The Word's The Thing

Sam is the main character of the ebook ‘Another Glorious Day’. released from the confines of that text Sam is free to be “the man from the box” and to write a blog in that role. That blog has been turned into diary form, wtih dates removed and posts put in sequential order. Sam’s diary can be read here:  Man from the Box.

Earlier posts outlined some of the features of a flourishing organisation, and ways that agencies may need to think differently if they are to make progress. These arose from thinking about cities. They can equally be used as a framework for reflecting on any set of activities – and here are being used to assess where my own work (captured on this website) might be going.

This has highlighted some of the things that I will need to emphasise more over the next three years. These include:

• Being able to clearly articulate why I wish to occupy myself in this way; the purposes behind what is being done; with sufficient presence confidence/ self-determination whilst still being tentative/ modest.
• Responding to current concerns and interests without slipping into populist reactionism; still being at least a little bit different in what is being undertaken; having more challenge to the aspirations, pushing myself in what I am comfortable doing.
• Reflecting on what is being done, without endless internal activity that is of little value to anyone else
• Being more active in engaging with others (authentically rather than simply clocking up more and more links/ likes/ followings); countering it being a solitary undertaking; looking for more things that might require collaboration with others.
• Actively promoting content/writing, and asserting myself as author, without unnecessarily heavy self-promotion
• Maintaining an approach that is based on puzzling, wondering, being curious for its own sake; as well as aiming to produce stuff that could be of value/use to others.
• Covering costs without being a money-driven set of activities; with most things being freely available to anyone; things done voluntarily.

That’s it: I have my list of commitments that I have already signed-up to, and this sense of next-step directions to follow. Time to get on with it all.

The pictures that will show in the gallery space, changing slowly from time to time, were taken across a long period of time starting in the early 1970s. Those from the forty years to 2011 were all taken on film. At least half were taken using a fixed 50mm lens camera, which led to the development of an approach where the photography involved a direct contact with the subject matter – up close even if not personal (Very few are of people).

That was not the age of taking multiple shots and selecting the best one; nor a time of firing off some nearly-right shots and editing them later. There was no in-store do-it-yourself cropping; no same-day reprinting. Those early shots were taken in the awareness that there was a maximum of 36 shots on the film, the film was then processed by sending it off in an envelope and waiting a couple of tense weeks for the prints or slides to arrive back in the post, hoping that there were no wasted exposures. The feeling was that each shot had to be right first time. Composition was paramount; exposure was critical; depth of focus was vital.

The same discipline was applied after I upgraded to a single lens reflex camera with interchangeable lenses that covered the range from macro close-up to telephoto shots of distant objects.

Out of more than a thousand shots no more than six were given any post-development treatment (and these were unwanted slides that were then deliberately distressed manually). Although the original negatives and slides have been digitised for inclusion on this website, this has been done on an ‘as was’ basis ie with no onscreen manipulation, no use of photoshop or other software, no messing with the original.

Photographs from 2011 onwards have tended to be digital but the original approach has remained with me – getting the shot right in the first place; no later manipulation other than some very minor cropping around the edges; and so on. I still feel that my photography needs to involve a close contact with whatever subject matter catches my eye.

Pictures included in the Gallery are simply ones from personal choice. They often connect across to other themes on this website – or might simply be some aspect of my own preferences at that time.

The thinking behind the structure and development of this site comes from a number of sources. At the personal level it is a key component of a planned transition, over a five year period, from being a full-time salaried employee to being a fully-occupied retired person with motivations, interests and a valid set of contributions still to make. The first year, 2011, saw me leaving behind forty-four years of working to try to make things better for adults and children through planning, developments, initiatives etc in Birmingham, England. My work had always carried titles such as director or manager – of planning/ development/ learning, and so on. This was so much part of my personality (or became so through practice) that any future activity would still have me strongly directing myself, still looking at developments and new ways of doing things/seeing things, through a framework that balances planning with flexibility, and still have a strong emphasis on learning/finding out/exploring.

Above all, any developments would be ones where I continued to feel excited by following a number of existing interests: writing for a range of purposes; thinking about contemporary art and creativity; an interest in photography; a background in social research and evaluation; puzzling over ideas concerning the nature of evidence and progress, notions of complexity and emergence; a long-standing interest in the possibilities of different ways of making situations so interesting that learning gets automatically pulled in to extend them; a desire to better understand marketing and production of creative content; a recognition that all of this is possible from home, from coffee shops, on trains; that there was a great deal for me to still understand about the social value of digital communications; and so much more ….

As one part of previous activity I managed a website that was used for promoting writing and developments,  2011 was to be a year for reshaping that website, building up more content, thinking about what might be of real interest to others, and beginning to consider how best to tell others that any content existed.

The starting point for much of the thinking was that the website-building could follow these same processes ie would shape itself over time (rather than be fully structured from the start), that some ideas would grow whilst others might fade away, that the site would have sufficient openness and linkages to allow vague ideas to be followed up, to allow for a sense of enjoyment (rather than being a chore, with deadlines and endless maintenance), and that along the way there would be so many things for me to learn about. At the same time there would be an overall framework (from the things listed in the earlier paragraph) and there could be commitments made via the site that I would then feel obliged to try my best to fulfil. In these ways I would be managing a website that itself would be managing how I spent my time. I would be structuring the development of something that, at the same time, was structuring my own development.

The approach offers a light-touch mechanism to think about writing, research, creativity and artistry in broad terms. This isn’t set out in advance. There is no linear chart of the way things will unfold. There is a sense that any thinking may end up being somewhat paradoxical; emerging as it goes along in a self-organising way. So, the thinking and the developments will not be rigidly ordered but neither will they be disorganised. Any particular paths taken will not be heavily structured but neither will they be chaotic. The whole enterprise carries an aspect of being a bit risky and unpredictable, but hopefully won’t end up becoming unstable and out-of-control. It may be messy, branching, tentative, amendable, feeling incomplete and even contradictory; yet have some sense of direction, a sense of purpose and an identifiable overall tone.

At the end of 2011 the framework for taking all of this forward is largely in place in a way that is open enough to allow further development activities to arise. 2012 would be a year to press ahead with things without it all becoming burdensome or boring for any of those involved. After each six month period there might be a review of where it has all got to, and where it might still be heading: the journey so far and the paths open to roam along. After two or three more years I will certain know whether it has been of any value to anyone, whether it is worth continuing with; and I fully expect that by the end of the 2015 it might all be taking on a different shape. We will just have to wait and see.

Given the way that the contents of this site are likely to change and emerge over time, there is hopefully a deliberate feeling of contingency and possibility rather than the main purpose being to work up a range of products to sell or information to promote. Part of the enjoyment is in working through all of this and ending up with a narrative that seems sufficiently credible. It is, in itself, a story in the making – even if initially, at least, it starts as a tale I tell myself.

Birmingham already has a long and varied history of supporting development of ideas at many levels, within the city. There is a similar long history of creativity and socially-focused thinking. This activity, under the banner of The Word’s the Thing, is one small piece of this much larger jigsaw of activity. Its main aim is to produce a range of texts and images and make them openly available to a wide audience, within Birmingham and beyond.

All the development activities will be undertaken in good faith. Although, ultimately, any claims to ownership will remain jointly with Birmingham Core Skills Development Partnership and Forward Thinking Developments Limited any developments will be shared openly for non-commercial uses, trusting that others will acknowledge the source. The outcomes of any activities are meant to be used in a wide variety of appropriate ways. The hope is that a range of people will enjoy it, discover something to think/talk about, and want to share it with others in order to stimulate some broader thinking about language, ideas and developments.

That is all very well but if that is as far as it goes then it is still a relatively small idea, a modest enterprise.

In a world where so much communication is characterised by strident voices, by slick soundbites, by self-promotion and general lack of sensitivity, by a focus on celebrity status and possession of commodities -whatever gets undertaken should have some potential to go beyond that and to demonstrate that there is a place for collaborating to meet the needs of others, for honesty and integrity, for things done for fun and with enthusiasm without being too frivolous, for a degree of modesty and humility, for opening up the complexities of debates and not closing them down to over-simplifications, and for trying to push regular thinking a bit sideways to see what happens.

Things are still at an early stage and may never get that far but much of what is already emerging is about people, about relationships, about things interacting, and about society. This gives some potential for being of value.

Some things are already beginning to take a certain shape. Without everything necessarily being predetermined, the approach being taken means that whatever is attempted will take on a particular feel. It is unlikely (for example) that the developments will have much in the way of action gaming, or links to humorous video clips. Not that these are ruled out, it is just that there are more likely to be chunks of text. That is the medium I am comfortable with at the moment. What matters more is what is done with that raw material. There may seem to be an over-intellectual drive behind some of the emerging developments rather than attempts to engage with the current political and economic difficulties faced by so many people. It could be seen as a distraction from real-life issues; as playing with ideas rather than dealing in realities. I can only paraphrase that there may be nothing so practical as a well-thought-through idea when realities are often constructed by the ways they are described. Whatever gets done is certainly intended to avoid deliberately making things dense, impenetrable or exclusive. Nor does it mean that various real-life activities are not being engaged with in other ways.

