Writing with a spring in my step

Well hello again everyone. I hope things have been good since we last convened. If you happen to live in the south of England, you should at least have enjoyed the glorious spring weather of the past week. Wall-to-wall sunshine, clear blue skies and temperatures in the teens have all added up to surefire evidence of spring having arrived. Sadly, however, you just know that it can't last and when this kind of weather should be prevalent come May, the wind and the rain will arrive. Guess we will just have to make the most of it while it lasts. But it is noticeable how people are more cheerful when the weather is good, and with much of what is happening at the moment being bleak and miserable, that is a much needed tonic.

As with a couple of my recent blog posts, I have decided to split up the blog to talk about a few different things that have gathered in my mind on train journeys to and from work and also through walking in the glorious weather of recent days. Better get cracking then I guess.

1. Komedia's troubles are no laughing matter
For those readers of this blog who, like me, are resident in Brighton, you will probably have read in the past week or so of the Komedia's current financial travails where it potentially may have to close as a result of unsettled debts to some of its key suppliers. For those who are not resident in Brighton and don't know what the Komedia is, basically it is a community theatre in the heart of Brighton's North Laine area which over the past 10 years has grown into being a popular niche comedy and entertainments venue in the city.

The Komedia was established back in the 1990s initially as a small, backstreet theatre which opened up in a small street off of St James's Street, close to the Palace Pier. A few years later as the Komedia's popularity grew and it started to draw more mainstream support in addition to its traditional student roots, the theatre relocated to its present location in the North Laine area of Brighton and over the years it has played host to up and coming comedians from the stand-up circuit, as well as a host of live music acts.

I can well remember the North Laine area before the Komedia arrived and in fact can remember what was at the present site of the Komedia before it became an entertainments venue. It was the Jubilee Shopping Hall, which was kind of like an indoor market traders' parade, with plenty of tat for sale at knockdown tat prices. Back in my misspent youth I used to be an avid computer games player and I used to buy games for my Commodore 64 from the computer games shop there for anything up from 50 pence. Back then, North Laine was seen as one of the rundown areas of Brighton which was given a wide berth by both residents and visitors to Brighton alike.

This recollection is highlighted particularly because the North Laine area has enjoyed a renaissance in the past decade and is now one of the most thriving, bustling areas in Brighton, with a mix of small independent traders, as well as a diverse choice of pubs, cafes and restaurants covering the main streets in the vicinity and the city's main library and museum situated close by. When the Brighton Festival occurs in May, North Laine can expect to experience a healthy portion of the action. While I would stop short of attributing North Laine's rejuvenation simply being down to the Komedia moving there, it has without a doubt played a significant role in the regeneration of the area.

So this begs the question, what has gone wrong with the Komedia? Well, the key thing to remember is that the Komedia is a not-for-profit organisation. This is something of an oxymoron in some respects because, after all, every business needs to make some kind of profit to keep running. But the Komedia is not set up for profitable purposes, the only income it makes is through takings at the theatre, admission fees, people drinking at the bar. The trouble is that the venue is relatively small and so breaking even against the cost of putting on a show is always going to be a recurring challenge.

What has intensified the problem for Komedia though has been the withdrawal of Arts Council funding. Having worked in the voluntary sector for much of my professional life to date, I can appreciate the problem that this will have presented. It stands to reason that wherever an organisation is largely reliant upon a single source of funding and that funding then discontinues, the rug will be removed from under the feet of those charged with running the business.

The world of funding, particularly where charitable grants and donations are concerned is a minefield where the funding provider is constantly looking for evidence of where its money is being spent and are sticklers for issuing caveats over what they will allow their money to be spent on and what they will not. I suppose that is fair enough, I mean let's face it, if any of us gave a donation of £100,000 to a business, we would insist on knowing where the money went and would request that it went into a worthy development rather than taking the business in an inappropriate direction.

And this appears to be where the Komedia upset the Arts Council to the point that the Arts Council withdrew its funding. The Arts Council wanted its money to be spent on the Komedia showcasing cultural talent from across the spectrum of the arts, whereas Komedia has tried to stay close to its comedic roots and attract people to the venue who will drink at the bar while they are there watching a gig or a live comedian. The Arts Council have taken the view that the type of entertainment Komedia is offering does not quite fit in with the more high brow, culture vulture oriented entertainment they want their money spent on and so they withdrew their funding, not least because they also took the view that Komedia did not need their funding because it is making income from having a bar.

Sadly, this is not an atypical example of the bureaucracy that exists amongst funding panels. All too often their agendas are decided by what a few committee members with tunnel vision sitting in a room want to see, rather than what is representative of what the wider public want. And unfortunately, because of the current economic crisis, funding agencies want to award less money but for greater outputs. While larger charities with more resources at their disposal can find strategies for dealing with this, this is bound to place a gradual strain on a smaller charity, where key workers are often part-time workers or may even work on a voluntary basis, as I believe some do at the Komedia.

This is not to say Komedia's owners are exempt from blame in how they come to be in their current plight. Clearly some bad decisions have been made by their top level managers and the business model that they have been operating has been shown to be flawed. You could also say that not enough consideration had been made by management towards an "exit strategy" for if their funding was withdrawn, as it now has. Most significantly though, they need to take responsibility for the confused way in which the Komedia has been positioned. The Komedia is an independent theatre and yet is trying to win more mainstream support while it is wishing to be a promoter of cultural events but is still most well renowned for its comedy evenings, not least because of its name. Komedia has tried to be all things for all seasons and so the paying customer is not quite sure where they stand, while they have also been preturbed by excessive admission prices and bar prices.

Where Komedia goes from here is difficult to say, but it certainly would be facing a grim future if the creditors that it owes money to are not satisfied with the payment plans it has which would seem to be to pay back less than the full outstanding amount. The voluntary sector relies on a certain amount of goodwill, but as Komedia has failed to deliver in the past, it would not be surprising to hear of creditors rebuffing these proposals and insisting on being reimbursed for the full amount.

The Komedia may not be the best entertainment venue in Brighton, but it has nonetheless played an important part in the regeneration of the North Laine area over the past decade. Given that Brighton is always actively selling itself as one of the entertainment capitals of the country, it is important that it retains a range of venues that offer those that like to be entertained outside of their home with a wide choice of entertainments and activities to sample. Losing the Komedia would be a blow to such an aspiration, so it is to be hoped that a strategy can be put in place to sustain the Komedia not just in the short term but over a longer period.

It may mean that the theatre needs to tap into some of the local business expertise and establish some alliances with some wealthy backers, and it may also mean having to consider being run more like a business. If tapping into this kind expertise can develop the Komedia and introduce a more coherent strategy, then "selling out" might prove to be a necessary evil and certainly preferable to hitting the wall.

2. Cheats can never truly prosper
Being something of an athletics fan, I had mixed feelings at Dwain Chambers's recent success at the Indoor Athletics Championships in the 60 metres, where he won the gold medal. On the one hand, I admired Chambers for having the guts to stand up and be counted and compete against many fellow athletes who will have been less than pleased to see him lining up against them. On the other, Chambers has always struck me as being a difficult man to like and although in the cold light of day, he has realised the error of his ways, he has not shown complete remorse for having taken performance enhancing drugs back in 2003, which led to his ban from competition.

In a way though, Chambers's success in the 60 metres in a British record time was quite possibly the best anti-drugs message that could have been made. After all, here is an athlete who we have to assume until proven otherwise is now running "clean" and he has gone and posted his best ever time over that distance without the influence of drugs, rather than when he had taken drugs.

Chambers is now 30 years old and I am sure he has had many moments of quiet reflection over the past few years where he has had cause within the confines of his own kitchen or living room to regret his misguided actions six years ago. Sadly, there is a paranoia within athletics and particularly within sprint races where every millisecond counts in order to be first to the finishing line and athletes sometimes will take a risk in order to get the gold, not least because many athletes feel that if they are not taking something, then some of their competitors will be. This is a sad state of affairs, but we live in a culture where a win at all costs mentality is often prevalent, not least where the corrupting influence of a not insignificant sum of money is involved.

The price Chambers has to pay for his foolish decision that he made when he was 23 years old is that these days he can only be a jobbing athlete. He is banned for life from competing in the Olympics, the blue riband event of his sport. His place at the World Championships later this year has not yet been ratified by the IAAF either. Meanwhile, the lucrative Grand Prix circuit, which offers athletes the chance to win prize money and appearance money through participation in their meetings, also appears to be a no-go area for Chambers. It is hard to feel sympathy for Chambers, as he did bring this all on himself, but he has served his 2 year ban from the sport and so perhaps, with the exception of the Olympics, it is time for him to complete his rehabilitation.

