Ignore Them, And Watch Them Come Back For More

So, Caroline Criado-Perez did a lovely thing: she campaigned successfully so that when the British bank notes change face next, they will feature Jane Austen on the ten pound notes. This is significant because women are rather unrepresented on bank notes, rather suggesting that in this nation’s history is devoid of important females to choose from, with the exception of Florence Nightingale, who doesn’t even appear on bank notes anymore. Some people have tried to claim that the campaign was a bit of a PC agenda, and ultimately pointless, since a woman appears on every single banknote, presumably missing the point that Queen Elizabeth appears as the monarch, not an honorary female, and will, with the best will in the will (and, one would expect, with literally the best will in the world) not be on any fresh bank notes printed in, say, fifteen years time.

This wasn't enough, though. Quite soon, Perez was subjected to a genuinely horrific torrent of abuse, most of it within a 24 hour period, and mostly, it seems with the sole intention of shutting her up, just for having an opinion. Apart from anything else, this must be simply frustrating as well as depressing and at times threatening. To have abuse thrown at you when  nobody knows who you are, but to have it again (and magnified) when you are successful and established must be suffocating: ‘What the hell do you guys want?’

This has in turn prompted people like Caitlin Moran and others to ask exactly what twitter is doing about online abuse, particularly the threats of rape and death directed at women. Whereas facebook does have a resource for reporting on stuff you’re not happy with, twitter does not. Granted, facebook doesn’t always get it right (too many pictures of new mums breastfeeding get nixed, for instance), but it’s arguably a faltering step in  the right direction. When officials on twitter were asked what they were going to do about it, they battened down the hatches and made their accounts private (ironically, citing online abuse as the reason). It’s now been suggested that high profile account holders on twitter abandon the site to its own devices (and the trolls) on August 4^th – a so-called ‘trolliday’.

If I’m honest, I think that the Troll-iday will achieve very little, in actual, practical terms. The idiots and the bullies won’t really notice what’s going on, or they’ll simply sneer and declare loudly (and correctly) that such a boycott won’t really make much difference. And, to a very great extent, they’re exactly right. It’s already been argued that trolliday won’t silence the bullies, but actually make them bite harder. But like most protests, I suspect it isn’t the event itself that’s so important, as what it represents, and the reams of newsprint that will be (and have already been) devoted to the cause will argue. This isn’t about getting the trolls to shut up. It’s not even about ignoring them. It’s about something a lot simpler and more elegant. It’s giving us a chance to grow the hell up.

Let’s be clear here: this isn’t infringing on anyone’s freedom of speech. A ‘report abuse’ button on twitter (or any other social platform) does not – and should not – stop anyone from arguing, say, about the amount of benefit-swallowing immigrants swarming into the country every hour. That opinion, in of itself, is not actually offensive, although it’s arguably ill-informed. And indeed, it in theory leads to what twitter should excel at: two differing opinions smashing into each other (in 140 characters at a time), at the end of which, hopefully at least one person learns something they didn’t know before. If they were listening.

Many people argue (and quite loudly, ironically enough) that it’s pointless to draw attention to the troll – that such attention is exactly what the troll craves. It’s gone as far as to create a piece of advice that sounds like it was originally penned by the Brothers Grimm: ‘Don’t feed the troll’. It is, of course, an entirely meaningless and selfish bit of advice, which even this second someone is typing out on twitter. Hopefully, the trolliday, if nothing else, will go some way to dismantling that most insidious of pointless advice: ‘block and ignore’. This is the latest version of the idiotic demand that we’ve been handed down across the years, starting at school when we’re told to ignore the bullies, and they’ll go away, to questioning why the girl who was attacked was dressed like that and out so late, to sneering at celebrities who plead for privacy from the tabloids. Not only does it – unforgivably – blame the victims, it feeds an everlasting lie: that, if you (yes, you, not them) alter your behaviour, the bullies go away. But that’s not true. It was never true, and it never will be. The bullies don’t go away. Best case scenario: they simply turn their attention to someone else. But even that isn’t the problem with ‘block and ignore’. I’m sure that there are a few people who have given that advice in a well-intentioned manner. But they are presumably unaware of what that advice actually means. It means exactly the same as ‘just ignore then and they’ll go away’ always meant. The translation, if you don’t know what it means (and, don’t lie, you do know, you always knew what it meant) is simply this: Oh, please fuck off. I really don’t care enough about your unimportant problems. I don’t want to stand up for you, I don’t want to draw attention to myself. If I attach myself to you and your needs, I might get contaminated by whatever the bullies have smelled on you. You’ve probably done something to deserve the abuse you’re getting, because I really can’t be bothered to consider a world in which bullies will threaten rape and death for no good reason whatsoever. Just keep quiet, and it will go away. Or, at the very least, hopefully you will go away, instead. Either works for me. Just as long as I don’t have to help. Ignore them and they will go away.

Of course, that’s completely in the wrong. But not, actually, for the reasons that those who say ‘just block and ignore’ think. There’s a reason why this is a particularly hot topic at the moment. If you disagree with me on any subject – like, say, that the last Spiderman film was an entirely pointless if pretty reboot – then you would be perfectly able to disagree with me, and voice your disagreement firmly. You might even get a bit sweary, and call into question my intelligence and basic eyesight. None of this would fall into the realms of abuse, because it’s significantly unlikely that you would claim that the reason I disliked the last Spiderman  film was just because I was fat/ugly/had childbearing hips. (I don’t have child bearing hips, by the way. Those twigs would snap in a matter of seconds).  I’m not particularly fond of the often mis-used ‘check your privilege’ line, but its undeniable that I am pretty privileged: as a white male, my opinions are not going to be dismissed just on the perceived value (or lack thereof) of my gender. Indeed, if anyone calls me a fucking idiot, it’s because they have enough respect to honestly think that I am indeed a fucking idiot.

I know it’s a cliché, but having thought about this a bit, I can’t think of a better reason: the torrent of abuse that gets chucked at high profile, successful women online is borne of one thing only: fear. Sweaty-eyed, gibbering fear. If I talk about ‘a person going into a bar’, our default reaction is to assume that I’m talking about a man (and a white man, at that). The thing is, when you occupy a default position, you don’t have to do a hell of a lot to keep on to your crown. When intelligent, dynamic women are changing the world without having to change their hemline, others get confused and – yes, scared. If the trolls want attention, then, by all means, lets give them all the attention they can cope with, and more. You remember what it was like in school, or when you or your friend was in an abusive relationship. The bully thrived on silence. Not speaking up supports the bully. ‘Block and ignore’? How dare they. How dare we. It’s time to shout back. 

Moran And More

Went to see Caitlin Moran this week, at the Old Market in Hove. She's just published her new book, and is doing the whole chat/Q & A/book signing tour thing.

I met her afterward - by which I mean I lined up with everyone else to get my book signed - when we chatted very briefly, and she said flattering things. I'm reasonably convinced that she has a whole list of well rehearsed flattering things to say to people at these sorts of events, but, hell, if she's going to put the spadework in to lie so sweetly, it would be impolite not to take her at face value.

She's a great talker, effortlessly charming and engaging, and has the rare raconteur's skill of managing to spin out what could be a reasonably tissue thin story about a chance encounter on a train into a much more  more  of a brilliant anecdote. In person, she's what you hope every columnist will be in real life: someone you can just prop a bar with for a few hours, line up the G&Ts, and just natter with into the small hours. As opposed to the rest of us, who manage to pummel potentially good anecdotes into over-long bits of dirge. Which I hope to demonstrate daily, with this blog, here.

But despite the fact that Caitlin Moran is quite garrulous, she made a couple of allusions to being quite shy. This was met with some derision by her interviewer, and indeed, those members of the audience who had already read How To Be A Woman, that suggested people didn't quite believe that shyness was something that could be always listed in her top 10 of characteristics.  But to me, it made absolute sense. I think it makes sense to anyone who uses words as some kind of transaction in their career. Obviously, most of us talk from day to day in our lives, but equally obviously, for some of us, words are our currency, whether that be as a writer, an actor, or any kind of public speaker. I think it's entirely possible - and indeed, logical - for someone who spends so much of their lives performing on stage to not want to be even looked at when they're off it. Even if you're appearing behind a microphone 'as yourself', it's not really an accurate version of yourself. At least when everyone's paid nine quid to see you, and is sitting in neatly ordered rows, you know that that's a, if not falsified, then certainly rarified atmosphere. You have an 'in' - these people, you know, are here to see you. If you find yourself chatting at length at the local bar, then the chances are you'll suddenly find yourself panicking that everyone around you is simply waiting for you to shut the hell up. 

Someone who doesn't always want you to look at her when she's offstage, but is magnetic when on it, is Sarah Charsley, whose show, Three Kinds Of Me, ends tonight (and they told me I couldn't segue). It's actually sold out - the last seven tickets have gone in the past hour, as I'm writing this - and last night was extraordinary. The atmosphere in the studio at the New Venture Theatre was electric, and managed to indulge in all those cliches of a roller coaster of emotions - you'll laugh, you'll cry, etc, etc. If you manage to see it tonight, you're very lucky, at least as lucky as I have been to have been involved in the production. The mood in the bar afterward was buzzingly excited, with so many people really insistent that these shouldn't be the only performances of the show. Now, I'm fully aware that this runs the risk of tottering over into hyperbole, and that similar things are often said whenever there's a particularly good production going on, but I honestly think that there's truth in there them statements. We're beginning to think about reviving the production already, with at least the Brighton Fringe in our sights, so if your venue has a few spare performance spots, you know where to get in touch. 

(If you don't know where to get in touch - I mean here. Here is where you can get in touch. I was hoping that I didn't have to spell it out to you)

Music To My Ears

Earlier this week, I tuned onto Radio 2. It’s something I almost never do. I’m aware of Radio 2 as something in the background, even if it is not something that’s literally on, in the background. When I was younger, it was Radio 1, and I’m not entirely sure why, since I’ve always found it almost nail-plucking annoying. There was a time when I used to wake up to Radio 2, when it felt like being nudged to wakefulness by somebody with a freshly brewed cup of coffee (maybe it still does; I haven’t listened to it in the morning for years), but most recently, my radio has been dialled to Radio 4.

There’s something very liberating and almost empowering to discover that you don’t give enough of a damn to worry about the fact that you’re old enough to listen to Radio 4. I’m not sure exactly when the change kicked in; I’ve been listening to 4 for quite some years now – but I’m pretty sure that at some point I must have considered 4 to be outside my realm of interest, with its wall to wall talk, chatter, debate and opinion. But the fact of the matter is that I’ve never been much of a muso, and so it’s unsurprising that I never really found much of a grove going on with a radio station that just played the most popular track of the charts. And then again, fifty minutes later. Then twice more before the 6 O’clock drivetime news.

The reason I pulled up to Radio 2 this week (it was on iplayer; I wasn’t able to listen as the programme went out) was because an old friend, Louise Cookman, was featuring as a guest on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006wr7s The Big Band Special. Now, I should acknowledge that my use of the term ‘friend’ is somewhat elastic: I didn’t really have the balls to talk to her whilst at college, which is where I first met her, spending more of my time instead with a woman who was a lot more spritely brightly Laura Ashley. This is intriguing, as the 39 year old me would always choose to spend time with someone more obviously arch and playfully cynical than the person I actually did spend my college time with. In fact, I’ve only seen Louise once since – all thanks to facebook – after what must have been pretty much a twenty year gap (and since when did any of us have lives long enough to squeeze a twenty year gap of anything into them?). It what felt like a scene straight out of a rigidly scripted Richard Curtis movie, I found her singing with a live band on a stage on the South Bank of the River Thames. She was an absolute pleasure to watch perform; and to speak with; somewhat disquietingly, I think we spoke more in the twenty minutes between sets than we did during our entire time at college. I’d like to think it’s because I’ve become less shy as I’ve gotten older, but we all know that’s not the case.

