Underground Challenge: July 5th Recap

Inspire a Stranger Day was on Monday! I apologise for not getting this up Monday night, but by the time we got in I was knackered. So this is an apology from two fronts, one for being slow and two for already failing to keep to my schedule. I have to admit, I saw that coming. But I will be sure to write at least two posts a week, just maybe not on strict days.

Anyway, staying on topic...

Monday was fantastic! A group of us went around London (mainly on the tube but the streets got some attention too) sparking up conversation with hundreds of commuters throughout the day. Four of us donned plain white tee's with 'Underground Challenge' and 'Inspire a Stranger' drawn on the fronts and backs. We had a basket filled with sweets to hand out to people as well as passing around cards saying things like "don't forget to smile" and "you're beautiful".

We also had a poet in our group handing out his poetry in envelopes to people. Peter started the day quite shy but as time went on we noticed a change in him which was nice, as he grew in confidence! 

Most people were confused by us and kept trying to offer us money. I imagine if we accepted half the money we were offered we would have made back the groups train fare to London! Lots of people smiled with us and had a chat about how great they thought the idea was and how we brightened up there day. Some people pretended we didn't exist. 

On the way back to Paddington Station I sat down next to a man with a newspaper. It was quitting time, we were tired. I decided to offer him a sweet anyway and we ended up talking all the way to my stop. He started off by not wanting a sweet but he did take a "smile" card which he promised to put on his desk at work the next day. He was telling me all the reasons people like the silence on the Underground and why Londoners don't talk to each other; a lot of which I could understand and agree with. But he kept talking to me, even though I was willing to sit back and let him read his paper! I think he was intrigued by the whole idea and kept asking questions and telling us that up North people talk to each other all the time. Finally, he took a sweet. I call that a victory. 

In fact, the whole day was a victory!

We lost Danni and Jake on the tube as we jumped off and the doors closed before they made it. The carriage was full of school kids. Apparently they ate the rest of Danni's brownies! One kid saw "free hugs" written on the back of her tee and asked for one. Next thing she knows ALL of the little kids are hugging her! I wish we could have seen it! Better yet I wish Jake had a camera on him so we could all see it!

We got a few pictures through out the day but not too many. Peter had a camera but had to leave us for work so I was left using my phone. Nokia's are known for the camera skills... But here is an example of a happy commuter being fed =p

Quite a few people let us take pictures with them smiling away =] If you'd like to see those, head over to the Facebook Group!

You can also see a couple of photos other people took to show their contribution to the day! 

Such as:

All the way from Porto, Portugal! 

Hopefully other photos and videos come in so we can see what everyone else got up to! If you guys did anything on Monday and took a picture, please share it with us!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK PART! IT WAS AN AMAZING DAY AND I LOOK FORWARD TO THE NEXT ONE!

Underground Challenge: July 5th

Monday is our Inspire a Stranger day! This is what we've been preparing for. Cards have been handed out and left all over the place, videos have been made, pictures have been taken. Here comes the moment we've all been working so hard for. I hope to see lots of people taking part on the day, taking pictures or videos of themselves playing along so we've got some sort of documentation of our first run. The next one will be bigger and better of course, but we do already have over a thousand people involved via Facebook, plus anyone not on Facebook who we've spoken to and roped in.

This week has been push week so we've been promoting the challenge wherever we can. Hopefully get some media attention if we can. I want to see pictures and videos from you lot showing me what you got up to on the day! This is a community project, a world wide community. And where better than to share it, than the world wide web. The interweb is our portal; for everything. Let's make a change and most importantly let's have fun! Don't forget to smile!

A Midsummer Feminists Party

The Saturday before last some artsy friends of mine held a Midsummer Feminists Gig at Balham Bowling Green. There was food, drink, poetry, music, dance and even a fire place. So all in all a good night. The night was hosted by Catherine Brogan who had the audience giggling the night away talking about everything from how the toilets work to how a poem she wrote for my sisters night, Dyssing Monadys is now being used in schools to teach teachers about dyslexia (how amazing is that?)! 

The night was a fundraiser for the London Feminist Conference.

As it turned out, there was no Northern line and I started my journey in Swindon... so me and K had to mission it with a bunch of change overs and overground trains to get there (late - though it wasn't on a real time schedule anyway) and meant we had to leave early, to get back to my house at the opposite end of London.

We spotted the big gates walking down the street and I remembered doing this journey once before, last year some time, when Cat held another poetry event there. I've been to a few arts events at squats around London, but I think this was K's first. As we passed through the gates we were greeted by a couple of feminists sat at a table looking for donations. Further down the path we found a sign and the entrance on to the green; a large space with a bonfire hole out in the middle and a table tennis table set up in front of the building. Of course, we were soon to have a game... How could we resist?

Because of the time constraints facing me, I could only see a few of the acts. This is definitely a sad time, as I missed lots of gold, but here are some highlights:

The Kitchen Quartet were definitely at the top of the list for me. As you can (just about) see from the picture, the quartet was a person down for the evening, but don't worry the three of them still kicked arse. Their quirky style of new arrangements made from old songs were fantastic.

Sabrina Mahfouz was absolutely amazing as usual, performing a bunch of new material she tested out on us as well as the Red Riding Hood poem that won her the Lyrical Challenge the month I took part. 

Camila Fiori was another highlight, performing a poem in maybe five different languages. I'm pretty sure I spotted French, Italian, Spanish and English as well as maybe something else... unfortunately my language skills aren't nearly as amazing but I feel a little inspired to try to write my own bilingual poem. I may as well make use of being able to speak Greek! 

