All posts by Sally

8 posts

Life, Travel, Work

In 2019, I posted 8 things on this blog.

That’s less than 1 a month (for those of you who are gregorianly-challenged).

This year, I absolutely don’t promise to do better.

It’s not that I have lost a love of writing – far from it – it’s just that I lack time, and brain power. As my job has changed and progressed over the past 5 years, I have found myself doing less meeting arrangement, and more report and document writing, and while fascinating, it’s somewhat tiring.

The other thing is, I’m doing so much. I’ve always done a lot, don’t get me wrong, but at the moment I am working to get things done in my spare minutes, not even my spare hours. And I have plans for this year. So here’s a rundown of some stuff I might be doing –

  1. Getting a qualification in Charity Law 
    I’m already working on this one, and my exam is in June. I should be spending much more time revising than I have been, but assuming it all goes well I’m even considering doing another course starting from September #learning
  2. Going to a festival
    Ok this one is a bit pie-in-the-sky because we still don’t have tickets, but the aim is to go to Glastonbury. As someone who has never been interested in festivals I am finding it hard to get excited, but if we actually make it I’m sure it’ll be great
  3. Being involved with a production of “Annie” 20 years after I last was in it
    I don’t know if I’ll be in the cast (wish my luck for my audition) but there’s no way I’m not getting involved in the next LIDOS production. I was the orphan ‘Kate’ when I was 9, and it was my first full-length musical.
  4. Visiting Thailand
    I got a lot of travelling done before I was 15 years old, and as a consequence I haven’t really done that much since (living in Morocco and Spain notwithstanding). The Man wants to visit Thailand and show it to me, and so this year may well be the year
  5. Going back to Spain!
    Let’s not even joke about how long it is since I lived in Spain. But as a big birthday present to a friend, we want to go back. The only issue at the moment is finding a time which actually works for us both
  6. Attending 5 weddings (currently)
    I say currently because I would not be shocked if more appear. I remember turning 23 and people telling me I was about to go into wedding madness- cue years of very minimal activity, but it turns out it’s all kicking off this year

So there’s plenty going on. Will I keep this blog updated? It seems unlikely, but I’ll honestly try. Writing and keeping a diary in this way is still a massive highlight of any day for me, and so while my posts may be few and far between, SallyTalks will live on for a little while yet.

The Politics of Truth

Life

There is an image I’ve seen a few times recently. It’s of two people, each looking at the floor between them. In between them is a number, and from the perspective of one, it’s a 6, but from the perspective of the other it’s a 9.

The caption is always encouraging the reader to recognise that other people might have a different, but also valid, perspective. To me though, it perfectly encapsulates our current “post-truth” era. Because listen. It’s either a 6, or it’s a 9. Someone put it there, and it was one of those numbers to them. Or aliens put it there and it means something completely different (probably “don’t stop here, this one’s a mess). Anyway. We now live in a time where it is acceptable to see something, interpret it in your way, and then insist that “truth” upon the world.

And here’s the problem. If we are all allowed to decide what the truth is, then nothing is true any more. And you know who can capitalise on that? Politicians.

In the olden days, we elected representatives to lead our communities in ensuring that our best interests were carried forward to parliament. So we had to pick people who we trusted to represent our best interests, otherwise horrible things happened. To be honest, horrible things happened anyway, because we mostly either weren’t allowed to do the picking (because of not being rich and male, or other made-up reasons) or we picked people who weren’t trustworthy. But because we didn’t know what went on in parliament we had to take it on faith.

Now, we know what goes on, so we know when people are not representing our best interests – which in theory should be a challenge for those elected representatives, especially since now the poor and the female (known for their rebellious tendencies) are allowed to get involved. So now we have to get clever. Now, politicians who don’t want to represent their constituents’ best interests (which is not all of them, but is alarmingly many) are employing the post-truth tactic of convincing us that we are wrong about our best interests. That even though we think our best interests are a 6, if we just look at it from a different angle, we’ll see that our best interests are in fact a 9.

And it’s working.