This is a new (and non-commercial) enterprise and, when setting out on any commercial enterprise, people are often advised to think in terms of a target audience or a niche market. Certainly there are people I have in mind: people who might be interested in what is being developed. These are people who may be willing to stop and stare, to linger over things, to consider and to puzzle. There are others who may choose to dip in, collect a few fragments and hop off again, making their own linkages and connections. There are likely to be others who come, look and leave; hopefully not too disappointed and hopefully willing to revisit from time to time.

So, whilst there is a strong desire to have a range of people visit and take up things, this is unlikely to be thought of as driving customers to the site. Invitation, choice and uncertainty are more valued than any desire to force people in a certain direction. There probably won’t be the construction of a large database of people to be bombarded with offers; but there will be the invitation to sign up to getting occasional updates on how things are going.

When I hold such people in mind it is more in the sense of friends, visitors, potential allies etc. I do not have them in mind as clients or customers. The openness should encourage links to the work of others. There are already signs of ideas from here sparking off thinking elsewhere. There is the potential for things to go way beyond a simple ‘one person staying busy’ set of activities. This begins to edge things nearer the potential for stretching towards a bigger idea. I have committed a proportion of my energies, over the next few years to 2015, to explore where any of this might get to.

We have in mind a potential series of imaginary tours of people called Stan(ley) to countries whose names end in -stan.

Representatives (Caricatures, if you prefer) have been nominated to take part in our First Great Imagined Tour of the Stans. This tour is proposed as a stretch of the imagination, a thought experiment, a virtual bit of fiction. It is based on an interpretation of what might be possible when several people (probably a group of six), all with the name of Stanley are brought together from their different contexts to undertake a virtual adventure in the Stans.

FAQs:

Will there be flies? Swarms of them

Will there be extremes of weather? From baking to freezing; from desert to deluge

Will there be adventures? Most assuredly

Will there be servants? Yes and No. Undertaking such a tour will rely on local guides, taxi drivers etc but these are less servants more equal adventurers.

Will women be allowed in the group? Clearly so, as some of the world’s most intrepid adventurers have been women, Obviously they will need to comply with the basic criteria for this tour ie will need to be called Stanley.

Will the participants be real people? In the real world there are people with the names of the people selected for this tour, with their own histories and characteristics. In real life it would be almost impossible for them to have even met, never mind go on a tour together. The six people to be taken on the imaginary tour are not these real people but are representations of what such people might be in some parallel universe. Beyond the name and some basic facts of biography there is no intended similarity between the real and imagined Stanleys. The adventures are absolutely fictitious. (This is a fine line to write around but it is clearly stated at the outset that there is no malice or praise of any kind intended towards the people who have/had a reality in the current world)

Will there be a report of the trip? Yes. The trip is expected to cover around thirty imaginary days. At the end of this stretch of time, once the characters have exhausted themselves they will be retired and a full report written.

Actual travels, in history, through the -stans

There is a Central Asian area made up of several countries whose names end in -stan. In the minds of ordinary residents of places such as Britain the naming of places in this part of the map is less familiar than for the surrounding areas of China, Russia, and the subcontinent of India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. It hasn’t, for them, had a presence as a unity in itself. Why might that be? The central set of countries has, throughout history, been subject to the comings and goings of various empires and conquerors. This has left behind a somewhat fragmented view of boundaries and areas, with smaller areas lost under the greater banners of Empires and Republics.

To many in the western world these parts of Asia may have seemed too distant, too remote, too different (and, to some, even too unimportant seeming) to worry about what they might be called. From a western perspective it has the feel of being a lost region.

At the same time the area had, for much of recorded history, been the main artery for trade between East and West and between North and South. It was an area that spanned a major part of the Silk Road. It contained the established routes that any traveller would take. It carried the materials, the stories, the inventions, the rumours and deceits, and the ceremonies and joys from land to land.

There are a number of well-established commercial companies that organise specific tours from the UK to Uzbekistan (because of the attraction of its heritage sites) and other places. There are also clearly visits of large numbers of UK citizens to Pakistan because of the shared populations and histories. More locally, in the -stans, there are agencies that will arrange trips throughout Turkestan, Kyrgystan, Kazakhstan, etc. Even today, travel across parts of the region is not simple. Some parts are considered too dangerous for independent travellers to journey into.

