FUN!!

 

The last blog I put out was treated with icy British disdain by the general public; who stayed away from it in droves (Well, ok: in larger droves than usual). They didn't even click on to it. They simply read the title and strap-line, thought "Eeeuww!" and kept on scrolling down for something more wholesome.

What had I done? Had I f-bombed them in unceasing assaults? Had I perhaps given altogether TMI about my uterus - currently prolapsing away even as we speak? Did I tell the story of my twat-tatt? Had I, in my abysmal ignorance (ye gods, not again. Please!) made bold and airy use of some word which is anathema in every corner of the British Isles?

Unfortunately, it turned out to be the latter.

And the word - which by now, doubtless, you'll be agog to know? 

I have no way of whispering it gently into your shell-like to reduce its loathsomeness slightly. I must throw it down like a gauntlet. Yet I'll present it prettily as I can.

The word that must not be named, above all others is........whiskers.

Now, I merely bring this to your notice:

a) for the benefit of those embarking upon research forays for as yet unwritten theses. This conclusion could prove beneficial in any number of fields.

b) to explain why I have put aside the perfectly good essay entitled "My First Day in a Chinese University" - with a proper beginning, middle and end - and decided to talk about fun.

c) because damn it all - it's about bloody time we had some!!

Take a second or two to think about it.  When was the last time you had fun?

Now:  let's take booze and drugs out of the mix - and think again. 

I'm not talking about the last time you got hammered. I'm talking about the last time you laughed till your belly ached? Or threw yourself down on the grass exhausted and  drained physically, but absolutely fizzing mentally? When did you last get the giggles? When did you last take a dare? Or look around yourself (sober!) and think "Bloody good bunch, this lot, love 'em to bits?"

This isn't  the set-up or lead-in to some sort of  campaign  trying to lure people away from the demon alcohol, or the pernicious influence of The Drug Scene. This is just blatant curiosity about our depleted fun-levels right now. And the memory of the fact that, even pre-Covid, not all that many of us were having too much fun in our lives. 

Now when I first arrived in China my very first class were a group of 3rd year students - the first crop of Little Princes & Princesses (as products of the One-Child Policy were dubbed) - to go to Uni. They were so painfully shy; so utterly lacking in the ability to use the mind for anything other than learning; so repressed; they were almost robotic. And yet, I could make them laugh. Well, titters or suppressed giggles mainly, with hands clapped over mouths...but that was all I needed to know: they weren't robots.

So I took them all out to a large patch of soft green grass next to a stream and framed by weeping willows - and taught them all to play.

I dredged up games from ancient Primary school days,  from children's parties; from the Internet; and made up others: and wow! Wasn't it fun. And boy! Didn't it work wonders! 

It's been 10 years since I last played games on the grass, beneath the trees. And I discovered, as Covid has brought thoughts of mortality to most of our minds, that it horrified me to think that was it: I'd never get to do it again. No chance ever to plot in whispers with the team, or plan strategies, or descend upon rivals with deafening shrieks, or crafty stealth; or to dodge between trees and bushes evading escape by the enemy.

At the same time I also came into contact with a group of middle-aged to older women who said the fun  that was missing in their lives was the fun of dancing.  They all felt they were too old for the Club Scene; and parties where people danced were few and far between. Some regretted they'd never learnt to learn the old dances like waltzing; others that they didn't know how to dance these days. Some had never danced in their lives, but wished they had. That broke my heart.

I thought of China, where every park and square on summer evenings is decorated with fairy lights or lanterns. And solemn middle-aged men in suits and women in cocktail dresses; as well as young adults in jeans and sweat-shirts, dance beneath the trees. You could ask anyone at all to dance - and I seldom made it through a park  when I was on my way home without  someone laughingly inviting me to dance.  Once I even found myself doing a beautiful, Viennese Waltz with a plastic washing up bowl I'd just bought in one hand and a small dog in the other, and a very small man in a brown suit, hands clasped firmly but decorously around my waist, swirling me up and down beneath the lanterns.

So "Hmmm" I thought to myself when I heard the ladies' laments.