The demonstration that it’s working is the notion that a significant proportion of the British public genuinely believe that the Conservative party, despite years of weakening the country, will aim to make it better for the majority. I’m sat here, questioning how ANYONE can believe that the Tories will support the NHS, or our education system, because all I can see is a massive 666 smeared across Boris Johnson’s forehead, but somehow there are millions of people around me who are cheerfully seeing a life-saving 999.

It makes you begin to question your reality a little bit. If there are so many people who believe that we shouldn’t help other people through national health provision, acceptable levels of disability benefit, or access to education (to name but a few issues on the table) – then – are those people right? Maybe caring for other people is just wrong?

Here’s my issue though. That’s my truth currently. The echo-chamber makes it difficult, but I’m going to need some persuading that my truth is incorrect. And in a world where truth is somehow up for debate, I am going to keep fighting for my truth against the lies which are propagated by a disingenuous media.

There are a lot of challenges in the post-truth world of politics, not least that even if I’m really confident in my truth, I still have no real trust that the majority of candidates in the next General Election have my truth at the heart of their aims (hugely worrying). But the challenge for us all as constituents is to know what our own truth is, not be led by a media which is lie-ridden and party politics which represent literally none of the concerns of the populace, and to vote for the individuals we genuinely trust to represent us and our best interest.

I rarely try to make political points, but in the lead up to yet another General Election in the UK, this is so important. Know your own mind, register to vote, and then vote for the people who represent your truth.

 

Oh and by the way, the truth is that we should all damn well care about the rest of humanity, and the planet we live on, and I have yet to hear any kind of compelling argument to the contrary. Because there isn’t one.

Blogging while adult

Life, Rant

Listen, when I was 19 and just starting a blog for the first time, it was easy.

Why? I hear you ask. Well. Let me tell you. It was easy, because I had nothing else to do. And now I am a grown up and so instead of blogging I do things like hoovering, or choir accountancy, or baking, or sometimes I just slump in front of the TV because I am SO TIRED.

Honestly, how do people do it. Maintaining a blog presence while also being an adult is mad.

I do still have things I think about writing. Ideas pop into my head often. But there’s something about getting home at 11pm and writing a blog post that I just can’t get behind. There’s a little whisper in the back of my mind that honestly feels like it is somehow unprofessional to post ramblings at 11pm. As if any of this has ever been professional in the first place.

Tonight writing is easy, because tonight I am cloistered and hiding (fairly unsuccessfully) from the fireworks. People who know me personally will have heard the fireworks rant plenty of times before, but maybe a stranger will read this post, so here goes.

Why on earth, in the world we live in, do we still think it is acceptable to sell practically anyone brightly-coloured explosives? Why? They are offensively loud, stupidly expensive, and easy for a stupid person to light and throw at a car. Or a cat. Or another human person. To explode. Like explosives are designed to.

I am not here to suggest that UK bonfire night is on a par with the horrible violence that exists in other communities around the world, but it continues to baffle me that we don’t just ban fireworks except at organised events. Some reasons:

  • They look better, because they are professionals and not your uncle Steve
  • They cost less, because you pay a fiver to get in rather than spending £100 in Asda for a makeshift light-show in your grubby garden
  • People who don’t want to be involved don’t have to be (for example, a bloke in a 4×4 would not have just pulled up opposite my living room window earlier and set off 20 minutes of fireworks on a residential road, because no-one is paying £5 to watch that. I’d have paid him £5 to leave but I didn’t really feel safe leaving the house because he so evidently had no clue what he was doing)
  • Just go spend time with other humans rather than bothering me
  • No seriously
  • Also, pets would not be traumatised
  • Also also, other humans with very valid reasons (babies, the elderly, those with mental health conditions) could avoid the fireworks

I really don’t like bonfire night.

Except for the interesting history, where some people wanted to blow up the houses of parliament (as we all do, regularly, at the moment) but they got caught, so we…light fires…and blow things up…to celebrate them…not?

Honestly, the whole thing is a mess, and I’m not just saying that because I’m a tired blogging adult.

ten

Life

I have lived in Leeds (more or less) for 10 years and 4 days.

That is the longest time that I’ve lived in the same place – albeit with a stint in Morocco and one in Spain thrown in – and a whole bunch of stuff has happened. 10 years is a really long time.

