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The Real Jobs of the British Royal Family

August 8th, 2012 | Comments Off on The Real Jobs of the British Royal Family

William & Kate: The Firm's Next Generation - Sara Star

 
In hard economic times, people may grumble or wonder about the cost to the taxpayer of the Royal Family: why don’t they get (proper) jobs? Well, they have.

Sometimes people argue that the Monarchy is a drain on public resources. In fact, demonstrated by events like Prince William and Catherine Middleton’s wedding in April 2011, the institution raises interest and tourism income into Britain, and if there wasn’t a Royal Family, there’d be an elected head of state that would cost money too.

A television series from US Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Monarchy, the Royal Family at Work (2006), declared: ‘to handle 4,000 state visits, balls, school dedications, nursing home visits, and charity events, the Queen depends on her husband, her children, cousins, and now a new generation of grandchildren’.

She calls them collectively, ‘The Firm’, and their business, the state’s civic business, is their job. Charities, military units, organisations, the media and taxpayers benefit from Britain’s working Royal Family.

Head of The Firm

The Daily Mail reported in January 2011, that the Queen carried out 444 (including 57 abroad) separate engagements in 2010, 69 more than in 2009. Buckingham Palace officials pointed out that 2011 promised to be busier still, with two royal weddings (Prince William and Zara Phillips), two overseas state visits, Prince Philip’s 90th birthday celebrations and planning for her Diamond Jubilee festivities in 2012.

For anybody in the public eye, that’s formidable. For a woman in her 80s, it’s real achievement. It reveals her commitment to her lifetime role as Queen, which she didn’t ask for, but was born to do.

An avid and knowledgeable animal lover, patron of 600 charities, she has been served by twelve Prime Ministers, from Winston Churchill to David Cameron. She has weekly un-minuted meetings with the PM and regular discussions with other ministers. She reads tons of official papers and reports annually. Her advice is sought, her opinion counts, her experience of governing British life is unparalleled.

Prince Philip increased his workload to 356 engagements. He has his own charities and interests. The Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme is the finest achievement. Piloted in the 1950s, it launched in 1969, for 14-21 year olds, increased to 25 in 1980. Young people skills, self-reliance and team building – the scheme has benefitted over 4 million people in 60 countries. He remains committed to it while being Patron or President to 800 organisations.

His special interests are scientific and technological research and development, sports, young people, conservation, wildlife and the environment. He visits research stations, laboratories, mines, factories, industrial plants as Patron of the Industrial Society.

The Firm’s Non-Executive Officers

Prince Charles (Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Wales) is usually the hardest-working royal (although Princess Anne is often acknowledged as such). He had 585 official engagements in 2010. He’s Patron of 400 organisations and oversees ‘The Prince’s Charities’ a group of 20 not-for-profit organisations, 18 of which he set up.

They raise more than £120 million a year for causes including opportunity and enterprise (The Prince’s Trust, Scottish Youth Business Trust, PRIME Cymru, British Asian Trust); education (Prince’s Drawing School, School of Traditional Arts, Teaching Institute, Foundation for Children & The Arts); the built environment (Foundation for Built Environment, Regeneration Trust); and responsible business and the natural environment (Business in the Community).

The Duchess of Cornwall notched up 243 engagements in 2010 (her highest to date). Prince William had 73 (up 27), and holds down a demanding job as a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot. Prince Harry is in the Army while undertaking 53 official visits and supporting charities in Britain and beyond.

The Princess Royal, Princess Anne has become associated with 200 charities, including a global role for Save The Children Fund, support for carers, transport links in developing countries and Riders for Health. She’s also a British Representative on the International Olympic Committee and took part in the successful UK bid to host 2012’s Games.

Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, is labelled ‘most travelled Royal’, clocking up miles as UK’s Special Representative for Trade and Investment. Nicholas Watt, Guardian’s Chief Political correspondent reported (6 March 2011): ‘Prince Andrew’s role as Britain’s special trade representative is to be downgraded as ministers seek to distance themselves from his controversial dealings with discredited business figures’.

His brother, Prince Edward, the Earl of Wessex patronises charities too and supports the Queen or stands in for her on visits while assisting the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award scheme. After university he joined the Royal Marines, but quit to work for Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Theatre Company before setting up his own Ardent Productions for a time.

He and his wife, Sophie, complete around 500 events a year. She it was who continued to work at her public relations job after marrying The Firm in 1999. However, being caught bragging to a reporter about her connections, led to her resignation in 2002. Since then, it seems to be thought that work outside The Firm is incompatible with work within it.

Conflicts of Interest

Many minor Royals, foot-soldiers of the Firm, work to earn, turning out to support on big occasions. The Duchess of Kent is a practising musician who has taught in primary schools. Prince Michael of Kent is not in line of succession to the throne, so receives no public money; he runs a consultancy. The Duke of Gloucester has produced three books of photographs. The Duke of Kent had a military career.

Public perception about what is suitable work for Royals is often confused. It’s easy to whip up media frenzy and public indignation about the cost of the Family to the taxpayer; but if they do commercial work, they are accused of cashing in on connections.

The bottom line is that the cost of supporting the British monarchy works out about 62p per person per year, including security travel and accommodation. The financial return on that in tourism, media jobs, charity works, economic ties overseas represents possibly the best in the world.

First published on Suite 101, 8 August 2011, well before the Jubilee celebrations of 2012.

Image: William & Kate: The Firm’s Next Generation – Sara Star

 

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Parliamentary e-Petitions: Another Gimmick Or Democratic Reform?

August 7th, 2012 | Comments Off on Parliamentary e-Petitions: Another Gimmick Or Democratic Reform?

Will ePetitions Increase Democracy? - Matthew Bowden

 
In touch with the web’s people power, Parliament is now offering voters a chance to petition their requests for laws directly online.

A Petition to Parliament is a ‘prayer’ for or against action a policy. The ancient right stems possibly from Saxon times, allowing petition to the Monarch for redress of grievance. Since the Middle Ages, this has effectively meant a petition to Parliament, although the Queen today still gets requests from citizens.

For hundreds of years, petitions have been presented to Parliament by Members placing them in The Petition Bag hanging behind the Speaker’s Chair in the Commons chamber. She/he can introduce with a short speech, or simply insert it. The bag is emptied periodically, and the demands are reported in the House proceedings and forwarded to appropriate departments.

Historic Petitions

As always with the Houses of Parliament, history, tradition and precedent combine to create rules. Parliament’s website explains that they can be sent through the post free, if unsealed. Parliament receives over 1000 a year, and until recently they had to be handwritten and begin with: ‘To the honourable, the Commons of the United Kingdom in Parliament assembled’.

The Ambulance Dispute Petition of December 1989 contained four and a half million signatures, which is thought to be the highest. They were estimated, page by page checked for names and addresses and absence of indecorous writing. Prior to 1974 clerks were paid to count names, the biggest of which was the Chartists of the 1840s with almost two million signatures, many fictitious.

