer phones in for service provision she is not met with “oh you sound like a man” after giving her name – or assuming that a same sex couple are Mr/Mrs! Yes, it really does mean tackling the subtle ways in which we can be verbally abused. While I suspect your presence here does indicate a willingness to embrace change, I am of course, addressing those of your organisation that are indeed absent from this opportunity.

Indulge me even further as I recollect a couple of reactions when I was working in this Council and facilitated a diversity awareness day with the deliberately controversial Jane Elliott – “Diversity? “We have managed without it fine so far why do we need to change” – “I know all there is to know about Diversity – I’ve been about a bit, so don’t need telling about how I should think and behave”. It is exactly why this campaign is needed, not only because of the legislative framework and benchmarking standards that I have outlined!

When we see the publicity cards “out homophobia in the workplace” what will this mean? What should we do? What will change? What will remain the same?

This campaign aims to answer some of these questions. The reality is, should this work be as effective as I suspect it will be, is that nothing remains the same and when as we hope the “Rainbow Flag” flies on Council building for LGBT History month no one will be asking what the flag represents and certainly the response will not be “something to do with queers” as it was in 2001 when Fife Constabulary and the Fife Men Project launched the Homophobic Hate Crime Helpline around the corner at Fife House.

Flying the flag is symbolic, not only to our community members but to those further afield. Your positive work to tackle discrimination has a national and international connection. It demonstrated to the intolerant, the bigoted, the extremist of what ever political or faith dimension, that hate based actions are not welcome; will be challenged and people and institutions called to account.

So whether it is as a response to the “odd canteen culture comment” or the extreme actions of three young men 21, 19 and 15 year old who premeditatedly kicked James Kerr, a employee in Perth & Kinross Council, around the head and body and left him to bleed to death in a park, while then going on to a party to brag about what they had just done.

Our response must be the positive actions of the educated and one of humanities respect for one another

If this encounter with reality makes you uncomfortable, I make no apology. It is to our shame that on our doorstep we have another victim another “Matthew Shepherd”. The circumstances may differ, the location changed but the effect is the same, sending as it does violent messages of intolerance and ignorance.

While I am happy to respond to this invitation to address the Equalities Campaign Launch it would be remiss of me not to say something about concept of LGBT communities. I have spoken about my personal experience and placed them in local, national and international context. “LGBT community” means to me links with a group of people whose common denominators are their difference from the heteronormaltivity world. It is therefore by definition a number of communities.

One only has to observe Pride or LGBT Mardi Gras events to understand how many banners can be flying. Again the Choose Life research estimates that there are 20,000 people from LGBT communities living in Fife! What a business case for respecting diversity if nothing else! Some will be out in their communities, families and friends. Others will not and perhaps suffering in silence about the oppressors that are a reality for them, in communities, employment and family settings. The message that today gives is around respect, inclusion and marking a turning point in Fife Council services.

Perhaps your task is made that little bit easier with the welcomed news that JK Rowling has “outed” Albus Dumbledore. His grand wizardry might be called upon in some situations! Indeed there is no limit to what gay and lesbian people can achieve but the reality is that we need real role models not fictional characters! ENDS

As you may suspect I deviated from this script in the light of previous speakers and the time constraints but it gives you the gist of the address!

Then the second biggie - the Fife Men Project seminar on suicide, self harm and mental health experiences of Fife's LGBT community members - this was just terrific! Well attended and with high calibre speakers! Fabby! We are producing a DVD of the event so folk can have a record of proceedings!

So another week which promises to have even more challenged and building on the experiences of last week! Here we go!

Main concerns at the moment are the lack of communication from Walter & Marco - but I know after my recent Berlin visit they are very busy with both the language school and the B & B. Forgot to mention another high - walking our neighbours dog Misty!

What a week

Last week was a bit of a trauma - with the project occupying time and stress quota! However this week we are looking good with a planning meeting for LGBT History (Wednesday); confirm the Seminar for Choose Life (Tuesday); apply for funding for the project so a meeting with the Council on Friday, rounding the week off on Saturday in Glasgow for Scottish LGBT Committee AGM in Unison!
So all that brings me to a week on Thursday and off for a long weekend to Berlin with mate from down south - I suspect I'll need a rest after that little excursion!
Have not heard from Walter for a few days but understand how busy he is - really don't know how he packs it all in!

However to brighten everyone's day here is a review of the film of the year - released on 26th October:

I wouldn't be comfortable calling La Vie en Rose (La Mome), the life of Edith Piaf, one of the great biographical films until I have a chance to see it once or twice more. What I'm sure of is that Marion Cotillard's portrayal of Piaf from Piaf's early teens until Piaf died at 47 is one of the most extraordinary performances I've ever seen on a movie screen. Piaf had an extraordinary life, was an extraordinary personality as well as being perhaps France's greatest singer. Cotillard simply remakes herself into this willful, self-destructive, selfish, generous, melodramatic, tiny creature -- Piaf was only 4' 8" tall -- of dramatic vocal genius.