I arrived on the 19th of September, with a car load of things, and I moved into a student flat with 4 other people. We went out and got drunk a lot in our first week, made friends with the rest of our floor and half of our block. I struggled a lot to find the right books for my course, and I tried and failed to get into the Theatre Group. And the Stage Musicals Society.

Since then I have completed two degrees, lived in 2 other countries, bought a car, bought a house. Got my first full-time job after a series of wacky and interesting part-time ones. Written a 28,000 word thesis. Become manager of a team. A trustee for two different charities (and I have just signed up for a third, so watch this space). Learned the joy of gaming – particularly the joy of Skyrim, my favourite second home. Been involved with more theatre shows than I can begin to count.

I have met some amazing people in the last 10 years. Some are still part of my life and some aren’t. Some that aren’t I miss, and some I don’t. I’m glad I’ve known them all because in one way or another, for better or worse, they’ve all got me to this point. 10 years ago I met a person I ended up thinking I was going to spend my life with. Now I’m spending my time with someone else.

My Bachelors was interesting and challenging. My Masters was difficult for all the wrong reasons.

What will come in the next 10 years? That’s the big question. I might buy another house, but not if it is as much of a pain as buying this one. I don’t aim to meet another person I want to spend my life with, but I didn’t aim for that 10 years ago either so who really knows. I don’t need more friends, but that doesn’t meet I won’t meet more wonderful people.

I will learn more things. I’ve just started my next qualification, the first one I’m doing since my terrible Masters experience. I’m really excited about learning again, rather than apprehensive. I will do more things as well – I’ll work with more charities, I’ll find more ways to give my time. Hopefully I’ll still have time left around the edges to do house things, and friends things, and go to the theatre.

I started this blog 9 years ago, so this isn’t really the most important 10 year anniversary. Stick around for that one, this time next year.

My bubble

Life, Rant

**minor content warning, sexual harassment**

I’ve repeatedly insisted over the last weekend that I’m going to write a ranty blog post, and now here we are. Get ready, you’ve been warned.

I have been known, at times, to wear relatively low-cut tops. My favourite most comfortable vest tops all have quite low scoop necks, and I am aware that I sometimes draw attention because I have quite a lot of cleavage on show. Let me be clear. It is in no way indecent, and I am 100% comfortable in the clothes I choose to wear. I understand that sometimes people catch themselves looking, and I don’t honestly mind. If I did, I’d wear different clothes. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with accepting the fact that we all sometimes find ourselves looking at something, knowing that social rules dictate we should look away. It’s fine. It’s a thing. Whatever.

I was walking along the south bank of the Thames, in central London, last Friday. About 6pm, still nice and light, still very busy. It was a lovely evening.

And then a person actively changed the path they were walking to make a bee-line for me, and once they got close to me, they dipped their head towards my chest and I could feel their breath on me for a moment before they carried on walking. Smooth as you like.

It made me want to scream. Imagine believing you have the right to do something like that. But of course, it’s a massive issue. I’ve been grabbed in the street before, I’ve been bothered in nightclubs, and I’ve been harassed walking down the pavement. And I live in an age where somehow, I feel lucky that I’ve gotten away with so little. LUCKY. As if.

The problem is, we’re still not teaching each other that personal space is a valid thing. Recently a new colleague quite emphatically rubbed/patted my arm in response to something I’d said. They were trying to be affectionate maybe, or show they were engaged in what I was saying, but all I wanted to do was tell them not to touch me, because we’re still basically strangers. And yet I didn’t say that, because I didn’t want to offend them.

I was in a coffee shop over the weekend, and a parent joined the queue behind me with about 5 children in tow. They were messing, and the parent was distracted, but two of them just kept bumping into me, elbowing me, and nudging me around. It was a pretty small coffee shop, and once again I kept my mouth shut, but it totally enraged me.

Listen. You can look at me and form views. Fine. You can just stare at me because you fancy me. Fine, whatever. But do not touch me. I am not yours. And teach your children not to touch strangers and to respect others’ personal space. Because you should already be teaching them that strangers should not be touching them, and should be respecting their personal space. It’s an incredibly simple, but apparently vital lesson that we are just missing as a society.