There are, however, various accounts of journeys across those regions. What follows is a small, and somewhat arbitrary, set of suggestions for further reading:

On Horseback Through Asia Minor – Frederick Burnaby

In the winter of 1876 Captain Frederick Burnaby rode a thousand miles from Constantinople/Istambul to explore what the situation was as war was about to break out between Russia and Turkey. With his servant, he spent five months riding across winter landscape before riding the thousand miles back for a ship home to England to write a best-seller. He had already published ‘A ride to Khiva’; was claimed to be the strongest man in the British Army at the time, able to carry a small pony under each arm; he had a 47 inch chest; he was fluent in a number of languages and wrote in an exciting style. (By one of those quirks of serendipity if I look out of the window of the place where this article is being written I see, in the nearby cathedral grounds in Birmingham, an obelisk memorial to Burnaby with ‘Khiva’ inscribed on one side and the man’s face looking back at me.)

More recent accounts (at the time of writing this) are:

Extremes along the Silk Road – Nick Middleton

A description that connects with the history and geography of the area (and which also describes travels in China, Tibet and Mongolia), describing the Silk Road not as one superhighway but as a network of connecting overland routes built up over time.

Shadow of the Silk Road – Colin Thubron

Over eight months this modern traveller used a variety of modes of transport to cover more than seven thousand miles from China, across central Asia, across to Turkey. This describes the events that occur on the trip, the scenery and people encountered , and how the ancient world is adapting to modern changes.

A carpet ride to Khiva – Christopher Aslan Alexander

The author travelled to Khiva, in Uzbekistan, as part of writing a guidebook but ended up staying to establish and run a carpet-making business with local residents. He lived there for seven years – long enough to be able to capture everyday life in detail, with all the contradictions and absurdities that can characterise many places.

There are many, many more for those who want to follow actual travels across the -stans.

Famous Stanleys (or organisations linked to the same name) – What are the chances of there having been lots of famous Stanleys in the world throughout history?

Looking quickly down lists of famous people it is quite hard to spot anyone called Stanley. There appear to have been no Pope Stanley, no King Stanley in the UK, no Stanley as president of USA, no French or Italian ruler called Stanley, no Russian Tsar or other leader called Stanley, no Holy Roman Emperor called Stanley. In the UK there was only one Prime Minister with the first name Stanley. This was Stanley Baldwin (although he did be prime minister three separate times). Similarly, going down the list of individual world sporting champions the Stanleys of this world are noticeably almost totally absent.

When asked to name some well-known person called Stanley our (admittedly rather idiosyncratic) UK-based sample of people tended to come up with names from popular culture. This may be a feature of a celebrity-obsessed society or it may be that people called Stanley tended not to be born into the elites that became rulers of one kind or another. Maybe Stanleys tend more to be creative/artistic types not given to world domination. Again, it may be a time thing: Stanley maybe was not a name that was around throughout much of the recorded history of the rich and famous – only becoming popular in the era of mass cultures. Any list of famous Stanleys is likely to be mainly a Western European thing if Stanley is not a name that has been transposed across many nations over time, and there are likely to be differences between the list produced by our UK respondents and a similar list that would be the result of asking the same question in the USA (with the latter containing names of hockey/baseball stars rather than soccer stars – names such as Stan ‘The Man’ Musial, baseball star).

In Britain the most common names given as famous Stanleys were:

(in no specific order)

Stanley Holloway – Stanley Augustus Holloway OBE (1890-1982) was a stage and film performer, a comedian, a poet and singer, but probably best known for his comic monologues eg Albert Ramsbottom. He played Dr Doolittle in the 1964 film version of My Fair Lady and was in the film Brief Encounter. He made films for the Ealing studio including The Lavender Hill Mob and The Titfield Thunderbolt.

Stanley Matthews – Sir Stanley;1915-2000; English footballer. He was regarded as one of the greatest wingers of all time. His nickname was ‘the Wizard of Dribble’. He played for England in 54 international games. He was one of the oldest players at the end of his career. He spent long periods of time playing for Stoke and then for Blackpool (including a famous Cup Final).

Stanley Baldwin – (1867-1947); He was First Earl Baldwin of Bewdley and was Conservative prime minister three times (1923-24; 1924-29; 1935-37). He dominated British politics between the two world wars.