Hearing her on the Big Band programme was a glorious moment. I can’t sing at all (and have no patience for those who declare, with no patience, that ‘everyone can sing’), and am always slightly in awe of those who are particularly skilled at delivering a song. Obviously, many people can do the basics of carrying a tune (I can’t, my carrying of a tune sounds more like I’m dragging the corpse of a tune over a war-ravaged roadside as blood gluts out of its throat), but there are certain singers whose voice occasionally defy your understanding: you’re unable to work out quite how their voice can lock into place that way, that can jump, seemingly effortlessly from one sound to the next, can sound so perfect. It is, I guess, why there’s been such a rise in voice-correction software in music over the past few years. It’s an effort to create the seamless – and –makes-it-sound-so-easiness – voice that a few singers have in abundance. Hearing certain voices is to witness – and I don’t use the word lightly – a thing of beauty.

That’s pretty much how I reacted listening to the programme on Tuesday, and I’m fairly sure I would have reacted in the same way had I not had some tenuous connection to the singer. There was something very pleasing in hearing someone I know personally appear on national Radio and sing a few big band classics, even though I was mildly disappointed that she didn’t go for the obvious gag during her rendition of a song from Calamity Jane.

This sort of thing actually happens a reasonable amount, because a lot of my experience and training is in the performing arts, but because I myself haven’t had much discernible professional success. It’s always slightly startling to see someone you’ve spent time with begin to turn up on panel shows, for instance. I remember one morning waking to my alarm clock radio (which at this point was tuned to 4), and being startlingly presented with the voice of a woman I hadn’t spoken to for about ten years, talking about the major adaptation she’d just written for the London stage. Since my writing credits at that point largely consisted of a shopping list – and even that was incomplete – it was an alarm clock in more ways than one. Another friend of mine has started doing a lot of extra work, and although I’ve not yet seen him on screen, it’s very pleasing to know that at least one person I’ve acted with is actually getting paid for being on a film set.

Later tonight, we’ll be having the next rehearsal for Three Kinds Of Me, which opens this Friday. It’ll be nice to get a good crowd there, so do make sure you book your tickets as soon as you like. At the very least, it would be good to have an audience that outnumbers the cast, and as it’s a one-woman show, that shouldn’t be too much of a challenge. We’re pretty much through the worst of the technical stuff by now (although the crew may well have something to say about that statement), and it’s a show that I’m very proud of. Not necessarily because of any negible contribution I might have brought to it as director, but simply for the chance to have worked with such a talented writer and performer. Yes, I know it’s pretty much a contractual obligation to say such things about the people you work with, but I have worked with people who have made me want to drag a cheese grater over my own eyeballs. Or, even better, theirs. Those people who make working on a show a joy are to be celebrated. This could very easily have been a difficult show – Sarah is performing her own script, and I have had the audacity to tell her what her own script means – more than twice contradicting what the text itself actually says – and even if she’s felt that my instincts are entirely insane, she’s been gracious enough to indulge me, and treat me as someone who knows what the hell they’re talking about.

Also this week, I’ve been beginning to leave out flyers for the series of improvisation workshops I’ve got coming up. It’s called Iron Clad Improv (cause it’s on at the Iron Duke, d’you see?), and the first drop in is on Sunday 28th October, which suddenly doesn’t seem all that far away. From then on, it’s every Sunday, 7 – 9, and I’m genuinely looking forward to it. Of course, it doesn’t work unless actually get some punters in through the door, so do please spread the word, even if you can’t get through the door yourself. I’m obviously fretting that I’m going to be doing a lot of these improv drop-ins to which absolutely nobody turns up, so I’m having to get over my own instinctive shyness (which even though I’m even older than was when I last referred to my shyness at the start of this blog), and shout about the improv class from the rooftops. Or, at the very least, leave out brightly coloured flyers in every coffee shop the Brighton and Hove area.

Lastly, before rehearsal tonight I’m going along to the Old Market in Hove to see Caitlin Moran talk about her new book. I saw a great many people last year reading her previous book, How To Be A Woman, although – curiouser ad curiouser – none of them were women. Presumably none of them felt that they needed instructions on how to be a woman, or possibly they were all reading Fifty Shades on their kindles. It’s the second time this week I’ve been to The Old Market (I saw a show of Comic Strip at the weekend, headlined by the blistering Terry Alderton, who I’d never encountered before), which is bad, since it’s a great venue, and practically on my doorstep. There are a few times when I get exhausted and poor, but all it takes is a reminder of exactly where it is I live, and its enough to consider myself reasonably lucky