Engaging the Public

Over the last few weeks my work has included doing a survey with the general public. I don't know how many of you out there have ever been tasked with approaching the public, and trying to persuade them to answer your questions, but it can be quite a daunting prospect.

In order to manage the nerves I've developed a number of ways to approach strangers. Here are my top 5...and yes the doodles are an accurate representation of the demographic I've been speaking to...

1. Straight out bribery/ Incentivise

2. If that fails, try distraction, 'Oh look shiny thing!' - *steals brainwaves!*

3. Use any situation and bring it round to your questions...yes even if you are waiting for a bus...

4. Do the blonde stupid thing.

5. And if all else fails just be honest! I found this to be the best policy and people genuinely wanted to help me.

If you've ever done any market research what tricks did you try to get the public involved? What worked? What didn't?

I'll be back to my usual format next week...

The Old Man and the Sea

This weekend I had the great fortune to attend ‘Shorelines’; the first literary festival celebrating the sea. The press eagerly anticipated the event and weren’t to be disappointed. The programme was varied including public readings of works old and new, literary discussions and some memorable theatre (who could forget an open air production of ‘The Tempest’ actually in a tempest!). It was good just to get people talking about the rich inheritance of being ‘people of the sea’; even if visitors weren’t from Southend, we all share this little island.

For me, the most memorable experience was watching a three-man performance of Hemmingway’s ‘Old Man and the Sea’. I like Hemingway and enjoyed reading ‘The Sun Also Rises’ and ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’ but I have to say, with ‘Old Man and the Sea’ I never got past page three. For some reason a story of one man fishing didn’t capture my imagination in quite the same way as some of his other tales. That was, until Rob Young adapted the story for stage and Laura Casey directed his show; injecting the story of an old man’s delusions with life and vigour.

At base this is a story of one old man, on a boat at sea; not much to write home about. But Young has made it come alive; building a dynamism between the Old Man and his wife, or is it the sea? Either way he builds an exciting, playful tension between the two players. Young has made the story more accessible by introducing two characters alongside the old man who represent temptation and good, in the shape of the wife and fisherman’s boy. We’ve all been confused, tempted and uncertain in decision making. But it was more than a sympathetic plotline that drew us in; there was magic.

The concept for the show is quite simple; three actors, one stage, simple lighting and human percussion; but the effect is impressive. The sounds of water slopping against the boat, created by a boy with a partly filled water-cooler; or the skimming of stones recreated in a bucket of water with a few rocks. The plot weighs in on the psychological and the Old Man’s hallucinations, which recreate both his dead wife and fisherman’s boy; prime the imagination to fill in the other details of sea and sky. The actors also helped us to imagine other parts of the seascape sometimes taking on the role of say, birds in the distance. Special mention goes to Vernon Kizza Nxumalo for his portrayal of the fisherman’s boy, the Old Man’s conscience, a fish, the sounds of the sea and narrator extraordinaire. Such competency in being so versatile is an unusual skill in so young a man, he has the makings of a great storyteller; having the audience in stitches telling tales of the Old Man and his wife.

Old Man and the Sea, 04/09/10. Photo credit: K. Koziel

The location and circumstances within which this story was told also added to the sense of drama and seafaring. We were in a tent, in a storm. The roof of the tent was billowing in the wind and the performance was nearly hijacked by a failing generator which threatened the show with mere candlelight for lighting. Despite these distractions, the performance was impressive and a thoroughly memorable finale to a thought-provoking festival. As one guest said, ‘Technical difficulties? What technical difficulties?’.

Now I’m going to go and read Hemmingway’s novella; thank you Magpie Productions for the inspiration to give ‘Old Man and the Sea’ a second go!

Aachen (Kultur + Kaffee) Part 2

If you are looking for tourist info my 'top 5 places to visit in Aachen' is at the bottom of the page.

And this blog is unusually lengthy today, sorry.

As I’ve previously mentioned, in May this year I worked for a Cathedral in Germany. It was my first prolonged stay in the country (previous visits amounting to 2 hours in total!) and as such the people I met were very interested in my first reactions to what ‘Germans were really like’. Its strange how we often feel outsiders can categorise our own nation groups isn’t it?! Of course I came to Germany with all the standard stereotypes, that Germans would be intensely scientific and down-right Prussian in attitudes of the heart or displaying emotions; actually I found quite the opposite, warm-hearted, caring people who weren’t all engineers – although I did meet several scientists.