Some people are touchy-feely, and I do understand that. I know my colleague wasn’t trying to make me uncomfortable. I know those kids didn’t even know I was there.

But that doesn’t make it ok.

Because not teaching your kids to respect others, and not respecting others space when you should know better, is what leads grown adults to think they can go up to a stranger on a busy street and breathe on her breasts. And as I cannot stress enough – I am one of the lucky ones.

 

True, Necessary, Kind

Life, Work

I am privileged to work with some really fantastic people, and I genuinely do learn something new every day. Sometimes my job is complicated and I wonder if maybe I could do something “easier”, and then something happens to remind me why I value my workplace and my colleagues so much.

Earlier this week a colleague taught me something I’d never heard before. It’s a set of questions to ask yourself before you say something to someone else and it goes like this. Before you speak, ask yourself:

  1. is it true?
  2. is it necessary?
  3. is it kind?

Three simple rules. If the answer isn’t yes to all three, then don’t say it.

Will I live by these rules? Almost certainly not. That’s a high mental load to tax yourself with every time a comment comes to mind. I’ll almost certainly fail. But, it will help me to be a kinder, better person sometimes now that I know that the method exists.

Plus, it’s an amazing way to assess your own reaction. Today, a person said something to me and I found myself feeling hurt and angry. And I knew it was an overreaction to a small comment which shouldn’t have bothered me. It took me a second, but when I thought about it I realised what had gotten to me – it was the fact that to me, the comment felt unnecessary.

Once I’d realised that, I realised that there are two possible options. Either, that person thought their comment was necessary, so I need to work on showing more outwardly that it isn’t, and that I know what I’m doing. Or, that person didn’t think about the potential impact of their comment on me, and that’s cool too because I get that it’s a big mental load, and that people don’t always interrogate what they say before they say it, and it wasn’t said in malice.

And now I feel better, and I’ve learned something too. And it’s only Wednesday.

April Resolutions IV

Fun, Life

Ok, I admit it. I’m late this year. As I’m sure you know, I don’t hold with New Year’s Resolutions, because I disbelieve anyone who thinks they can change their habits in January, the saddest month of the year. So I do mine in April instead, as Spring is starting, the birds are singing, and things seem possible again.

Of the things I claimed I’d do last year, I feel I can reasonably say I’ve achieved 3 of my 5 aims.

  • Bake more – hard yes.
  • Walk more – again, big yes. I walk to and from work, to and from rehearsals when I can, to and from choir. I walk everywhere. It’s brill.
  • Exercise – this one is a no. I am dancing (maybe we can pretend that) at rehearsals, and doing the walking, but I haven’t managed the workout regime I dreamt of last April.
  • Keep my house clean – listen. It’s not that it’s not clean. It’s just not as clean as it could be. If I tried harder.
  • Make more friends – I have. A couple of weeks ago I FINALLY had a housewarming, a year after moving into my house, and 20 people came. It is definitely the most successful party I have ever had, and it was honestly lovely.

(as a side note, on reviewing the opening paragraph from last year, and the one from this year – I’m weirdly obsessed with birdsong)

Moving swiftly on – let’s talk about this year. My resolutions are:

  • Read more books. In the last few years I have really lost my passion for reading, and I plan on reclaiming it.
  • Visit more of my local area. It’s brill, and beautiful, and I should see it.
  • Eat sensibly. I am not great at eating the best things, at the best prices, or the best times. So I plan on fixing that a little bit.
  • Worry less about the noises in my house (but fix more of them). My house makes a great many noises, and I need to learn that most of them are nothing. And also get my central heating fixed.
  • Make beautiful and interesting things.

Let’s see how I do. Check back in next year for a full update.

#BalanceforBetter

Language, Rant, Work

Let’s talk about equity. The conversation we still apparently have to have once a year on International Women’s Day.