A single person can submit a petition. Larger petitions are often debated, and sometimes the government of the day takes notice of public feeling. The practice enables MPs to say to their constituents: “Yes, I presented your petition to the House….’ even if he/she doesn’t particularly support it. The practice gave rise to the expression ‘it’s in the bag’.

Technology Drives Change

For some years electronic communication with Downing Street and offices of state have been developing. In August 2011, the e-petition site went live: ‘e-petition is an easy way for you to influence government policy in the UK. You can create an e-petition about anything that the government is responsible for and if it gets at least 100,000 signatures, it will be eligible for debate in the House of Commons’.

The site experienced technical problems at once, because of heavy usage. However, instructions are simple: search existing petitions; create a new petition; it will be checked by a government department (who can reject repetitious, defamatory, offensive, jokey or nonsense content); the public can sign it for up to a year; and anything over 100,000 names make it eligible for Commons debate.

Sir George Young, Leader of the House, said: ‘This is part of the strategy of making the Commons more relevant’. It follows years of decline in voting turnout and election interest, particularly among the young. It’s telling that one petition published online just three days after launch demands; ‘make this website more user-friendly’.

An early lead in topics was return of the death penalty, with more than 40 of the first 200 attracting over 5000 signatures calling for the return of capital punishment. This was quickly followed by more voters signing one demanding the retention of the ban on judicial execution for any crime.

Other early suggestions included keeping all Formula One motor racing free to air; leaving the European Union; legalising cannabis, the right to self-defence in one’s own home and lowering the voting age. There were several on MPs’ hours, expenses and salaries. One wanted court proceedings televised, another to raise the cost of alcohol and one to feed prisoners bread and water like in the ‘good old days’.

Overcoming Obstacles

It may be that the signature threshold of 100,000 for debate will have to be raised, or lowered in the case of specific local issues. For example, two campaigns in popular, on-the-ground democracy run by the Eastern Daily Press recently were described by reporter Adam Gretton (6 Aug 2011), as: ‘testament to the influence of people power’.

Yet the petition to save RAF Marham in Norfolk secured 37,000 signatures and one to dual the rest of the A11 in Norfolk got 16,000. Both were far short of the 100,000. Monitoring will be necessary and has been promised, though ideas that become awkward can get kicked into the long grass.

Parliament will have to give more of its limited time to debate topics petitioned by the public, crossed the threshold and secured worthiness from officials and MPs. The cross-party business committee charged with deciding the worthiness of subjects for debate may grow partisan, weary or both.

Subjects could receive popular votes that are in direct contrast to the policies of the government of the day. Governments could be expected to enact legislation they are actually against. Or they could just overlook petitions and be accused of ignoring voters’ wishes.

But that’s a fine line politicians have grown used to walking over the centuries. For now, it’s a new idea that should be given a good run, although previous attempts introduced by the last Labour government got 1.8 million to oppose road pricing, 70,000 demanded Gordon Brown resign and 50,000 wanted TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson to become Prime Minister.

Seriously, though, if more people take an interest, then the stronger British democracy will become.

First published on Suite 101, 7 August 2011

Image: Will ePetitions Increase Democracy? – Matthew Bowden

 

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The Cultural and Economic Importance of the Eisteddfod

August 5th, 2012 | Comments Off on The Cultural and Economic Importance of the Eisteddfod

There are eisteddfodau around the world, but it’s the big International August one that brings cultural and financial benefits to the whole of Wales.

The term ‘eisteddfod’ (plural: eisteddfodau) derives from the Welsh eistedd (to sit) and bod (to be). Bod is mutated to fod, and the whole means ‘sitting/being together’. It’s a gathering that has become a fixture in the Welsh calendar (first week of August) along with Christmas and Easter.

Alternating between north and south Wales, the Eisteddfod celebrates Welsh language and culture, and is the largest of its kind in Europe. It’s a mix of daily competitions with evening concerts, plays, gigs, comedy and exhibitions. Unlike many cultural festivals, this is competitive, with contests in dance, recitation, singing, brass bands, poetry.

Events are conducted in Welsh, but as BBC Wales observes: ‘everyone’s welcome. A translation service is available’. Visitors call at the Maes (ground or field) for information and refreshment. Welsh learners have an area for help. The atmosphere is abuzz with arts, crafts, music and dance for the family.

Over 150,000 visitors flock during the week. Competing ends late afternoon to allow ceremonies to take place. Awards are given for best work in free verse, best unpublished Welsh novel, prose, poems in strict metre. Competitions resume on Wednesday and Friday nights, often till late.

Historical Connections

According to the official Eisteddfod website, the national event is traced back to 1176, when Lord Rhys held a national gathering of poets and musicians at Cardigan. A chair at his table was awarded to the best poet and musician. This tradition prevails, and gave rise to other accolades.

Over the years, the idea developed into what BBC Wales calls: ‘a fully fledged folk festival on a large scale’ held around the country under patronage of different nobles and gentry. The National Eisteddfod Association (founded 1880) is charged with staging one annually, which with the exception of 1914 and 1940, it has done.

In the 16th Century prizes consisted of a miniature silver chair (best poet), silver crwth, archaic stringed instrument (fiddler), silver tongue (singer), silver harp (harpist). Queen Elizabeth I ordered that bards be examined and licensed to maintain standards, but after that, they declined and interest in Welsh arts with them.

There was a revival when the 1789 Eisteddfod at Corwen allowed public audiences. After this, there was even a gathering in London on the autumn equinox, as people rediscovered the joys of Welsh music, poetry and literature. During much of the 19th Century there was conflict between bardic native Welsh traditions and a new breed of Methodists, exacerbated by controversy over the highly critical Treason of the Blue Books (1847), a report into the state of Welsh education, which among other criticisms, questioned the morality of Welsh women.

Like all traditions that grew in contentious action and past beliefs, the modern eisteddfod is a mix of folk-memories, written records and contemporary sensibilities. That it’s a celebration of Welsh culture, tradition and language is indisputable. The question in an era of fiscal belt-tightening might be: is it viable and affordable? Most Welsh people would say it is.

Economic Benefits

Torfaen County Borough estimated that the 2010 Eisteddfod in Ebbw Vale was worth ‘£6-8 million during the week itself’. There is also a tourist ‘legacy effect’, similar to the Olympic effect that is built into long term cost-benefit analysis of major events.

The August 2012 National Eisteddfod will be held in Llandow, Vale of Glamorgan, and an agenda from March 2011 showed how Vale of Glamorgan Council are planning in terms of economic benefit. It will cost about £3.6 million to stage, of which a quarter will come from the Welsh Assembly.

‘The event is seen as a major opportunity for the Council’, said the report, ‘to raise the profile of the area’. The 2011 Proclamation Ceremony, public procession, opportunities to promote attractions and accommodation, transport and access, health and safety, food standards, waste collection, major incident planning and licensing are among the detailed issues being considered.

It’s big business, and with a rolling venue policy (though some want a permanent Eisteddfod location) it spreads opportunities across Wales. The economic benefits are undisputed and local businesses are as committed as authorities. Other Glamorgan gains are seen as: ‘the holding of a Welsh language event in a predominantly English speaking area will give opportunity for participation of English speaking visitors as well as those learning Welsh’.

Wales and Beyond

Some schools hold them, particularly on St David’s Day; small competitions are held across Wales. The concept has travelled to Los Angeles where Welsh Americans, in touch with their roots, organise events, which began in Portland, Oregon titled Left Coast Eisteddfod.

In Pennsylvania and Ohio there are localised versions. The 1926 Eisteddfod in Pasadena, California evolved into a one-act play festival, and there may be similar threads in most drama and music competitions today. Celtic/Gaelic music is the common link between Scotland’s Gaelic Mod and France’s Breton Kan ar Bobl.

Eisteddfods (their plural) have been absorbed into Australian culture, competing in musicianship, acting and dancing, generally for children but sometimes for adults and/or professional performers. They’ve been in Argentina since Welsh people settled in the late 19th century, where they bilingual these days, Welsh-Spanish.

There are even non-Welsh-specific eisteddfodau. The Methodist Church in England used to run them for youth groups, which is interesting, given hostility from Welsh Methodists in the 1840s. Kettering had one for decades and Cornwall and Jersey have their versions, while Bristol’s Festival of Music, Speech and Drama was originally known as the Bristol Eisteddfod.

It’s proof, if any were needed, that the ancient Eisteddfod heritage is alive and well and continuing to evolve, inspiring many with Welsh tradition, and producing useful community revenue.

First published on Suite 101, 5 August 2011

Image: Glydwr Banner of Welsh National Eisteddfod – AlexD

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The Economic Importance of Irish Culture

August 4th, 2012 | Add a Comment

As Ireland suffers fall out from banking and Eurozone crises, it’s timely to look at how Irish culture and tradition contribute to economic well-being.

In most countries, culture, tradition and history intertwine and add to their richness. In Ireland, it’s particularly marked. Ancient Celtic history, folk legend and epic poetry fuse with contemporary lifestyles, rural and urban, language, music, performance and celebration/ritual.

Irish traditional and Country & Irish music evolved from mythology to create unique strands. Fiddles, harps, banjos, bodhrans (hand drums), whistles, accordians and violins have become synonymous with the music. Irish dancing paralleled it, with evolutions of jigs, hornpipes, reels, polkas and step dancing to accompany songs about emigration, civil strife, everyday love and life. Harmonies and melodies in elegant simplicity are hallmarks of the music.

Any list of great artists writing in the English language in fiction, philosophy or drama include many Irish. George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, WB Yeats, James Joyce, Bram Stoker, CS Lewis (N.Ireland), Edmund Burke, Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan are but some. They didn’t all earn to help Ireland’s economy directly, but their success was a credit to their homeland.

Music and Dance

The roll-call of (near) contemporary Irish musicians is long, and demonstrates international success both artistically and commercially. Thin Lizzie, Van Morrison, Rory Gallagher, U2, John O’Conor, Barry Douglas, Daniel O’Connell, The Chieftains, The Boomtown Rats, Clannad, Enya, The Corrs, Sinead O’Connor, Planxty, The Pogues, The Cranberries, Boyzone and Westlife are but a selection.

The spectacular global triumph of Riverdance is a case study in how tradition, modern technology, music and dance skills combine with history to make an export that will be forever an Irish triumph, again both as a piece of pure art and a money-making machine. It began in 1994 as a seven minute interval piece in the Eurovision Song Contest viewed by 300 million people.

The single went straight to Number 1 in the Irish charts in May, 9 in the British charts. In November it was on the Royal Variety Performance and tickets went on sale for the show developed from it and Jean Butler and Michael Flatley’s careers were launched. It took over a million Irish pounds in three weeks. Thus was born a show that is still running, still touring the world, albeit in smaller venues than in the early years.

It’s hard to find figures on how much the concept has taken, or how much has benefitted the Irish economy. Clearly, though it has to be substantial while the publicity for Irish culture is immeasurable. Irish business writer, Barra O’Cinneide published The Riverdance Phenomenon (2001) and said it: ‘explains the background to the recent surge in Irish culture (and its greatly enhanced image abroad), concentrating on two aspects which have experienced unprecedented booms in popularity in the past decade, traditional music and, more recently, dance’.

Money, Money, Money

In a submission paper to the Department of Finance in March 2005, the Irish Music Rights Organisation showed that music has a significant positive impact on the development of inward investment, tourism and local communities. They cited the 2001 Goodbody Report which estimated the Irish music industry was worth half of one percent of Gross Domestic Product, was six times bigger than the Scottish equivalent and exceeded the value added in industries like dairy products, newspaper/magazine publishing, and plastics and rubber production.

Of this in 2001, 56% was the earned income of recording artists, 30% the activities of performance artists and 14% from the support sector. Clearly, whichever way it’s viewed, music’s contribution to the overall economic well-being of the country is significant. Brian Norton, writing in The Journal of Music (2005) said: ‘government support for part-time music education is woefully inadequate. It is a consequence of a narrowly defined arts policy rather than an overarching strategic national vision’.

Norton argued that evidence ought to make education policy makers aware that music should be an integral part of the pedagogy at every level in the education system. The implication being that young people need to capitalise on their traditions in every way. Of course, music is not the only art form.

Other Cultural Activities

Tourists visit Ireland (spending around four billion euros a year) for the countryside, historic and religious sites, pubs and beer. The Bronze Age artifacts, early spiritual carvings, manuscripts, the festivals and fairs are equally important. No recent surveys have asked if people visit Ireland for the music/dance/theatre, unlike surveys in Scotland which analyse the impact of the Edinburgh Festivals on the local and national economies.

Ireland’s traditional bedrock economy depends on agriculture and livestock related industries. Diversification into modern technology has been widespread. Joining the European Union and the euro have seen Ireland reach highs (when it was given the ‘Celtic Tiger’ plaudit in the 1990s) and lows, as bailouts, bankruptcies and buildings unused littered the landscape of the early 2000s.

Through all the vagaries of economic cycles, the fact is that Ireland has a unique and enduring contribution to make to global culture. And that may be worth more than money, in the long run.

First published on Suite 101, 4 August 2011

Image: Irish Dancing Group, Vienna – Michael A.Zapletal


 

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The Cultural and Economic Importance of the Edinburgh Festivals

August 3rd, 2012 | Add a Comment

2011 sees twelve major diverse events, many of world-class quality, helping to make Edinburgh the heartbeat of Britain’s cultural body.

The UK, particularly in the summer months, has wall-to-wall festivals, from parish churches to major open-air marathons. Most cities and many stately homes host festival crowds enjoying music, theatre, film, flowers, aircraft and politics of every conceivable kind, which pull in money and heighten publicity.

Edinburgh 2011’s offerings run from Science (31st March-13 April); Imaginate Children’s (7-14 May); Film (15-26 June); Jazz and Blues (22-31 July); Art (4 August-4 September); Military Tattoo (5-27 August); Fringe (5-29 August); International (12 August-4 September); Books (13-29 August); Mela (2-4 September); Storytelling (21-30 September) and Hogmanay (30 December-2 January).

It’s the ‘International’ that most people think of as the ‘Edinburgh Festival’, but in fact events are run by different organisations, so there isn’t one overall festival, although ‘Festivals Edinburgh’ is their umbrella discussion body.

There is simultaneous happenings of arts and culture, impressive for their sheer range and versatility. The aims of Mela, for instance, tap into Edinburgh’s (and Britain’s) multi-cultural melange and ‘seek to find the connections that unite us all’.

The Historical Connections

In the post-war era of rebuilding, reshaping the nation, the Edinburgh International Festival was established (1947) to provide ‘a platform for the flowering of the human spirit’. There was also clear understanding that it would play a role in the regeneration of Scotland’s economy.

The festival offered platforms in different venues to classical and contemporary theatre, music, dance, opera, visual arts, talks and workshops. From the outset, the emphasis was on performance quality. Appearance was, and still is, by invitation of the Festival Director.

Some eight theatre companies arrived who were not part of the official festival, and set up on the fringes to perform. This became the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is now the largest of its kind in the world. This is open to any production that can find a venue in the city, and that is often the biggest challenge, there being such pressure on space.

The Economic Benefits

Matthew Reason, Administrative Assistant in the Press and Marketing department of the Festival Fringe, published a letter he sent to students who had asked about economic benefits as part of a project. He is often asked such information, and his comments relating to the late 1990s still pertain.

He described as ‘substantial’ the worth to Scotland in general and the City of Edinburgh in particular. The 1997 50th birthday celebration saw over 400,000 people spending £2.3 million on tickets alone, never mind their food, accommodation and travel. He cited a 1996 Economic Impact Study that found all the festivals, including Hogmanay brought over £120 million a year and supported 4000 jobs.

By 2010, studies showed £261 million of additional tourism revenue for Scotland and £245 for Edinburgh from the festivals. With money on that scale, future investment is vital.

Not all artistic ideas are instant money-spinners. Creative Scotland is a body charged with promoting Scotland’s arts, screen and creative industries at home and abroad. They think these sectors are worth shouting about, and ‘we’ll lead the shouting’.

They set up the Ideas Bank, where people can propose bold, perhaps risky ideas to see how investment/support partners may be found. Potentially, the concept should reap long term harvests in that fertile ground between finance and creativity.

The Civic and Cultural Benefits

‘The festival effect’ is hard to quantify in social, cultural, fiscal and environmental impacts, but studies show that civic pride is heightened, imaginations are stimulated and families and young people are inspired by one or more things they see at a festival, outside their normal expectations or comfort zones.

Chair of the Festivals Forum, Lady Susan Rice, said the festivals ‘are a cultural phenomenon, celebrated globally and treasured locally’. She said that in a competitive tourism market and shifting economic climate, they had to ‘to ensure the Festivals flourish for generations to come’.

With focus on environmental considerations of human activity, organisers actively seek to reduce paper, minimise waste, recycle, use responsibly resourced materials, and reduce carbon footprints. Even allowing for the huge number of venues in use, and often short term occupation of spaces, they have piloted a ‘Green Venue’ project to curtail environmental footprints. Modern global business customers expects no less.

And Still It Grows

The twelve events didn’t all start in 1947. The Tattoo began in 1950, Jazz and Blues in 1978, Books in 1983, Mela in 1999. But it doesn’t stop there, the twelve are joined by many others. A People’s Festival began in 2002, and an Interactive one in 2003. Contemporary art came in 2004.

2006 saw the Free Fringe, Spirituality and Peace in 2005, iFest (internet) in 2007 and Comedy in 2008 onwards. There are Festivals of Islam,Swing, Harvest, Ceilidh Culture, Harps, Science Fringe, Easter, Fire, Dark City (goth music), Children’s International Theatre, Meadows and World Justice.

There is also the August Festival of Politics, with the 2011 theme: Renewing Politics in the Age of New Media. Besides the usual talks,workshops and discussions, the restaurant doubles as a music and theatre venue, allowing politics and the arts to interact. The Scottish Parliament building is ideal with many rooms and the Debating Chamber.

It’s all part of the continuing evolution of Edinburgh cultural festivals to which many other capital cities can only aspire.

First published on Suite 101, 3 August 2011

Image: Street Performance in Edinburgh – Christian Bickel

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The Great British Love and Tolerance of the Eccentric

July 20th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Eccentrics are ‘off centre’ or ‘beyond the norms’ of others. They can be thought crazy, are unafraid to be different and add to the colour of British life.

Eccentricity isn’t confined to the UK, though HistoryUK.com said: ‘England may be a small country but seems to have more true eccentrics than many larger countries’. All nationalities enjoy practical jokes, dress outrageously, behave to shock and have mindsets that see differently.

French author David d’Equainville (Manifesto for a Day Put Off) founded International Procrastination Day, to promote ‘positive procrastination’ in the fast-paced, results-driven world. It’s an act of resistance against orders, a ‘defence mechanism’. He accepted some would delay the Day.

Creatives are frequently eccentrics, too. Britain’s Official Monster Raving Loony Party manifesto (there’s also a US version), includes such ‘fun’ demands as abolition of income tax, motorways to be cycle ways, inviting Europe to join the British pound, a 99p coin ‘to save on change’ and banning semi-colons.

Eccentric Creative, Creative Eccentricity

Writing in World of Psychology (May 2011), Margarita Tartakovsky connected creativity and eccentricity, quoting Shelly Carson’s Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximise Imagination, in the May/June 2011 Scientific American. Albert Einstein’s predilection for gathering cigarette butts off the street for pipe tobacco, Howard Hughes stranded on a chair in the middle of a room for days and Robert Schumann believing Beethoven dictated his compositions from the grave: creative eccentricity.

She felt that mild schizotypal personality disorder was behind creativity/eccentricity. This takes many forms, including perception distortions, paranormal beliefs, preference for solitary activities and paranoia. Not all eccentrics display these facets of behaviour, predictive dreams or magical belief/thinking, but many creatives do.

Tartakovsky mentioned cognitive disinhibition, where some cannot ignore irrelevant or extraneous information/data bombarding daily. People possess a mental filter, latent inhibition. Where this is reduced, there’s vulnerability to schizophrenia. Thus, she argued, ‘allowing unfiltered information into consciousness could lead to strange visual perceptions like hearing voices, seeing imaginary people’.

Eccentrics of Common Mind

While some argue many social organisations are but eccentric collectives masquarading as normal, there is The Eccentrics Club, ‘celebrating eccentricity since 1781’. They’re a social, charitable, politically unaffiliated group of men and (nowadays) women.

They follow traditions of predecessor organisations like The Illustrious Society of Eccentrics, The Everlasting Society of Eccentrics and The Eccentric Society Club. Their Patron is known for an offbeat world view, HRH Prince Philip.

Through entertaining and educational events, they promote creative and original approaches to social, historic, cultural, ethical and aesthetical issues, ‘some of which may be considered controversial by present day media and society’. One point about eccentricity: some recognise it in themselves, but others apply the label.

Eccentrics in Literature and Reality

Writing in The Guardian (March 2011) of his book, Bright Particular Stars: A Gallery of Glorious British Eccentrics, David McKie identified favourite eccentrics. He featured Sairey Gamp in Dickens’ novel Martin Chuzzlewit, with her flow of proverbs and inventive relationship with Mrs Harris.

His favourite from Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass was the White Knight ‘with his songs, uncertain seat in the saddle and talent for strange inventions’. He homed in on aunts as a favourite writers’ depository for eccentricity. Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt was one sort; Ant Dot from Rose Macaulay’s The Towers of Trebizond another; ‘all-aunt, all-eccentric’.

He reckoned Kenneth Widmerpool in Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time meets the requirement of ‘not conforming to common rules’. From the real world, McKie chose William Beckford (1760-1844), a collector of pictures, books and furniture, sometime politician, ‘the richest commoner in England’ and wearer of makeup.

Preferring isolation, the 5th Duke of Portland (1800-1879), built a tunnel under his Nottinghamshire estate, so he could move around unseen. Florence Nightingale devotee Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), formidable master of Balliol College, Oxford detested the French. He’d ask students what was written over the entrance to Hell. The answer: ‘Ici on parle Francais’.

Eccentric Musicians

Sean O’Hagan in The Observer (October 2003) claimed music needs eccentrics. He rated reclusive Kate ‘most peculiar’ Bush in his top ten, as she ‘brought her own rural gothic eccentricity’ mainstream. Her Wuthering Heights inspired ‘loons’ like Bjork, Tricky and Tori Amos.

Sun Ra (1914-1992), self named after ‘aliens abducted him’ in his teens, released 200 albums as five billion people were ‘all out of time’. Captain Beefheart was the ‘weirdest rock visionary of all’, who once sold a vacuum cleaner to Aldous Huxley with the line, ‘this machine sucks’.

Kevin Rowland, of Dexy’s Midnight Runners became a celtic gypsy and wore stockings & suspenders at Reading Festival. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, ‘reggae’s reigning eccentric’, kept a fence-impaled toaster in his studio. Musicologist Harry Smith donated a paper airplane collection to the American National Air & Space Museum and collected Ukrainian Easter eggs.

Mental Health Warning

O’Hagan wondered about Phil Spector, Brian Wilson, Syd Barret, Viv Stanshall, Hazel Adkins, Lucia Pamela but decided that genuine mental illness, drug-destruction or alcoholism ruled them out as true eccentrics. Others wondered about Yoko Ono, too.

Nick Collins, in The Daily Telegraph (July 2010) feared eccentrics could be labelled with mental disorders under diagnostic guideline modifications published by the American Psychiatric Association, which ‘shrink the pool of normality to a puddle’.

‘Difficult’ or ‘eccentric’ people could be diagnosed as mentally ill. That would suit conformists, but most eccentric behaviour is harmless. The APA devised ‘Psychosis Risk Syndrome’ to identify people at risk of developing mental illness. Symptoms include episodes of hearing voices, which is occasionally an experience of both creatives and eccentrics. Madness and genius have always been close relations.

If every maverick thought a little batty, strange or slightly weird is now to be ‘treated’, where does it stop?

First published on Suite 101, 20 July 2011

Image: Eccentric Store Sign – Infrogmation

 

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Unfinished Masterpieces Can Be As Compelling As the Originals

July 16th, 2012 | Comments Off on Unfinished Masterpieces Can Be As Compelling As the Originals

Works of art are often left incomplete through war or artists’ death. Some are finished by other people; but most are made interesting by being abandoned.

 

On the April 2011 publication of David Foster Wallace’s novel, The Pale King, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst wondered in Britain’s Sunday Times at the attraction of unfinished works. ‘You don’t buy a jacket with one arm, so why seek out what amounts to a creative stump or narrative doodle?’

Wallace’s book came from 200 pages left stacked on his desk when he committed suicide in 2008, intertwined with fragments from his bin. For many readers, it’s a suicide note revealing the man’s state of mind.

Douglas-Fairhurst also cited Henry James’ short story The Middle Years about a novelist on his deathbed dreaming of the stories he might have written, as illustration that it’s the might-have-been bits which appeal to readers.

Unfinished Literature

In 2010, Nabokov’s The Original of Laura was published, reproducing his handwritten postcards so readers could shuffle the narrative into any order. Stieg Larsson, bestselling Swedish novelist, died of a heart attack in 2004 aged 50. He had planned 10 Millennium novels; three were published posthumously: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2005), The Girl Who Played With Fire (2005) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest (2010).

He’d almost completed the fourth. A legal dispute over royalties for his long-term partner Eva Gabrielsson, (Swedish law doesn’t recognise unmarried couples) attracted as much hype as the books themselves.

Mervyn Peake (1911-1968) artist, novelist, poet, illustrator, published the Gormenghast Trilogy (Titus Groan, 1946; Gormenghast, 1950 and Titus Alone, 1959) to generally critical acclaim. Influenced by Dickens and Stevenson, his experiences as a Second World War artist and fighting Parkinson’s Disease, his haunting imagery evoked epic fantasy worlds.

Peake had started a fourth, Titus Awakes, but was too ill to complete it. His widow, Maeve Gilmore wrote a version from fragments he’d left, Search Without End, in the 1970s, but it was not widely known about. A discovery of the fuller manuscript in 2010 in the family attic led to publication in 2011.

At his death in 1870, Charles Dickens’ had published six of twelve monthly parts of The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Critic GK Chesterton said the book was: ‘designed by Dickens, but ultimately filled up by others. The Mystery of Edwin Drood showed how little others made of Dickens’ suggestions’.

Many sought to finish it. An 1870 attempt by American Robert Henry Newell was more parody. An 1873 version by Thomas James, praised by Arthur Conan Doyle, was sold as ‘ghost-written’ by Dickens himself.

Since then, others have attempted to second-guess Dickens. Movies in 1935 and 1993, television interpretations (2011), radio (1953) and theatre offered alternative endings. Drood (1985) was a musical comedy, still favoured by amateur companies.

Incomplete Film and Architecture

Evan Andrews published (2009) his top ten unfinished art works. Bruce Lee’s Game of Death, started in 1972, was planned as the ultimate expression of the martial arts for which Lee was becoming famous. He stopped to make Enter the Dragon, intending to finish Game of Death later.

He died of cerebral edema, aged 32 in 1973, leaving Enter the Dragon Director, Robert Clouse to splice 11 minutes of classic Lee footage with new to make a movie. Not all films are finished after death, however.

Orson Welles’ (1915-1985) left behind The Other Side of the Wind, which he’d been working on since the late 60s. When the Shah of Iran was ejected in the 1979 revolution, financial/legal disputes followed. It was never completed.

Andrews listed architecture, too. Moscow’s Palace of the Soviets, started in the late 1930s was to have been the world’s tallest edifice. War stopped it when the huge steel frame was recycled to make rail bridges and fortifications. Until about 1958 they intended to resume the project, but never did.

The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is a massive Roman Catholic cathedral under construction since 1882. It was Antoni Gaudi’s masterpiece; he toiled for 40 years on it, but when he died in 1926, it remained unfinished. Since then, Spanish Civil and world wars, financial constraints, different architects and builders contributed to delays and controversies. Although incomplete, it’s both tourist attraction and UNESCO World Heritage site, consecrated as a minor basilica in November 2010.

Unfinished Poetry, Music and Art

For Andrews, a double album by Jimi Hendrix, First Rays of the New Rising Sun should feature in the top ten. Hendrix’s drug overdose death in 1970 was followed by disputes about copyright and ownership. His family finally won, and hired engineers and producers to convert nearly complete tracks with rough cuts to make an album. This appeared in 1997.

Shortly before he died in 1791, Mozart was commissioned to compose a Requiem for a man’s wife, which he may have come to believe was for himself. His death prevented completion, which was done by his student, Franz Sussmayr. Controversy about which parts are Mozart’s has continued to the present.

Coleridge’s poem Kubla Khan is different from other incomplete works, as it was recovering from an opium haze that stopped the writing. Coleridge fell asleep reading a book about the Far East while taking laudanum. When he woke from his dream/stupour, he wrote 50 lines, and was then interrupted. When he returned to the writing, the vision had faded. The poem was unfulfilled.

The US dollar portrait of George Washington, known as The Athenaeum, was painted by Gilbert Stuart who deliberately didn’t finish it so he could produce copies at $100 each. He is thought to have made about seventy copies, but never finished the original before his death in 1828.

Leonardo da Vinci’s horse statue was left unfinished. He unveiled a 23-foot clay model of Gran Cavallo in 1492, as war between France and Italy broke out. Metal for the statue was used for cannons, which shows how people don’t always recognise artistic genius in front of them.

It also shows that creatives should finish their works, wherever possible, before death comes for them.

First published on Suite 101, 15 July 2011
Image: Sagrad Familia, Being Built Since 1882 – Bernard Gagnon

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Size Does Matter As People Demand Life’s Very Best Superlatives

July 15th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Super-scaling has become the era’s hallmark: ‘super’ tankers, bugs and drugs, disasters, wealth, numbers. What will future social historians make of it all?

In the early 21st century, size psychology was paramount. People wanted to be best, biggest/smallest, richest, happiest, most successful. The retail sector cottoned on: clothes’ size perception (‘does my backside look big in this?’) drove sales.

Male obsession with personal body part size applied equally to their feet; outward indicators of size elsewhere. Business echoed, with its biggest chair, desk, room, building crucial to executive ego.

However, history teaches everything is relative. A mega-calamity was only such till the next. The tightest/harshest economic squeeze/breath-taking achievement, the super meal/music/show held the crown while new ultimate thrills arrived.

Super Number-Crunching

With national debts written in figures so gigantic new descriptors were invented, the University of Toronto, Mathematics Network (1998) surmised: ‘the largest number with a commonly-known specific name is a “googleplex”: a 1 followed by a googol zeros, where a “googol” is 1 followed by 100 zeros’.

Stephen Armstrong wrote in the UK’s Sunday Times (27 March 2011): ‘we’re in a brave new world of super number-crunching’ where retailers, governments, health providers and credit card companies store ‘tens of billions of our financial transactions’ in huge data warehouses.

He said such organisations send computer programs ‘scuttling through transactions like electronic spiders’ looking for patterns. Why? To find individuals at health, debt (defaulting on payments to them) or terrorist risk. This analysis is multi-billion dollar business (super-business).

Credit card transactions and search wording are sold in seconds to retailers, advertisers and ‘interested parties’. Super number-crunchers argue it’s in the name of personally targetted advertising; sensitive data is anonymised. Predict human behaviour, they say, better to provide services. This includes, according to Armstrong, predicting individual’s likelihood of unemployment, illness or divorce.

Superstars’ Super Injunctions

For much of 2010/11, Great Britain’s media was excited about high-powered injunctions secured by high-profile ‘celebrities’ preventing publication of their misdemeanors. It reached the point where it was contempt of court even to report the existence of a ‘gagging order’.

Punishments were draconian: prison, asset seizure or both. Much learned judicial reasoning went into covering-up. It crossed into Kafkaesque nightmare when super injunctions prevented citizens contacting their Members of Parliament.

This ancient right of access to elected representatives was enshrined in British tradition. That a judge, in defence of one person’s secrecy, should insert into an injunction a clause preventing another seeking redress from his/her MP, became highly contentious.

Alasdair Palmer’s personal view in The Sunday Telegraph (10 April 2011), was that there was a case for protecting identities of child victims of abuse or violence; but a parent claiming innocence should have the right to seek help to ‘set the record straight’. The blanket nature of super-injunctions prevented the public democratic scrutiny of judges’ decisions.

Super Babies

Another ‘super’ controversy was the argument about science playing God. Should DNA tests be compulsory so all parents knew if their unborn babies carried diseases? For many, this was ‘eugenics’, the Nazi philosophy of breeding a master race. For others, it was offering parents the choice to raise a handicapped child.

Even wanting their children to grow into strong, healthy adults, most thought the fictional ‘Superman’ a step too far; man was not made to fly unaided. However, there were ‘super-babies’ born who displayed enormous superhuman strength.

The protein myostatin tells muscles when to cease growing. If a fetus has a mutant gene that inhibits myostatin production, the result is a ‘super-baby’. Scientists believe one was Liam Hoekstra in Michigan, who as a baby hung on rings, did pull-ups and was hungry, lean and super-strong.

Superbugs and Super Drugs

USA Today’s Health Reporter, Steve Sternberg reported in September 2010 on superbugs that had hit 35 states and was going world-wide. The bacteria produced an enzyme called klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenamase which disabled modern antibiotics. It was impossible to measure global spread or develop containment strategies.