I've been a very busy bee this week but I'm going to make a point of blogging regularly. I have to do an Interview for the journalism course I'm applying to, so will be talking to The Dead Lay Waiting this week thanks to the lovely wife. She's a music promotor and is using her magic powers for good i.e. to help me out.

Underground Challenge: Promo Video

The Underground Challenge Promo Vid is live!

Check out the group and the video and help us spread the word. Not long left until our Inspire a Stranger day on July 5th so help us get as many people on board as possible!

Also, let me know what you think about the video!

Sorry posts are scarce at the moment... I'll give you a proper one soon!

The Underground Challenge: Part 7 VIDEO

I uploaded a video to my YouTube account as I had up until now failed to inform them of our mission. Please help me spread the word!

Join the group here

The Underground Challenge: Part 2

I started writing about my evenings of essays; tedious battles with Marx, Aristotle, Plato and Socrates whilst putting off sleep to maximise productivity. But I figured me winging about university isn't all that interesting to anybody. The only reason I felt like sharing was because I was proud of myself for staying focused and stuff.

So, let's move on...

My last blog post (the one about the girl on the underground) sparked conversation with a bunch of different friends. One friend was made irate by a rude woman on the tube, which led to her suggesting I cover the underground with posters that teach Londoners how to be polite. This actually sounds like a promising project. I'll work out the logistics and document it if I decide to do it. It could be a pretty cool art project, maybe even convince a few moody London types to perk up a bit.

Oh gosh!

I think my sister actually did this when she was at art school! She made that glue-paste gunk, as in the kind you use to paper mache things (you know, like when you'd blow up a balloon and paper mache the outside before popping the balloon and hollowing it out, remember? Then you'd paint it or something and feel all arty 'cause you were making a mess...) and used it to paste A4 pieces of paper with things like "smile"printed on them all over the place. I think she may well have got in trouble for fly posting! However, this was years ago, so my memories might be wobbly...Confirmation is in order. Also, I'm pretty sure she carried a video camera around with her to film commuters reactions to her holding up signs. If this really happened and I'm not just making up memories, I think that's a little bit amazing.

I will ask her.

Another suggestion following that blog came from the lovely girlfriend who decided we should create a Facebook event, where just for the day, Londoners talk to each other on public transport instead of sitting in the usual silence. Try and convince people to just be nice to each other; it's only for a day! So this is something I will get onto organising too. Make sure you play along! This is part of my underground challenge! We're going to choose a day in the summer so people have notice to hopefully spread the word! I'll give you lot the link to the Facebook event as soon as we've sorted it; be sure to participate! And to invite all your friends. And tell them to do the same!

Maybe the person you decide to help out or just to talk to will be your next best friend... maybe even turn out to be your one true love! And ok, maybe those are far fetched possibilities but fairytales are always far fetched and they always turn out alright... Well, by 'alright' I mean the flowered up fairytales that were twisted by the likes of Disney and such are always spun to have one of those unrealistic happy endings we all pretend we're after but are terrified of finding. We're all terrified of making contact with anyone, in case they think we're weird or creepy or something. We can't allow anyone to know we love them more than they love us, so we close ourselves off. We try and stay as far away from other human beings as possible, but during certain times of the day riding public transport means you're going to touch people. And not just the occasional brush past someone, but leaning, pushing and grabbing are all going on all over your personal space. This makes us uncomfortable, so we ignore it's happening and in ignoring the closeness of the people surrounding you as you all cram into a metal tin, silence falls over you. Because it would be too weird if that guy pushed up against you started talking, or if that woman that just fell into your boobs then asked you about your day.

But sometimes, I think you just have to take a leap. If you spend all your time avoiding making contact out of fear, you'll miss a lot of amazing people. And ok, it's not like the tube is an optimum friend making situation and you might be a whole lot better at it out and about or something, but if you live your whole life in your comfort zone is that a bit of a waste?

So prepare yourselves for TalkToAStrangerDay (that can just be what I'm calling it for now) and let me know about your adventures! I'd love to know how you all get on.

Video: Above Tables (GayAfrica)

Ok, I kinda feel like I'm mass posting here - let's just say I'm making up for lost time and I promise not to post anything else in the next 24 hours!
This is the poem I wrote for the GayAfrica thing I mentioned. It's 4am so I have tired eyes going on, so there you go.



If you're in London, be sure to come down to the event. Click for the Facebook page.

Date:	Sunday, 28 February 2010
Time:	16:00 - 20:00
Location:	Free Word Centre
Street:	60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA
Town/City:	London, United Kingdom

Gay Africa

I have been asked to join the Rhymes Wont Wait collective and do a performance at a charity event.

"GAY AFRICA is a powerful response to the human rights and sexuality crisis sweeping the continent. In Uganda they propose to execute gays, in Malawi they imprison gay men who marry, in Nigeria they ban all meeting and support for LGBT people"

I have sat down today to try to pen a poem on topic and have come up with my first draft. It is called Above Tables and I'm sure you'll get a peak at it when it's done.

This is a really important issue and I am proud to be part of something so special in trying to make a difference and get awareness about the craziness going on out there out. If you are in London (or near by) hit up the gig, it's free! Clicking on the title will send you to the event page on Facebook.

If you don't already know, you should look it up. Right now a scary level of homophobia is sweeping across Africa to a point where laws are being passed to have people killed. Murdering people because you don't agree with them is not ok. Doing it in the name of God is worse. American Evangelicals (as well as the Catholic Church) have gone over there and preached hate and violence to such a degree that almost the entire continent has jumped on the bandwagon. This really isn't ok.

Sunday 28th February 2010 4pm – 8pm

Free Word Centre, Farringdon
60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA