[Acrylic-bob]

Well now here we are, there's absolutely no reason to be so aggresively defensive Gayle dear. I was merely attempting to establish the basis for a rational discussion. As I am sure you are aware I have been absent from the site for quite some time, due to pressures of work, and so I need to get my bearings, so to speak, re the shifting palette of local alliances. I am sure you understand and will humour me.

Now then, first things first, Thank you Gayle dear, for your very kind invitation to attend your next public meeting and also for the suggestion that I might like to consider sitting on your board. It really is very sweet of you to think of me, but I am afraid I shall have to decline on this occaision. I am sure all those frightfully energetic young people you will be mixing with would not really welcome an old fogey like me pouring the cold water of reality on their lovely creative ambitions. After all, as I think I have mentioned before, my degree specialism is in Fine Art, not one of those ever so trendy new media and communications jobbies that are currently so popular. I overheard talk on the market that even Accrington and Rosendale are dishing them out now...whatever next? I know you are going to be dreadfully upset and crushed by this news, but really, once you have dried your tears and had a jolly good blow, you will realise it is probably for the best. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet here, I think I would be far more valuable as a sort of agony aunt. You know, the sort of thing old Marge Proops, bless her, used to get up to. I always find that my analysis can be much more dispassionate and clinical when performed at a distance.

Now, I was intending to do a "fisk" as I think it is called, of your splendid post concerning your new project at the civic theatre. but that could well take all night and I don't know about you dear but I am not getting any younger and time is precious, so I will try and keep this as brief and to the point as I can.

As I think I have mentioned before I cannot fault your enthusiasm dear, it does you credit, indeed you must be one of the most exhaustingly enthusiastic people at HBC, which is not a bad thing. Let's face it dear, most of them could do with either putting out to grass or having a box of Standard fireworks shoved where the sun will never shine! (please excuse the gratuitously offensive comments, I'm getting in practice for when I achieve my pension book, Most pensioners I know are content to grow old disgracefully - I intend to be spectacular and an example to all who follow!) Where was I? Oh, yes, 'enthusiasm'. A commodity to be admired and expected, certainly, but it can also be a two edged sword and lead some to putting the cart before the horse, as it were. You have to realise that you are working in a town and a borough that has never paid anything but the most insincere and insipid lip service to the notion and benefits of the Arts. I know for a fact that several former Town Clerks would happily have sold Haworth Art Gallery and its collections off to the highest bidder without batting an eye if they had thought they could have gotten away with it. But they couldn't, and the gallery has been left short of funds, direction and interest since the outbreak of World War II. For the truth of this statement you might ask Councillor Britcliffe when was the last time that the Gallery had an aquisitions fund and what it amounted to; if you think you can bear the shock! You might also bear in mind that it was the same Britcliffe who withdrew from Mid Pennine and set his face against the Panopticon project.

You seem to have this wonderfully rosy idea that a couple of video cameras and a photo exhibition will stem the tide of creative talent leaving the borough for pastures more condusive. In a borough that knows little of the Arts, and cares even less, that is a pretty forlorn hope. Even on an unlimited budget it would be an uphill struggle and would probably take more than one lifetime to accomplish. You, alas, are granted neither. I do not want to sound unduly negative here dear, but facts must be faced. For the majority of the population of Hyndburn The Arts are either what a load of toffee nosed gits up in London do or it is something that scruffy students get up to. As long as they have their flat pack furniture from Ikea, the latest CD from whatever Karaoke show the telly is pumping out at the moment and a fridge full of WKD most of them are blisfully happy. Attempting to preach to them about the value of aesthetics or that there might be an alternative way of communicating their emotions that does not involve pop music, loads of make up, clothes that barely satisfy the requirements of decency and puking most of the evening's consumption into the gutter at the end of the night, is going to be a hard call. I do not envy you, not one bit!

You made much in your post about local groups being very much in favour of the project. to be honest dear if you said you were going to lead a procession up and down Union Street with an orange on a stick you would probably get much the same response, and as for encouragement from the Police! Let me confide to you a terrible secret: the most that the police know about art is that there are certain sections of the population who, if not trying to nick it are busy defacing it, and there I am afraid their interest and understanding ends.

Has it ever occurred that you might, more profitably, try cutting your suit according to your cloth as opposed to doing it the other way round? Rather than attempt to spread a meagre budget too thinly by doing a multitude of things, Might you not be better advised to do perhaps one or two things really well? And while we are talking about budgets, you do realise that there is a General Election taking place in a few weeks, and that most of the hoo-haa surrounds the fact that both major parties dare not spell out to the electorate the exact extent of the the cuts that are going to be necessary over the coming decade. I have heard it estimated that if the country wishes to avoid outright bankruptcy that a cut in government expenditure of 50% of GDP will be required this year alone. 50% of GDP is an astronomic figure. It will involve massive unemployment on a scale not seen since the 1930's. The government has already taken massive amounts from the lottery to fund the Olympics, when the brown stuff hits the fan do you seriously consider that they will have any compunction about taking whatever is left? And when they do, where will the funding for your arts centre come from then dear?

There is so much more that I want to discuss with you but it will have to wait until next time, or this post will become unmanageable.