The daft thing for Chambers is that he is now probably at his absolute peak as an athlete. His win in a record time at the Indoors the other week was no coincidence. Not only has he seemingly got himself remarkably fit using legitimate methods, but he is now a more astute athlete than he was back in 2003. He always had the raw pace but lacked the temperament to bring the best out of his ability. It may be because he now sees himself as having a point to prove that Chambers has stepped up a gear, or more likely, it is just the ageing process. Linford Christie won Olympic gold at the age of 32 and in fact saved his best races for when he was past the 30 mark.

I'm not suggesting Chambers could take on Usain Bolt and come out on top, as clearly Bolt is an extraordinary athlete. But I do think that Chambers's success at the Indoor Championships will surely have been a bittersweet moment for him. He will have been happy to win and certainly happy to answer his critics. But when he relaxed in the ice bath afterwards, Chambers would not have been human if a part of him did not think ruefully back to his decision to take performance enhancing drugs in 2003 because his indoor gold medal proved that what was needed to enhance his performance was already inside him, in the form of self-belief.

Victory in that race must have brought home to Chambers how he had thrown away a promising career which he had the capacity to shape himself. It was a bad decision that Chambers made and I think he has made another bad call recently in releasing an autobiography that is supposedly critical of other athletes and of athletics officials in their handling of him. At a time when Chambers is needing to win any meal ticket he can, isolating himself further by re-opening old wounds is not the most advisable tactic and could rebound on him. If Chambers really needed to write his version of events, it would have been best to leave it until after he has hung up his spikes.

3. Quality not quantity is key for universities
There has been much debate and discussion recently about the levels of people going to university and of the proposals for tuition fees for students to increase. Understandably, there is an argument that has a sound basis that says that greater tuition fees will only result in university education becoming more elitist and will prove to be inaccessible for students who might well have the academic skills and inclination but whose parents lack the bank balance or American Express gold card. Clearly the best efforts must be made to ensure that a university education is a privilege bestowed on the most talented rather than the wealthiest students, but I think realistically we all know that the classless society that supposedly exists in the UK now is complete Utopia.

It is fair to say I come from a background where I would have been born with a plastic spoon in my mouth rather than a silver one and as such if I was starting at university now rather than in 1997, I just would not stand a chance of completing the course. I was quite fortunate in that I finished university just before student maintenance grants were done away with and so I was able to get through my four years at my Alma Mater, the University of Brighton, without incurring a massive amount of student debt. It helped that I was still living at home at the time, as I recall that some of my fellow students that graduated in the hot summer of 2001 incurred debts that ate a considerable chunk out of the starting salary in their first postgraduate job. It is no coincidence that more students are living at home now while an undergraduate since tuition fees were introduced and grants abolished.

The one fundamental flaw that the Labour Government has with regards to its higher education policy is the frankly absurd notion that 50% of all students in any given year should go to university. This is just impractical and does not do anyone any favours, the universities end up being oversubscribed, students who have no real motivation to be educated sign up because it means they can put off getting a job for three years (or six if you study Architecture) and invariably it is these kinds of students who drop out of a course after one term, while the students who do want to learn end up in crowded lectures and seminars.

The problem that the Government's "50% target" has brought about is that universities have increased the admission levels on their courses but they have only managed to do this by relaxing the clearance system. I remember a couple of things from my final year at university that home how the clearance system was no longer working as an adequate filter as universities became more obsessed with quantity rather than quality.

I left university some eight years ago now (you have no idea just how old that makes me feel). But even back then it was becoming evident how the clearance system was being relaxed. I remember speaking to a lecturer near the end of my time at university and they remarked on how the Business Studies course in my year had 120 students on the course, but in the equivalent course for the first years that year, there were over 200 students. I don't know for definite, but I would estimate that the freshers for the equivalent course in this academic year will be significantly more.

The other incident that brought home to me how the relaxation of the clearance system had resulted in a drop in standards was when I came to do an assignment in my last year at uni that saw me having to mentor two first year students. The two students I was mentoring had to supply me with a CV that contained their educational achievements. Now, when I applied for university you needed 4 A-C grades at GCSE level in order to be accepted for a place. However, I recall that at least one of the CVs I perused fell short of that number and also included a grade D in their A-level Business Studies, the very subject they were studying at degree level! I found the step up from doing GNVQ Business in my first year at uni a big one and I got a distinction, so I would have thought that this would have been a massive transition for the student whose CV it was.

