Friday 24 July 2009

Between swine flu and Shearer


I've been trying to find the way to bring this up... but now my friends at The Journal have done it for me, in rather amusing and bemusing style. As I write it's number 2 in 'today's top stories' on the website - after swine flu but before whether Alan Shearer will manage Newcastle United. And it was nearly 2 pages in the paper. This is clearly a great testament to the the way North East media value the arts, rather than to me, but it has made me laugh. (I didn't put that violinist on the roof of The Sage Gateshead with my giant's hands, by the way.) And that's testament to David Whetstone actually, the Journal's long-standing arts correspondent who is an unsung hero of the North East arts scene.

I had been pondering whether to say absolutely nothing for now (rarely my preference!), or to just share the following quote, from Richard Ford's great novel Independence Day, which I've just finished. It comes from the section I read at the end of the very day I'd given my staff here the briefing on the conclusion of the review stage of our Organisation Review, and it just goes to prove my previously mentioned theory that art turns up when you need it. Here it is and here (in due course, timing tbc, watch this space, business as usual till you hear it from me etc) goes:

...Yet, while it's bad to make a wrong move, as maybe I did with the Volvo, it's worse to regret in advance and call it prudence... Disaster is no less likely. Better - much, much better - to follow old Davy Crockett's motto, amended for use by adults: Be sure you're not completely wrong, then go ahead.

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