It was a few days ago that I began to hear the rumblings. And the rumblings turned into murmurings, and the murmurings turned into whinings, and suddenly I find myself here and now, deafened by the outraged brigades of people shouting their mantra as loudly as possible –

“We should be working towards equality, not feminism”

And listen. I get it. You think you’re on the right side of history. So once again, let me just explain why equality doesn’t work how you want it to, and feminism isn’t a dirty word. The criticism is often that feminism is too woman-centric (hah) and that to have a truly fair society, we should be blind to the differences created by gender.

But here’s the thing y’all. Those differences exist whether you like it or not, and so just treating everyone equally doesn’t fix the problems. And feminism is very woman-centric. Because it’s about women. This is important, so I’ll say it again for the self-defining men in the back. It’s not about you.

Today at work, to mark International Women’s Day, we ran a campaign where self-defining women could get a cup of tea or coffee with a 22.5% reduction, to highlight the gender pay gap at the University of Leeds (our parent institution). And immediately, the rumblings began. It’s discrimination, it’s not fair, you’re doing more harm than good. Why don’t you just treat people equally?

Well. Can we just unpick this a second. Referring back to my earlier point, let’s start with the fact that it’s not about you. Self-defining men are in no way disadvantaged by this campaign. It’s the same hot drink you bought yesterday with no quibble, and the same hot drink is available to you tomorrow. Your conditions have not been altered in the slightest, and in fact, it’s a very reasonably priced product to begin with.

All that has happened is that (in a relatively tokenistic way), we have highlighted the fact that a woman on the University of Leeds campus is likely (according to the statistics) to have on average 22.5% less money to spend on a given product.

The equitable response, therefore, is to make products 22.5% cheaper for women, right?

Now, of course on a large scale, that’s wrong (I’ve seen this referred to as deficit thinking – masking the root cause of the inequitable situation by providing equity through a solution rather than resolving the underlying problem). Products cost what they cost, and they don’t discriminate by gender, or by any other protected characteristic for that matter. Coffee beans are not inherently sexist.

The important thing about this campaign is that it is just influencing on the level we are able to influence, by providing a level of equity between men and women on Leeds campus, and highlighting an existing disparity in their financial positions. If it is successful, it will help highlight to key people the importance of working on reducing the gender pay gap, and creating greater equity for women*. The logic behind the gender pay gap still isn’t widely understood and a lot of people still cite equal pay legislation as a reason that the GPG just “doesn’t exist”,  so to back up my points I thought I’d share a handy video on the subject.

So, what does all of this actually mean? It means if you want to claim that other people getting discounted coffee is discrimination against you, despite the fact that absolutely nothing about your situation has changed in any way, you need to spend some more time considering why you’re so angry about an organisation trying to support people who are not being treated equitably by the system.

Because that is about you, and I’m not sure it’s a good thing.

Try- Dry- Veg-

Fun, Language

In the style of Only Connect (which I’ve recently begun catching up on, and Victoria Coren-Mitchell is just ever so fabulous), my post title today is a guess-the-connection challenge.

A fairly poor challenge, given I’m about to explain, but let’s ignore that for a second.

The context is -anuary. Or, January. As in, first month of the year (according to the Gregorian calendar), everyone is sad, everything is cold, and we all have to do work we’d forgotten existed for a brief time over the festive period.

How do we solve the January Blues you ask?

We create ridiculous challenges for ourselves, and give them silly nicknames, that’s what. Following on the heels of Steptember, Stoptober, and Movember, welcome to a whole series of bizarre things you can do in January. To caveat this post, I’m not doing any of these things – not for the entire month at least.

  1. Veganuary
    Ok, so I’ve gotten a bit involved in this already, accidentally. By having vegan friends. And by wanting to annoy the anti-vegan-sausage-roll-brigade because honestly, that just feels like fun. So far I’ve had vegan chili chips, and vegan mac n cheese, and I’ve not hated either
  2. Dry January
    I have donated to other people doing this. I have had a number of days where I haven’t had an alcoholic drink. But honestly, it’s just not that huge of a challenge for me since I don’t drink that much anyway, and why do a challenge that’s not a challenge?
  3. Tryanuary
    In an unexpected reversal of fortunes, I’ve started to see things around about ‘tryanuary’ which is where you spend this month trying new beer. Which honestly is probably more my speed, if only because the pub is probably warmer than my freezing house
  4. RED January
    Wear red in January for mental health. Not a terrible idea. Except that I don’t want to wear aggressive colours right now. I want to wear black, and possibly occasionally grey. I am all about improving mental health, but I honestly think people wearing red around me would be negative at this point
  5. Manuary
    In what I consider to be a slightly poor PR exercise, Manuary encourages you to grow a beard to raise funds for head and neck cancer. In Canada. In 2017. Which probably shows that I was surprised at how few January-themed “punths” there actually are.
  6. Janu-hairy
    Listen, you’re being silly now

So, I’m not subscribed to any of the above. It’s all a bit much for me, and I feel like launching Elevensanuary, which is where you’re only expected to be places by 11am, because the world hasn’t woken up before then. I think it’ll catch on.

525,948.766 Minutes

Fun, Life, Music

In 2011 I posted a different story with the title 525,600 minutes – in which I found that the song is incorrect in suggesting that is how one should measure a year.

This year, I have decided to measure my year in shows I have seen or participated in, because I figured it was probably a lot. But honestly, I feel like I’ve been writing for hours now, which I think shows that I potentially spend too much money on this stuff.

January
Aladdin – my first LIDOS experience, trying to shift book flats 3 times my height
February
Hello Dolly – supporting the MD, at the Alhambra
Rent – honestly, I only stayed for half
Marriage of Figaro – OperaSoc (who nailed it)
Madame Butterfly – Opera North
Un Ballo In Maschera – Also Opera North
March
Don Giovanni – I really like Opera North (also I got the keys to my house on this day, and my wonderful friend Lorna was the lead, it was amazing)
All Shook Up – Probably the best student show I saw this year
The Mikado – I helped build the set for this Leeds G&S production
The Pirates – Northern Opera Group resurrected this little-known show with a wonderful community cast
April
Salome – Dramatic and in the town hall
The Rileys – (it counts)
May
Orpheus in the Underworld – Another fab outing from OperaSoc, reminding us that #rushtonmustplaybass
My Favorite Murder live – My fave American story ladies told stories about murders and it was great
Hamilton – I HAVE NO WORDS
June
The Wedding Singer – high points of being in this show included being a hideous bridesmaid and “dancing in a club”
Guys and Dolls – more supporting of friends in their excellent ventures
July
Leeds Haydn Players – more friends, awesome music
Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – watched this live-streamed to the cinema. Didn’t love the plot, but the set was AMAZING
August
Macbeth – visited good friends in York for an adventure to Shakespeare’s Rose Theatre
The Original Chinese Conjurer – part of the Left Bank Opera Festival, and I was lucky enough to host one of the cast
La Princesse Jaune – another Left Bank Opera show
Calcutta – the final Left Bank Opera show, by the fabulous ensemble Tempus Fugit
September
Joel Dommett – he made jokes about the theatre I built, but I liked him anyway
Sister Act – more talented friends, this time more than one in the same show
October
The Merry Widow – back to Opera North
Light Night – Leeds’ annual festival of light installations (worse in the rain)
Tosca – Opera North, but with the most insane set on Earth
Matilda – horribly talented children
The Dresden Dolls – one of the best gigs I have ever been to, or will ever go to
November
Left Bank Choir Festival – singing pretty music with a number of choirs from the city
Chicago – more talented friends (it’s actually quite sickening how many talented people I know)
Urinetown – comedy from LUUMT
West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra – more talented friends (plus fun locations and great music)
December
In The Heights – I only saw the tech run of this, and it was still incredible
Six – History meets Little Mix. I bought the album
Ross Noble – He says a lot of words, and most of them are funny, and many of them are chihuahua
LVM Winter Concert – The best thing I’ve done this year. Watch the video below. For serious.
Shrek the Musical – Birthday theatre to top off the year

I don’t “do” new years’ resolutions, but if I can continue the trend above next year, I think I’ll be pretty happy. I already have my eye on a number of upcoming community shows as usual, and I’m starting my year with another panto (Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs, come!)

Also next year I’ll try and write more. Maybe. Probably.

See you in 2019!