As well as the Government's objective of getting 50% of further education students into higher education, the Government is also looking to push through a motion to raise the compulsory school leaving age to 18 from 16. I also believe this to be a flawed move because all it will result in will be more teenagers who are demotivated and want to leave education who are forced to stay in education and therefore will disrupt the progress of those who want to learn and possibly go to university. The great thing about sixth form is that it is a halfway house between school and uni. The culture is different to school, there is no "Yes Sir" or "Yes Miss", the tutor expects to be called by their name and because the vast majority of students at sixth form are happy to be there and because they are away from the more mentally deteriorating aspects of life at school, there is very little animosity at sixth form and so this proves to be conducive to learning.

Sixth form being the halfway house it is also provides a transitional period and so teenagers can gradually evolve into adults as they become acclimatised to a less formal, rules based setting. The problem is that if you make it compulsory to stay at school until 18, this transitional period is going to be eroded and the leap up to university will be steeper, while students that no longer want to be at school/college beyond their sixteenth birthday will be a disruptive influence on those that do.

The fact of the matter is that not everyone can be an academic. In fact, there are not enough jobs to go round for those who have an academic background. Too often universities shelter their students and paint them an unrealistic picture of what life will be like after they have attended the graduation ball and after they have picked up their scroll while wearing an oversized cloak and mortarboard. Some well meaning Careers Advisor will tell students about what sort of average starting salary they can expect when they get their first graduate job. The little bit of the small print they neglect to inform their students of is that there are only a finite amount of graduate specific jobs available, for the rest it is a case of starting from the bottom and working your way up like any other employee would.

Instead of overcrowding universities with students not up to the mark or detaining schoolchildren who have enough of their kipper tie and dodgy tuck shop rolls by the time they hit sixteen, the Government should be doing more to encourage those who found academia a struggle to get into learning a trade or accessing support to set up a business. If you look at some of the most well known entrepreneurs in the media gaze, Sir Alan Sugar, Duncan Bannatyne and Sir Richard Branson are all examples of entrepreneurs who were not outstanding scholars. But all of them had the drive, graft and entrepreneurial instinct to be their own boss at a pretty young age. Even Ian Beale showed his entrepreneurial talents by running the Meal Machine in his early 20s!

It would be good if schools, colleges and job centres could establish more links with local TECs to provide young people with the support they need to contemplate running a business without going through the conventional higher education route and which could provide support in planning the key things to get a business idea off the ground, such as writing a business plan, approaching a bank with a financial projection and dealing with tax.

There does seem to have been a recent rethink by the Government which has seen apprenticeships promoted as a viable alternative. This is a step in the right direction. OK, so the manufacturing industry is in terminal decline and so there will be a shortage of opportunities in those traditional jobs. But there are plenty of manual trades that non-academic youths can be trained for and which they may be most suited to, be they builders, plumbers, mechanics or electricians. And crucially, these are all professions that can lead to the opportunity for self-employment.

Maybe it would also be an idea for students to learn trades at university. I am not suggesting that any prospective electricians get let loose on rewiring the student common room nor do I advocate the wannabe chefs serving up dinner in the cafeteria, although I dare say some of their efforts would not be worse than the dumpy mashed potato fayre that is sometimes on offer. But a university based course to train to be a plumber which also gives the student practical first hand experience of the job could prove to be beneficial.

I recently encountered someone I knew from school who did not achieve academically and had no desire to go to university. However, he is a classic example of someone that has done well through his own hard graft and perseverance and he is now a qualified electrician who is running his own business.

This just brings home to me that while university can be a fantastic experience for many, it does not lead you to a promised land with a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. For those that are gifted academically and who have a good idea of where they want to go afterwards and where a specific qualification is essential, then university is right for them. But there are others whose skills lie away from academia and who should be given the best possible support in tapping into these skills at an early age.

There is too much emphasis on the quantity of intake at universities now due to Government policy and also due to simple economics. But the more that universities choose to relax their clearance systems, they will not get the cream of the crop and will instead see more and more students dropping out of courses, and possibly university altogether, after just a few weeks. A reduction in numbers and a review of the usefulness of courses on offer (wine tasting anybody?) should hopefully result in universities being a useful learning experience for the majority of students passing through them, and crucially in these times of uncertainty, the skills required to hold down a job upon graduating.


Well, that was quite a marathon. But in the words of Jimmy Cricket, "and there's more". I'll be back over the weekend to talk about a couple of other bits including Sir Alan's hunt for his latest apprentice.