The pharmaceutical industry developed super-strength drugs. Polymixin was effective, Sternberg reported, but was toxic to human kidneys. Similarly, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) and extensively-drug-resistant tuburculosis (XDR-TB) emerged. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) was a well established superbug.

Some bowel bugs and strepococcus pneumoniae were resistant to most penicillin antibiotics. There was an increasingly long list of medical conditions that threatened to become untreatable as they evolved in the human body.

In February 2009, Rebecca Leung of CBS News 60 Minutes reported: ‘While we can’t stop bacteria trying to outwit antibiotics, health officials say dramatic cut in their use could reverse the tide’. She said doctors should stop writing, and patients stop demanding, the 130 million prescriptions for antibiotics given out each year in the US alone.

Super-Rich

In June 2008, CNBC aired a report into American super-rich. Lori Gordon reported in 1985 there were 13 US billionaires; by 2008 there were over 1000, plus mega-billionaires from other countries, including India, China and Russia.

Britain’s Sunday Times produced an annual ‘Rich List’ of people untouched by downturns/recessions, with luxurious lifestyles, servants, homes, cars and planes, possessions to the point, in Gordon’s words, that they ‘indulged in a parallel world’ alongside other people.

The 2011 edition (May), showed the 1000 UK wealthiest were worth almost £400 billion; there were 73 British billionaires, up from 53 in 2010. They were back to their super-rich standards before the pre-recession 2008 boom.

In July 2011, Nat Rothschild, banking dynasty scion, spent £1 million on his 40th birthday party for 400 guests in Montenegro. However, even the super-rich found wealth didn’t bring happiness.

Graeme Wood reported in The Atlantic Magazine (April 2011) on a study by Boston College into the lives of the super-rich, (worth more than $25 million) that found: ‘a surprising litany of anxieties: their sense of isolation, worries about work and love, and most of all, fears for their children’.

Wood summed it up: “mammon is a false God’. Yet money, human problems, struggles, fads, moods were all super/mega/gigantic/colossal. What happens when the superlatives run out?

First published on Suite 101, 13 July 2011.

Image: Empire State: World’s Tallest Till It Was Topped – Jiugiang Wang

 

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All the World Can Act On the Smallest Stage in the World

June 28th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Smallest Theatre in World: Bob Embleton

Shakespeare said all the world’s a stage; all the men and women merely players. But today in Britain the smallest theatres prove that size isn’t everything.

 

Great Britain is blessed with a huge variety of very small theatres in all manner of unlikely, original places.

Peter Brook wrote in The Empty Space (1968): ‘I can take any empty space and call it a bare stage. A man walks across this empty space whilst someone else is watching him, and that’s all that’s needed for an act of theatre’.

Churches Make Theatre

Many minute spaces are conversions from previous buildings, like Holy Trinity Halls, Wimbledon (Polka Children’s Theatre), old maltings (The Cut, Halesworth), former corn mill (Watermill Theatre, Bagnor, Berkshire), Salvation Army Hall (The Theatre, Chipping Norton), armoury for the Border Light Horse Brigade (Wynd Theatre, Melrose, Scotland) or churches (Norwich Arts Centre).

In fact, churches are the most commonly used buildings for transformation into arts venues. The Playhouse Theatre, Whitstable, Kent started life as a United Reformed Church built in the late 1700s. Norwich Puppet Theatre (185 seat raked auditorium) is housed in the converted medieval St James Church, near the heart of the city.

The Ridware Theatre is an intimate studio in the rural hamlet of Pipe Ridware, Staffordshire. The building was originally St James Church, declared redundant in 1983 and taken over by a band of caring volunteers who’ve gradually refurbished the popular, successful little theatre, using cast-off materials from other buildings.

Born out of a derelict Methodist Chapel, the Lamproom Theatre in Barnsley (one of several that the area has: Eckington, Montgomery, Rotherham) is another lovingly staffed and nurtured by volunteers, home to four performance groups that produce everything from plays, musicals, one-man shows to youth theatre.

It’s A Small World

The Theatre of the Small and Small Beginnings are based in Sandwich, Kent, run by James (a fine artist, lecturer) and Sonia (writer) Frost. The Small Beginnings part are a community arts group who create community projects bringing puppetry to children, young people and wider adult audiences.

Great Malvern has The Theatre of Small Convenience. This entry in the 2002 Guinness Book of Records as the smallest theatre building in the world, seating up to 12 with a stage, was a Victorian Gentleman’s lavatory. Keen puppeteer and drama enthusiast Dennis Neale founded it and runs it as an independent theatre.

Like Dr Who’s ‘Tardis’ (bigger inside than out), visitors enter, in Neale’s words: ‘a magic door into a quaint interior marked by Italian commedia dell’Arte theatrical style’. Since he opened in 1999, he’s mounted professional and amateur drama, puppetry, poetry, story-telling, music, monologues and a day of opera!

Rooms above or behind pubs have traditionally been venues for music. The Finsborough Theatre is a 50-seater in a small room over a Victorian pub in London’s Earls Court. Neil McPherson, Artistic Director (well, he’s all roles including cleaner), said he presents ‘plays and music theatre concentrating on thought-provoking text-based new writing and neglected 19th and 20th century works’.

In the 30 years of its life, the Finsborough has become a part of London’s cultural life, appealing to theatregoers of all ages, completely unfunded/subsidised, relying entirely on ticket sales. That’s the story all over. Just like railway, pier, tram preservation societies, it’s the pull of history coupled with concern that great things should prosper into the future, which drives volunteers.

Quirky, Quaint, Eccentric and British!

In the early 1930s, self-confessed English eccentric and amateur theatre lover Rowena Cade built an open-air theatre in her garden. The point was, it was perched on a windy cliff top overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Cornwall! Today the Minack Theatre is still going strong with an 18 week season from May to September.

Under the railway arches of Waterloo Station in London, nestles Waterloo East Theatre. Described when it opened in September 2010 by its co-founder and director Gerald Armin as ‘snug’, the 150 seat theatre rivals neighbouring giants the Old Vic and the National Theatre.

In East Anglia, there is the Pavillion Theatre (510 seats) on the end of Cromer Pier. Norwich’s Sewell Barn was part of Clare House, once Philip Sewell’s, who owned a mare called Black Bess. His sister, Anna, wrote Black Beauty, inspired by horse and barn. Today it’s an unusual small theatre, with the audience along one length and both ends. Each production requires a feat of design to accommodate.

The 99-seat Seagull Theatre in Pakefield arose from the Victorian Morton Road Junior school that was used by college students learning car maintenance in the 1960s before local entrepreneurs saw its potential as a performance space. Losing a battle in 2006 to retain local authority funding, the local community reopened it in 2007.

Sir John Mills Theatre in Ipswich was originally a public building; now it’s a flexible studio theatre seating 120 in traverse or 70-80 end-on and home of Eastern Angles Theatre Company, who tour with local history-sourced material. And so it goes on. Any space/building is potentially a small theatre, and as such, the lifeblood of British theatrical tradition.

The Bigger Picture

Recognising how small theatres are becoming cradles of innovation in straitened economic times, Lyn Gardner wrote in The Guardian (May 2011) that regional theatres are ‘throwing open their doors to companies that, in the past, they might have deemed a risky box-office proposition’.

She focussed on regional theatres like the Wolsey in Ipswich, Liverpool Everyman, Taunton’s Brewhouse, Hull Truck, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Plymouth’s Drum and Tobacco Factory in Bristol to report how new, experimental theatre was being nurtured, which often moved into bigger venues, more cosmopolitan settings. Her point was to ask whether buildings can have different relationships with audiences.

Further, could buildings cultivate different kinds of audiences? As London and other cities themselves cease to be the (only) powerhouses of creativity, it’s little arenas dotted around the land in nooks, crannies and unexpected places that increasingly fill gaps left by economic shifts, cultural upheavals/evolutions and the vagaries of public taste.

First published on Suite 101, 29 June 2011.

Sources:

The Theatre of Small Convenience.

Finborough Theatre.

The Theatre of the Small.

Ridwares Theatre .

Lyn Gardner, The Guardian, ‘The Future Is Micro…’ 26 May 2011. Web 30th June 20

Read On:

Unusual Performance Spaces

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Extreme Tourism: The Sport of Visiting the World’s Trouble Spots

May 19th, 2012 | Add a Comment

Some tourists get caught up by chance as hapless victims in troubles, strife, disasters. Other thrill junkies seek out danger as global rubberneckers.

The stabbing to death and subsequent beheading of a British woman in Tenerife in May 2011 prompted both outrage and questions about the safety and wisdom of people travelling in countries other than their own. In this case, she had become resident there; Tenerife was not regarded as a trouble hotspot.

Other parts of the world are known for risks to travellers from people as well as natural calamities. Yet still, man being an adventurous and generally inquisitive animal, tends to want to see, smell and taste for him/herself. The intrepid traveller is still around, long after every corner of the earth has been discovered.

John Harlow, writing in Britain’s Sunday Times, 24 April 2011, described the Florida police investigation into the murder of two British student tourists in terms of the growth of ‘ghetto tourism’ and said that people want to experience firsthand the reality behind rap music and TV crime shows like The Wire (Baltimore).

War and Civil Unrest

On 5th March 2011, just two months after the ‘lotus revolution’ that saw Egypt pass through a crisis of unrest, Cassandra Jardine wrote in the UK’s Daily Telegraph: ‘Egyptians are desperate for the return of the foreigner on whom their economy depends’. She went with her family, never intending to be ‘the tourist equivalent of ambulance chasers’, but found they had hotel, pool and historic sites virtually to themselves.

Before the revolution and since, tourists accept the need for their buses to travel in armed convoy to ancient historical sites. However, that’s different from being present during fighting. To see the remains of tanks and other vehicles and some building damage afterwards is one thing. To dodge bullets and missiles, offers a particular kind of adrenalin rush.

Pilot Guides published Destinations, about what is now known as Ground Zero, site of the former World Trade Center before its destruction by hijacked aircraft in 2001. The memorial/construction site ‘attracts twice as many visitors as before the terrorist attack’, from 1.8 to 3.6 million a year.

They named such interest as ‘dark tourism’, and suggested other locations included the Nazi-extermination camp of Auschwitz; Cambodia’s ‘killing fields’ and Hiroshima in Japan, site of the atomic bomb of 1945. The museum on the 6th floor of the former Dallas Book Repository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy, Ford’s Theater where President Lincoln was assassinated and Memphis’s Lorraine Motel where Martin Luther King was murdered, are firmly on tourist trails.

Natural Disasters

Tornado and storm chasers are a breed of thrill-seeker made famous in the Spielberg produced movie, Twister (1996) about tornado chasers. People who climb active volcanoes care little about risking their lives. They have fallen in love with them and the danger. It’s not scientific observation, nor artistic inspiration; it’s thrill-seeking.

Martin Rietze is an award-winning photographer, one of about 200 volcano-chasers world-wide. His pictures are dramatic; so are his risks. Katia and Maurice Kraft were a French couple who spent their lives filming eruptions, before their luck ran out in 1991 when they were killed instantly along with 20 others as Mt Uzen in Japan erupted.

The damage of hurricanes, droughts, snowstorms, tsunamis, earthquakes, lightning strikes, flood, earthquake, famine and forest fires draw fewer gazers. The stench of stagnant water perhaps with bodies within, the danger of disease and difficulties of moving about, the lack of oxygen and clean water, engineer against it. But just as people happening upon a motorway pile-up slow to film it, survivors of major cataclysm often make a virtue of their souvenir footage and first-hand experience.

Piracy

On 13th May 2011, Britain’s Eastern Daily Press carried an account by Jim Wilson, former Anglia Television journalist and chairman of Norfolk Police Authority, of enjoying a cruise between Dubai and Egypt when ‘extra security’ came aboard to reinforce the pirate-deterrent razor wire and sound cannons: ex-military personnel packing ‘some serious weapons’.

For contemporary pirates, it’s a lucrative business. Wilson reported in 2011 the Thai-owned Thor Nexus and 27 crew hijacked off Oman was ransomed for £3m; in 2010, a South Korean vessel was released after paying £5.75m. The International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre acknowledged in 2011 a surge of piracy off Somalia of goods and passenger shipping, with them holding 600 crew and 28 ships for bounty.

Other Attractions and Risks

In the main, these victims aren’t danger-tourists, but people earning a living. Extreme danger pursuits are entirely different. Cape Cod SEO published a list of the five most dangerous vacation destinations. They pointed out that, for example, Americans should avoid Iraq and North Korea, some religions should give certain states a miss, but ‘a vacation is not a vacation unless you have had Fear Factor moments’.

They warned against Columbia (2300 tourists kidnapped a year; 2 bank robberies, 8 highway robberies, 87 murders and 204 assaults/muggings a day, but the surfing’s good); Sudan (hotbed of exotic diseases like ebola, malaria, guinea worms; 3 hospitals serving six million people), Taiwan (over 70% susceptible to earthquake, flood, landslide, typhoon and windstorm) and New Zealand and Australia.

Australia is included as home to ten of the world’s deadliest snakes, lethal spiders and sea creatures; New Zealand is the mother of extreme sports in its raw, natural, untamed geography. Additionally Mexico, South Africa, Russia and dozens of other states see murder against visitors. Equally, though, danger can be found in even the most tame landscapes, cities, roads and buildings. It’s all a matter of personal taste.

First published on Suite 101, 17 May 2011

Image: Volcanoes: Fascinating But Deadly – NASA

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