Stanley Kubrick – 1928-1999; American movie director and producer. His films include ‘Dr Strangelove’, ‘Clockwork Orange’ , ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, and ‘The Shining’.

Stan Laurel – (1890-1965) He was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson, in Ulverston Lancashire England. He was a stage performer, an understudy to Charlie Chaplin. He became part of the Laurel and Hardy pair of actors and film stars.

Stanley Baxter – Scottish comedian and impressionist, born 1926 in Glasgow. He developed his acting skills as part of his National Service in the army.

Stanley Spencer – Sir Stanley; 1891-1959; English painter. Best known for his series of religious paintings.

Stanley Milgram – His psychological research was in areas such as Obedience, social attitudes etc

– most people don’t get this far, running out after only 3 or 4 names.

They might have added:

Stan Getz (jazz musician)

Stan Boardman (stand-up comedian)

Stanley W Hayter (surrealist/abstract painter).

Stan Mortensen (footballer)

Stanley Gibbons (producer of stamp/philately reference books)

Stanley Black (musician)

The list doesn’t seem to be very many given the number of people who have existed in the world. Maybe Stanley has been a rarity as a name or a very recent adoption as a name?

One version of the origins of the name indicate that it is Old English. Stan (=stone) + lea (=clearing/meadow); so having its origins as a place-related name (the person living at the stony meadow). From the place name it became handed down as a surname (as was the case with so many names).

The peak of its usage as a first name was around 1916 but even then it was the name of only 0.6% of boys, giving it a ranking of 34^th most popular name. Since that peak the use of the name has steadily declined (with a smaller peak around the 1950s) until today when it scarcely records on the chart. One explanation for the lack of famous Stanleys may simply be that there were not, proportionally at least, many Stanleys at all. There are some accounts of Stanley making a very small resurgence lately; with a doubling of UK boys with that name between 2004 and 2013 (but still at less than 1000 in total in the best year).

Stanley may not be one of the commonest names but it is still up there on the list (and certainly was relatively popular around the 1900-1950 period). It has broad UK geographical coverage ie is not a very local-specific name. It has also been around for a long time. There should have been a reasonable chance of there having been a few more Stanleys making it into the reference books. Still, they did not shine through. That being so it feels that each example is somehow special enough to be worth finding out more about.

When the criteria are loosened away from simply real people’s first names more options spring to people’s mind:

• Stanley – the explorer who ‘found’ Livingstone ie Henry Morton Stanley
• Stanley Kowalski (character in ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, played by Marlon Brando in the film)
• Norman Stanley Fletcher – character in TV comedy series ‘Porridge’
• Stanley Yelnats – the character in the book ‘Holes’
• Flat Stanley – a paper cut-out shape that travels to places
• Erle Stanley Gardner – a writer
• New Stanley Hotel – a famous meeting place in Nairobi
• Stanley tools – especially the Stanley Knife (a box/carpet knife)
• Stanley – a part of Hong Kong
• Accrington Stanley – a football club
• The Stanley Cup – Canadian/North American Ice Hockey trophy
• Lord Stanley – Earl of Derby; several of these each famous for different things
• Stanley Park – a recreational area in the seaside resort of Blackpool; a park in Liverpool
• Stanley Park – a natural recreational area in Vancouver
• Port Stanley – capital of the Falkland Islands
• Stanley Falls – in Africa
• Paul Stanley (stage name of Stanley Harvey Eisen, rock guitarist in group ‘Kiss’)
• Morgan Stanley (bank)
• Various places called Stanley in Derbyshire, Durham and Gloucester
• Stanley Road (musical album – by Paul Weller)
• Stanley Bagshaw – children’s book character
• Stanley Morrison – writer of ‘A tally of Types’, about printing typefaces

As a surname it is one of the oldest and noblest of English surnames via the Stanley family, Earls of Derby, who can be traced back to a companion of William the Conqueror. The family’s fortune was established as early as 1400. It is from the branches of this family that some of the references in the lists above arose as they took up positions of power and influence in England and around the colonies. The most well-known is Thomas, supporter of Henry Tudor and downfall of Edward at Battle of Bosworth, with a bit of a treacherous streak.

There are undoubtedly others, with varying degrees of fame. The most exciting ones I have come across are that the spy Kim Philby had the cryptoname of ‘Stanley’; and that President Obama’s mother was called Stanley Ann Dunham and was known as Stanley through her schooldays.

At the start of this little imaginary ramble, who would have thought that we might end up connecting Kim Philby with Obama’s mother – Intriguing where a group of Stanleys can lead you ….