Aachen is in North-Rhine-Westphalia, the last town in Germany before Belgium. It calls itself ‘the heart of Europe’ and one can see why; its a true fusion of Franco-Germanic culture with a good dose of Flemish (from the Dutch and Belgian) thrown in for good measure! It is a place where many worlds meet.

What follows are some musings I had whilst thinking about ‘Aachen Culture’ which wouldn’t fit into my 3,000 words on ‘German Cathedral Culture’.

Kaffee
Being a student in a foreign city there was plenty of time for coffee, most of which, mercifully, I drank with German friends who guided me through the process. In the cafes and bars of Aachen paying for coffee is quite different to England; there is none of the theatrics around leaving the bill on your table and paying whilst the waitress pretends to look away. Instead, the fact that one is paying for a service is made quite explicit; the waiter comes to the table, presents you with the bill and then you pay him directly, even negotiating the tip, ‘that will be 12 euro 50 cents’, ‘oh call it 13 euro’, ‘thank you’. This sort of procedure is fairly unheard of in England.

It amused me watching the process the other way round when a friend from Aachen visited England and we went for coffee. She was most baffled by our ‘complicated’ system for paying and leaving tips. This whole charade reminded me of Kate Fox’s hypothesis in her book ‘Watching the English’ (which I highly recommend) where she suggests the English will go to great lengths to avoid the discussion of money. Maybe our receive bill, walk away, now I pay system is just an elaborate ruse to do the same thing? Avoiding the uncomfortable reality that we are paying for a service. And that’s not even to start on the fact that bars serving coffee and hot chocolate are open til 2 am, even on a school night, what a brilliant idea!

(Maibaum in Aachen)

Maibaum
Now to move on to something totally different. The photo above is of a slightly dilapidated Maibaum. A Maibaum is a birch tree felled close to the 1st of May; they are erected across the city on the eve of the month of May by men seeking to impress their current or future loves. They decorate their birch tress with colourful crepe paper and as you might expect the imagery is all decidedly phallic, how big’s your tree? Not all men fell trees, creating a small hand-crafted gift is also acceptable; and with the growing eco-agenda there is increasingly upset with the felling of all these trees for such a silly tradition.

As some of you may have already guessed this maibaum tradition is not so far from the pan-European tradition of the Maypole. In fact when I searched ‘maibaum’ on Wikipedia, Google translated the page as ‘Maypole’. But there are also differences. In England the Maypole is the sole preserve of young children and old Morris Dancers, who are encouraged to dance round the poles. It is also an almost exclusively rural pursuit, there are few Maypoles erected in the centre of towns. In Aachen it is a very different process; owned by the young as a courting game of the 20-something. It is a highly devolved process every man for himself; there is little to no state involvement and there are as many Maibaum in cities as the countryside. In Aachen, Maibaum is not a quaint tradition maintained to lengthen the tourist season in sleepy villages; it is a living tradition that has evolved over the centuries to suit its new market. Caviat: You will notice I don’t refer to ‘German’ tradition here as my experience was only in reference to Aachen. But for the record, I like the tradition.

Dreilanderpunkt
Within an hour’s walk of the city centre is the ‘Dreilanderpunkt’ the place where Belgium, Germany and Holland all meet. Over the past century these borders have at times felt very solid; with passport check points throughout the Cold War period and the use of three separate currencies until the arrival of the Euro in 2002. The three nations still speak separate languages but physically crossing the boundaries is easy. On a cycle ride to the north of the city we passed down one road where the row of houses to the left were Dutch and the houses on the right were German; although their architecture was different it seemed almost ridiculous that you would have needed two currencies to shop on one road less than ten years ago! The Dreilanderpunkt is a physical place where you can go and have your photo taken, but in some ways I also think its a metaphor for Aachen as a whole! Bringing the efficiency of German transport, Dutch artistic flair and the joys of Belgian food (yes I mean chocolate and beer).

Unmissable Aachen – top 5 must-sees.

1. Aachen Cathedral – Everything about this part of Europe boils down to one key man, Charlemagne, Emperor of Europe in the eighth century. And you can’t get more Carolingian than Charlemagne’s own royal chapel (and coronation church for more than 30 German kings!) If you like shiny, golden Cathedrals with impressive treasuries and tall Gothic architecture (without buttresses), you’ll like Aachen Cathedral. If you have been to San Vitale or Sainte-Chapelle you might get a strange sense of déjà-vu.