Piaf grew up on the streets of Paris. Her life was one crises after another, some of her making, some not. We meet her as a child, when her mother abandoned her. Her father, a soldier in WWI and a contortionist in small traveling circuses, disappeared for long period of time. At one point before puberty she lived for quite a while with her paternal grandmother, who ran a brothel. She helped her father work at one of those circuses. They survived as street entertainers in Paris. She finally had enough and struck out on her own, making a little money singing on the streets, giving much of it to a local pimp for protection. She had a child who died of meningitis. When she was 20 she was discovered by an "impresario" who ran a nightclub. Louis Leplee renamed her Piaf. When he was murdered in what seemed to be a gang hit, she was put through the public wringer by the police and the French press. Her fame grew. During WWII she agreed to sing at POW camps so the French prisoners could be photographed with Piaf by the Germans as evidence of how happy the prisoners were. Piaf was a member of the Resistance. She took copies of the photographs and arranged for the Resistance to make false passports for 150 prisoners. She returned to the camps with the passports and managed to have them distributed to the prisoners under the eyes of the Germans. She was either fearless or willfully fatalistic. The Germans never seemed to realize what this tiny, internationally known singer was doing. After the war, she was acclaimed. She had famous love affairs, including Yves Montand and French middleweight boxer Marcel Cerdan. Cerdan, whom she loved, was killed in a plane crash. She drank heavily, took drugs, and her health continued to deteriorate. She suffered from rheumatism, severe arthritis, a liver that barely functioned. She became addicted to morphine and continued to drink heavily.

And she sang and sang and sang. She could make a child's jump-rope song sound like an obsession to lost love. Piaf had a big voice and she knew how to use it. She preferred simple black dresses and a spotlight when she performed, creating a highly dramatic image of this small, sad face and her two expressive hands. Her songs were about love, loss, death, memories, hope that was glimmering and hope that had died. She had a vibrato that seemed to throb in the heart. When she died at 47, the drink and the drugs, the losses and tragedies, the self-destructive willfulness and the arthritis had turned her into the ruined shell of the teen-ager who sang on Paris streets. Not a life I would have wanted, even if I'd traded for her talent, but it was her life and it became a huge melodrama powered by her unique voice.

For Americans, perhaps her most familiar song is La Vie En Rose. With Mack David's soppy lyrics, there was a time when it couldn't be avoided, including Piaf's French version. But the song that evokes the most memories, and the one that closes the movie and summarizes her life, is the song Piaf first sang just three years before her death, "Non, je ne regrette rien."

Non, rien de rien,
Non, je ne regrette rien,
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait,
Ni le mal, tout ça m'est bien égal.
Non, rien de rien,
Non, je ne regrette rien,
C'est payé, balayé, oublié,
Je me fous du passé...

The song roughly translates as "I don't regret a thing. What has happened has happened and has been paid for. Neither the good done to me, nor the bad;
to me, they're all the same. No, I regret nothing. Because my life, because my joys, today, begin with you."

The movie La Vie en Rose is dramatically and almost lushly photographed. We don't have a simple linear story line; we keep moving back and forth among the times of her life. The juxtapositions between the child, the girl, the young woman, the star, the prematurely aged force of talent and willfulness, makes us need to pay attention but it also gives us some idea of the chaos of her life. Marion Cotillard is incredible as she makes us believe in this self-destructive and fascinating person. We really forget about Cotillard and can only focus on this tiny body, big voice and an odd, appealing face made up of huge eyes, blood red lips, and plucked, thin-lined eye-brows.

Personally, self-destruction after awhile makes me impatient and irritated. There are too many things to do to waste one's life on a diet of willfulness and selfishness, even if one is gifted with huge talent. I was mesmerized by Piaf, her life and her songs, but at times I felt like telling her to ease up on the drama. I suppose, given her life, much should be forgiven or at least understood. As Roger Ebert has said, "Nothing in her early life taught her to count on permanence or loyalty. What she counted on was singing, champagne, infatuation and morphine." La Vie en Rose is a movie well worth seeing.

Mea Culpa

Really an unexpected busy time, so the regular contributions to my blog have been somewhat missing! The Fife Men Project predominates, with cash flow problems, inundated with referrals, and the media profile owing to Stephen Fry's documentary "HIV & Me", the first part which was screened last night! Very sad to see an old friend making his mark! William past away earlier this year, evidently three weeks after they had filmed. I missed his goodbye do, as I was in plaster at the time and could not travel through to Edinburgh. Got a full report from friends who did attend the funeral. All the all the programme was very reflective of the current situation. The work in the project is not completed and I suspect that is what keeps us going; its not an organisation that perpetuates itself for its own ends, hence my volunteer involvement!
I've gone a bit reflective now!
Visited Austwick last week, Thursday to Sunday and time seemed to go very quickly! The lady next door is 95 year old and likes a tipple - she is having some stomach problems so I suggested she stick to water until it settled down - so she got her Brandy and put a dash of water and said, "I'm not sure if water will do any good" - well at 95 good luck to her!
A resolution here - will try and get back to weekly updates - will have some news as I'm away to Berlin with mate from down South at the end of the month. The BIG news is that Frank and I are going with pal Andy to visit Robin in Sydney next year! Last time we went was in 1999 and had a great time! Like to see something of Oz while we are there and that does not mean the local casualty or eye hospital! Ah sweet memories!