In the short space of time between the end of the 2nd sorta-lockdown and this one, I met a couple of blokes who thought fun was doing stand-up comedy; heaps of girls who had always wanted to have a go at Burlesque; people who thought a good game of chess couldn't be beaten for fun; and those who loved nothing better than to sit down and play board-games. There were people who desperately wanted to try skate-boarding or roller-blading; some that wished they could learn how to draw the things around them, or get into Anime; there were people who admitted they'd always loved skipping but considered themselves far too old for that sort of thing. And there were also quite a few who giggled at the idea of playing games but admitted that, if others were up for it they'd give it a go.

And what do all these people have in common? 

Nothing much.

Which is my point. All of them live in my neighbourhood; none of them knows each other; some of them know no-one; lots of them don't have much fun in between work and home and worrying about money. And some of them find it impossible to find fun sitting isolated in a Council flat or Student Accom.

At a cost of millions Brighton & Hove Council has reconstructed part of Regency Brighton in an area which stretches from the Pavilion to Saint Peters church and is called Valley Gardens. Since I arrived it had been nothing more than a noxious hang-out for druggies, the homeless, and drunkards. We couldn't walk dogs there or let children play because the whole are was dotted with sharps.

And now it's wonderful! A joyous space of wild-garden, generously shady trees, and paths which are pram and wheelchair friendly. It's a community space. And we are a community...thus it's OUR space.

So who's the 'community'?  It's hundreds of students, many of them far away from their own friends and families.  It's widows (like one who told me that the reason she couldn't dance now was because "It's having no-one to dance with that's the problem. At my age, dear, all the men have died off. They don't last as long as we do.") And it's single mums, and immigrants and fathers whose wives and children are waiting in their home country.

It's also actors and artists and sculptors and singers and magicians; and people who are sublime cooks, or mad-keen gardners; or historians, or IT workers, or story tellers or teachers or delivery drivers...we're an enormous rich, varied, source of talent and shared dreams; who share the same space.

The reason I've been MIA this last time is because the events in America on January 6th shattered me for a while.  But if nothing else, I think it powerfully indicated how a bifurcation between 'us' and 'them' works out: and not being of a practical bent am unsure about how we go about preventing that. But it would seem that, on a National level, no government is ever going to be able to do that. In the meantime, until our futures are all rosy again, why not have Fun?

I'm throwing this out there now because - even simplistically broken down as I did it - I think we're going to take a lot of healing when this is all over; and a lot of resilience and support to accept that our financial future is uncertain. To mourn our losses, to adjust to a new Normal. And I think that fun is going to become a National Necessity.

So: how about it? Does anyone else recognise the grave importance of fun not just to each individual but as part of our environment? Can we risk letting go of the concept of fun? We're all at a stage in which fun has been in short supply and - dunno about anyone else - but I'm gagging for it.

We are all powerless right now. That's one of the factors that has led to so much anxiety and fear.  We are reliant on a government to run our lives at the moment and many people feel as though they have no agency at all. But we do - WE are the only ones who can bring fun back to our lives. Again: it's impossible to mandate.

So I'm gonna give it a go. I can't help look after people who are ill. I don't have the power to heal those who are hurting. I don't have a practical bone in my body and have a raging allergy towards bureaucracy.  But, hey, I have a lifetime of fun to look back on. 

Yes, there is so much work ahead of us - fighting for equality, taking stands against racism, trying to oppose misogyny, increasing minimum wages...there are a myriad of wrongs in our lives which  seriously need addressing. But there is no cause, ideal, human right, which will languish and die if we introduce fun back into our lives.

So, whaddya reckon? Should fun be something we should seriously consider as part of our healing, part of our causes, part of  our lives? That's what I'd say if I proposed the idea to Brighton & Hove Council: that our community wants to use their community space to have fun in. Nothing more. No fund-raising, no cause other than 'avin' a bit of a larf, innit?

I'm sure there are spaces in every town & village across the country where people could get together to have fun? To share a single imperative: to laugh and giggle

Don't you think it would help to pass the time? 

Or am I just in the fond embrace of a bi-polar high? (Sigh).