2. Ok, so you’ve got to eat somewhere! Here are two great, contrasting eateries, to ensure you don’t go hungry. The people of Aachen are great fans of icecream but arguably the best place to eat icecream is Del Negro. Huge portions, low prices, and quality ice cream; there are always queues outside this kiosk and after you’ve tried one of their ice creams you’ll understand why. They also let you go half and half with flavours, see nice too!

The other place is a funky bar which sells both the warming bedtime drinks, and beers and wine into the early hours; the Egmont. I was taken to the cafe several times by different people and its proved popular across generations and interests. Particularly good if you are looking for European philosophers and artists, or somewhere quiet to read a paper in the afternoon.

3. The Elisenbrunnen on a Sunday night – In the summer, Sunday night is salsa night at the Elisenbrunnen. For the smallest of fees you can dance the night away, outdoors yet undercover at the picturesque Elisenbrunnen park. With thermal springs in the background and a pina colada in your hand – you could be forgiven for thinking you weren’t in Germany.

4. The Dreilanderpunkt. I already mentioned this place in the blog but its the border-land of three European nations. Set in large quantities of woodland its also great for a day’s walking with pretty panoramas that stretch for miles. They also hold events at the Dreilanderpunkt itself; I saw a medieval joust on an epic scale, complete with re-enactment village and honey beer stall.

5. My friend Simone’s House – OK so this one’s cheeky and you’d have to ask me for her details but I’ve got a great German pal called Simone. When I was complaining at work that I hadn’t tasted German food because it looked decidedly dodgy she invited me to her house and cooked all the German classics from Sauerkraut to Schnitzel; and all in the beauty of the very nearly, almost Dutch, countryside.

'It was fun for me; but it wasn't funny for you'

The above platitude of proverbial depth was uttered by a four-year old. I met him walking along a road a few days ago. He had just pulled a crazy face in public and his Mum was not impressed; he'd enjoyed expressing himself but his Mum disapproved.
Why?
If it was so funny for someone directly related to her why didn't she find it funny? What life experience or character traits meant she had a different response? Was she embarrassed?  Should she have laughed? This blog is about the divergence of human experience, how we can view the same place or event from completely different perspectives.

Southend is bonza!
This week we have had a couchsurfer staying with us. She is from Queensland, Australia and is currently touring Europe, staying on people's sofas and earning a buck or two. She came to us for a few days on a seaside holiday; she enjoyed visiting a castle ruin, the coastline and an impressive thunderstorm. She thought Southend was a great place to stay for a few days. Now, I know we never really appreciate where we live but she was disproportionately positive. At home she has the rainforest in her backgarden and Australian coastline out front and yet she thought Southend was great...needless to say its got me seeing my home town in a different light.

Auctoritate mihi commissa admitto te ad gradum
This is one of the many pieces of Latin uttered over graduands at the Cambridge Graduation ceremony. I had the pleasure of taking part in this ceremony last year.

I remember feeling a strong sense of achievement when my name was called and I received my degree, but I also remember quite a lot of hassle. Before I even got to the day I had to find articles of a very specific uniform which included suitable shoes (no buckles, less than three inches, black or blue) to graduate in. On the morning of my graduation my failure to provide a jacket with my suit nearly resulted in my not graduating, but that's another story for another time.

When the day is in full-swing there are two groups of people who want to spend time with you and they don't usually meet. These are your proud but occasionally demanding family, and your friends, your comrades in arms who've battled finals at your side and who you might not see for a while. These groups can be combined by the skillful but for me I found them mutually exclusive. It was also unbearably hot under all the layers of fur and black robes. If you survive all of that you then have the pressure of doing all the right actions whilst the important people utter Latin and you attempt not to trip over your gown. One Mum remarked she thought this bit was actually the hardest bit of getting a degree! I was pleased to graduate but you couldn't call it unadulterated joy.

This year though I experienced the ceremony from a quite different perspective, I returned to watch dear friends graduate. I wore what I wanted; so I wasn't overheating. I got to be a proud friend enjoying a day in the sunshine with familiar faces and, most importantly, I didn't have the threat of falling over in front of loads of people. It was much more pleasurable. I suspect swapping places with this year's graduands would have produced a different experience again...

