# 29

It was over a year ago that I fell off a ladder and it took much too long to get over - and there are still residual problems knocking. But when I look back at this picture (taken in Arezzo, a sculpture of a man painting a building with no visible means of support) I got to thinking about other things, like what really does support us though life? I recently read William James' suggestion of a convenient dissection of what is known as 'the self'. James suggests there is a division between the conscious awareness contained in the pronoun “I” and the autobiographical memories and stored experiences of “me” that constitute the basis of who we are. Therefore in a blog like this it is easy to consciously transmit a version of the “I” I want to give for public consumption, without it actually being the real “me” - poets, politicians and celebrities do this all the time. And actually this is not just the artifice of the writer/performer etc, it also comes down to your reading of that which we have written/presented and so on. In fact our entire facebookery, twittering culture dictates this more and more, we present to the world an "I" we want the world to see. Look how smart, funny, cute, normal, wacky I am but does it really present an entire picture of "me"? Well it can't really because that "me" is also constantly shifting. Having decided to read this you are already reading me into the “I” persona you imagine I am through the writing I do and in addition to the other things you know about me. This is normal of course, we present ourselves as we would like others to see us and see others in the world in relation to ourselves, it is where empathy, love, dislike etc comes from. If you were to say you don’t like me, it is because you see the “I” figure in relation to yourself and what you really don’t like is the public face you can see without ever knowing the private. Bruce Hood calls it "the phenomenological experience of a stream of conscious awareness, a sense of coherent identity and our belief that we have free will to make decisions and act... However, our self is the resultant interaction between our inherited biology and our experiences." For example, if you had no knowledge of me (experience) how would you know you didn't like me? Of course a part of me can already assume I hear you asking, 'what is he on about...' I have been wondering that myself because, you see, I am trying to write a paper about biography and self-experience, and poetry and songwriting and the position the 'self' occupies in lyrical narrative; and I am trying to understand the ideas that keep coming back through images that have been stretched, re-arranged and refracted by time and ongoing experience - if that makes any sense - thus, I am painting a building while standing in mid air...

# 28

Its been a funny day all round. This morning I was writing reports, sorting out some editing (for others), making suggestions on a research piece, reading post-grad research material, sorting out some conference expenses, answering emails, setting up supervision meetings and generally tidying up. Then I had a lunchtime meeting on behalf of BH-LSCB - Brighton and Home Local Safeguarding Children Board, which I volunteer on. The meeting was at BOP - Brighton Oasis Project, about safeguarding children. Its a volunteer mother and child drug rehabilitation centre. The work they do is inspirational and a real dedication to those less fortunate. But hugely disappointing is the realisation that they rely, year on year, on 'bids' for finance, 68% of which comes from charities. The hand-to-mouth existence doesn't seem to dent their enthusiasm and the creche, the breakout rooms for older children, are all there to keep the children safe while their mothers are encouraged through a re-hab programme; their substance misuse being a lot worse than the occasional binge drink. Its a humbling experience seeing those people working so hard for others. But just to provide a contrast, I got my hair cut on the way home, completed a few more lines of a song I have been working on and then started working again on the research material I have collecting for a conference in July - and all the time I was doing so I was thinking, how lucky am I. Its now approaching ten in the evening, I have cooked, eaten and washed up, and now I am winding down the day by getting ready to go out for a walk. I like walking in the dark, its a pleasure I seem to share with the urban foxes and on the way round about (I have no fixed route) I will put some thought to how I might be able to help BOP - I guess there is only one song to be posted. This is from the album, Bop 'til You Drop - and its the mercurial Little Sister - well, we all need to get our dancing shoes on occasionally:

# 27

A wee bit of red and green in a Tory blue sea, welcome to the Republic of Brighton and Hove. I am actually rather proud of this. Not the sea of blue, of course, that is a disaster for common sense, the NHS and the less fortunate in our country. But I am proud of the fact that at least there are still pockets of resistance - Viva ! I love a good stripped down song - the kind of thing I would sit and play on my guitar at night when everyone else was in bed. I did some of that last night, but today the whirlwind called Abbi, her Yankee pal, Pepper Ann, and a boy called Lewis from Lewes blew in and space is getting a little harder to find. Oh well, the Republic welcomes them, all the same - they will climb such great heights, Viva !

# 26

Well, we have five more years of 'that lot' but I awoke at 5.30 this morning and looked out of the window to this. The world is still turning, the garden is blooming and its good to be awake and alive. I am about to drive to the University of Winchester for an Open Day - one of my favourite jobs - I love greeting the prospective new students, catching their enthusiasm, their nervous anticipation and hopes, its one of the many joys of being a Prof. Have a great day! I bumped into this song yesterday, its been a while but I was thinking about Abbi, who is in Nashville in what is probably her last tennis tournament for Oklahoma. What a great place to play it out - and she won last night, though tonight will be a lot tougher. But that's ok too. This is a little heard song because radio stations play her hits, but I like it and it speaks about compassion and waiting; five more years is nothing as long as we nurture what matters in the meantime - the good people need to remember they didn't stop being good. Being unappreciated by others can't dent our spirit and we keep fighting. Irony is a curious thing sometimes but yesterday as we watched the election really come home the postman delivered my new Labour Party membership card. I am keeping it - that's a promise.