Dear Councilor
I attended the Council Meeting held in the old Town Hall and I write to you because of your speech which you gave speaking in support of the motion you put regarding the Piano returning to the Art Gallery. In your speech you appealed to people to lessen the emotion involved in the issue yet it was obvious to me that your voice contained a certain amount of suppressed rage. You appealed for reason yet you did not let 2 fellow councilors to vote claiming they had a conflict of interest. The underlying rage in your voice indicated you had an interest which could have also been argued to be conflicted. The question is self evident – why did you not also remove yourself from voting? As a Councilor I believe you have to grapple with many issues where the issues are not clear cut – the issues will seldom be black and white and you will always have to make a judgement or compromise. In this case however the issues are clear cut. Pushing the reset button will not solve the problem and your comment “the piano is not going anywhere” could turn out to be political double speak. I do not understand why all the issues could not be ventilated in this matter and I ask if you could answer the following questions.
I believe the real conflict of interest is between those elected and those appointed. - Who has the power? I ask if you could reply. Thanking You Neville Gibb
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I have never been able to predict public opinion. I have a distinct memory of the pupils in my primary school one day being swept up in a frenzy when they saw a car pass our school. This was in the 50's. Both boys and girls were affected. They ran along inside the schoolyard following the car which was on the road outside. And they were making a noise something akin to cheering. It was in effect a mob action. Wow!....... Look at it!.......Did you see it?.........Thats such and such........ My Sister knows him......... Etc. What they were doing was following Public Opinion. Public Opinion had already said to a number of students that this car was exciting. They in turn passed this belief on to the rest of the school. The car was a two tone Holden Sedan. The colours were dark green and light green, It was polished shiny. It had a foxtail attached to the radio aerial. The driver was wearing sunglasses. I could not understand what the excitement was all about. A bloke that I felt no connection with was driving past the school. Why was this a thing of excitement? Should I have joined in the excitement? Why didn't I find this exciting? Why did I stand apart? I think that some of the attraction was the car. This person had acquired the things that were meant to bring envy from the rest of society. The foxtail was a brand new fashion and appeared to indicate sophistication. The man himself was dressed fashionably and he wore sunglasses all the time. This was at the end of austerity when children still wore cast off clothes. He was seen as a success to be emulated. He had acquired a fashionable car. Somehow his life was seen to be very exciting. His life had meaning . All the children at my school wanted to know him. Except for me. The man in question was new to the area. He had lately moved to the area to take up a job with a local transport company. I don't think he had any relatives in the area. He was boarding with a family further up the creek. He had only recently purchased to car. He didn't stay long in the area. I don't know what happened to him. He disappeared. Of course later in life I learned what his life would have been like. I didn't know this at the time. He only had a labourers job cleaning trucks and loading trucks. He didn't even drive them. All his wage would have gone in car repayments. Probably he had his car re possessed and felt so humiliated he had to leave the area. This often happened in the district I loved in. Family honour meant this type of thing was only mentioned in whispers. The 50's was the beginning of hire purchase and this would have allowed him to purchase the car. The majority of his pay would have gone on the car. He would have been attached to the Finance Company in an extremely close way. His life would have been in effect a hollow one. There would have been none of the glamour attached to his life that people thought. He would have had to work hard as a labourer. He would not have had much scope for a private life. But public opinion at the time said he was glamorous. Young people wanted to emulate him. Perception is important to the majority of people. This is how public opinion works. When we were in London on October 2014 we went to Bath and from there to Brighton on the same day. In fact we spent a lot of the day on trains. There was no direct train between Bath and Brighton at the time we were traveling. We had to change at Farnham. No matter. We had a good time enjoying traveling by train. A lot of schoolgirls got on at one time. Towards 5 O'clock some commuters got on the train. It was dark by the time we got to Brighton. And windy. We walked to the pier but even though it had its lights on it was closed when we finally arrived after walking along the beach. Crunching the stones of course. The streets were more or less deserted around the pier. No matter. We walked back to the town centre where I had a stroke of luck. I found a wonderful Indian Takeaway. A small hole in the wall operated by I believe one man. Maybe he had another family member hidden behind a wall. But there could not have been more than two people involved because there was hardly space available for one. He was able to talk to me man to man. He looked me in the eye when I questioned his history. Where he came from etc. He was happy to talk. I liked the man and I enjoyed the curry. It was one of those which make you want to return to Brighton just to get a take away from his little shop.
On the train coming back into London after dark I had an enjoyable feeling of deja vu. You pass through a lot of stations. You don't stop at every station but you slow down to pass through most. When you come to London you start to pass a lot of high rises. Most of the windows have their lights on. There are a lot of street lights glistening in the dark. There aren't many people about. There isn't much evidence of traffic. There are other trains coming and going. Most stations are empty and the only figures to be seen are walking with purpose. Sitting in the train and looking out the window I had a distinct feeling of calm. I found the sight of the buildings comforting. The high rises were warm and welcoming. It was enjoyable watching them pass. They looked peaceful. I felt very relaxed. I sensed I was returning to safety. I was coming home into London. I was at peace with myself. I always had this feeling 43 years ago whenever I returned to London. Especially at night. By train. The World is not a Foreign Land
The February Art Appreciation activity was a lecture given by Bryony Nainby on Aboriginal Art currently on exhibition at the Gallery. This lecture was attended by an enthusiastic audience who thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Bryony was able to bring the exhibition alive with her well-presented lecture and knowledge of aboriginal art. The artwork in the exhibition is art from three distinct regions and a number of artists and whilst some of paintings do have images and styles that could be classed as similar the three regions all have separate styles. Some are semi figurative. The Bungle Bungles are obvious in one artists work. Others have symbols that are obviously meant to produce images in the viewer. Some have images of totem animals that are distorted into surreal shapes. Others have symbols that are not meant to convey any meaning at all but have been produced simply for arts sake. Some show figurative images depicting everyday human activities. This particular collection prompted me to question if any of the artists were at any time thinking in terms of more than one or two dimensions. Or maybe more than two dimensions. If the artist is thinking in more than two dimensions does this explain the dream like influence that aboriginal art implies? Congratulations should be extended to Bryony Nainby for her entertaining and educational lecture even if the acoustics were not good. |
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