Graduate joy?! Photo credit: Kenichi Udagawa
'I do enjoy identifying plastics'
This immortal sentence was uttered by my little sister on a Friday night. We'd just played our first joint-gig and were winding down from the buzz of a great night and she just kinda came out with it. And I thought, how strange, we're from the same genetic background and yet we have such different interests.

 I categorically do not enjoy identifying plastics; I like words and people, music, languages and food, but not plastics. When I was little I used to frequently ask my sister, 'What are you thinking about right now? What's it like in there?'. She would always roll her eyes at me and say, 'I don't know how to answer that'. (I tried the same question recently and got the same response all these years on.) We're similar and yet we're so different. I want to know how it is in someone else's skin and she likes identifying plastics!

For those of you that are interested, I failed my driving test again, but for completely different reasons and I feel quite different about it this time. Last time I was devastated and thought I'd never pass. This time I realise I can always try again and there were many parts of the test I did well; my three point turns and the way I treated a bus being particular highlights. The same situation, but 10 weeks later can feel quite different can't it! A conclusion I also reached from walking the Camino...

Camino (the track, path or journey)

Last Saturday I was part of an interactive art installation at Leigh Beach as part of the Leigh Arts Trail. The task was to move large quantities of dry sand from the beach onto the mud flats to form a sand labyrinth; visible and sanctified for a time and then reclaimed by nature through the tide. The project was spearheaded by Miss Joanna Hartle, a woman of many talents, but with a particular penchant for art and nature together.

The creation of the piece began at 4.30 AM, and I admit I wasn’t there for that, but I participated by ferrying sand, laying it down and walking the Camino (as well as eating the bacon sandwiches!). Jo wrote a blog about the whole process which you might want to browse: http://www.naturespacecreative.com/camino-days.html

(photo credits to: Jo Hartle, Dee)

Since last Saturday I have been ruminating on the Camino:

tierra sagrada (holy ground, sacred space)
When people walked the Camino they responded in various ways, but most people remarked that it had ‘been special’; helped them gain perspective or just a bit of peace. In a way this seemed a bit strange; all we had done was move some sand from one part of a beach to another. It was a public beach, there was nothing special about the weather or the location; but through all our toil in the early morning we had created something special. This got me thinking about other ways we can create places or times to find peace and a bit of perspective...

camino: the track, the path, the journey
There came a time when I got to walk the Camino for myself and I noticed several things. It is important to state the obvious at this point: the Camino route is a metaphor for life’s journey. The first thing I noticed was that we all walked the same path, but had quite different experiences - shaped by our choices, like our footwear (or lack of). Barefoot enabled sensations such as heat and cold, rough and smooth which augmented the overall experience of light and movement experienced by other path-walkers.

Secondly, as I walked along the paths I found my feet fitting into the footprints of previous walkers of the Camino. Sometimes these were other people’s footprints, people who had already been here and moved on; maybe those who have apprenticed me on my journey. But sometimes I realised with surprise that my feet were fitting into my own prints, imprinted when I had been creating the piece. It reminded me of those times when you find yourself in exactly the same situation as before, but the circumstances feel quite different.

aguas turbias (muddy waters)
This week has been full of contemplation regarding the past, present and future of my journey; from pints of cider with old flames to scary Careers talks, and promising looking PhD offers that then fall through. Similarly with the Camino, some parts of this journey are easier to walk than others; some areas were near flooded, walking them was messy and progress was slow, but an entirely necessary part of reaching the end goal; sometimes we had to stop to repair the banks of the Camino as it broke under pressure, other parts of the path were easier to traverse. Isn’t life just full of this same wonderful variety; hard times and times when the going is good, of smooth paths and muddy water!

¡dejar su impronta! (Leave your mark!)
If you go back to Leigh Beach now the Camino will be invisible, reclaimed several days ago by the tide. But its mark lasted several tides, and its imprint was still visible 24 hours later!
Several hours of blister inducing digging completely erased; but I am sure the effort was worth it if only for the journey I went on. Thank you Jo for inspiring us to do something great!

Just in case you are wondering; I submitted that culture essay, yesterday. It took many more bacon sandwiches, lively debates and early mornings to knock it into shape. Interesting, as opposed to essay relevant, cultural comments on my trip to Germany coming soon...

Aachen (Dom + Kultur) part 1

As some of you may know last month I went to Aachen, Germany on a work placement in the Cathedral as a compulsory part of my Masters Degree. I really enjoyed myself and I learnt lots of things; not all of them directly related to Cultural Heritage. Now that I've been home for two weeks it’s about time I wrote my experiences up in the form of an essay which critically reviews the placement and what I learned. 

The trouble is, it is tedious! 

Like really boring!

Like I've started writing a blog to avoid writing about it. I've also been working on a detailed paper model of the Cathedral (see below). 

When I've been running in the opposite direction from the essay writing I've been trying to work out what the blocks are to writing up the experience. I kept a diary the whole time, so I already have 3,000 odd words to say on the experience. And it wasn't as if everything from the people, to the weather and the workplace weren't beautiful.
It’s not even as if there’s nothing to say about Cultural Heritage, it was everywhere.
The problem is finding interesting things to say, about the things they want to hear, and (the problem for this essay in particular) in a structured format.

As time has passed I've managed to get some ideas down on paper but its taken an entire bar of emergency chocolate, a bacon sandwich, three cups of coffee and several trips to London to get me this far! I wonder how many more trips to my favourite independent coffee shop (Utopia) I’ll need before I eventually hand the work in? Just as well the deadlines totally flexible!

 

The Five Ages of Man, and cars. (1st blog)

Hello World!

Well after about a year of people suggesting I ought to blog I've finally caved in. Props to Jonty Roland and Elle McAllister for suggesting it; and Marika, Gabriel, Will and Jo for being considerable inspiration.

Just in case you didn't know who I am my name's Bec I'm 22 and I'm currently living in Essex.
I'm polishing off my MA in Cultural Heritage Studies at UCL. All sorts of things about the world seem really interesting to me, but I'm particularly interested in people, how they think and behave. I also like to travel and have adventures.

But most of all I like telling stories and analysing social situations. So that's probably what you will find on this blog as time goes by. I'm currently supposed to be writing up my recent work placement in Germany, but this is proving worthy procrastination (maybe I'll write about it on here sometime, only the interesting bits obviously).

Today I wanted to tell you about a revelation I had in the car.

I am currently learning to drive and for several months have referred to 4th gear as 'Aunty Fourth'. Why? Because 4th gear has always struck me as an economic, sensible gear that keeps things turning over and running smoothly but it doesn't actively do much or have much power. Today I realised most of the gears could be anthropomorphised into members of a gear family:

First gear - first gear is like the baby in the family. When a baby screams grown-ups react pretty quickly. Similarly first gear has quick effects in actually getting the car up and moving. But it only does that first bit, once you've moved a few seconds down the road it becomes useless. On the journey of life we require new gears that enable us to move faster, more efficiently and with less rumbling in our engines. But interestingly in life, as with gears, when we come to have to do something difficult we often revert back to childlike behaviours; just as in cars you do manoeuvres in First.

Second gear - Second gear has got the energy of a small child. Its quite active, you use it when you want to weave in and out of residential areas and at times when something is to be negotiated. Its quite a powerful gear but you'd soon run out of puff if you did the whole journey in second. (I have to say I don't really understand why we need second, other than for turning corners, thoughts?)

Third gear - This is my favourite gear. (I often get told off for not moving into fourth on time, but I just love third!) Third gear is the teenager or twenty-something. Third is the gear for accelerating onto the carriageway, for physically getting somewhere.
Its a gear that does something.
Sometimes its not the most efficient gear to be in, and maybe we ought to be coasting a bit more, but with third you get stuff done.

I've already described 'Aunty' fourth but where does that leave Fifth or Reverse Gear?
I've had very little experience with fifth but when I've used it it just seems like an even more chilled out gear than fourth. What do you reckon?
Where does fifth fit in this family tree? I was half tempted to make 'Reverse' old-age. It would fit with a plethora of witty literary references and yet the voice of my conscience (my Mum!) leaves me feeling that actually old people do make positive contributions to the world in often quite active ways. And they do not always go against the current of younger generations either.
So where does 'reverse' fit in this system; does it stand for those little life crises we have, where it feels like we're going the wrong way but somehow we still manage to reverse somewhere useful?

And what about my love for third, will it wane with age such that by my mid-30's I prefer to drive in fourth?

Will I ever pass my driving test?...

Stay tuned for answers to these questions and more (reviews of cafes, interesting foreign escapades, social action projects)...