“You can teach an elephant to dance, but the likelihood of it stepping on your toes is very high.”
Gary Moss.
“Dancing tuition for all” the Facebook ad said. Perhaps answering such a calling in the midst of December when one’s blood is 50% alcohol was a bit rash?
However, the late February start date seemed an age away; I might even get some rhythm for Christmas? We were signed up and there was no turning back; nudging sixty I was about to subject myself to a voluntary act of terror.
I had imagined this to be a great midweek workout as I glided across the floor, sweaty shirt clinging to my muscular body, Patrick Swayze nodding in appreciation from on high, my partner all wide-eyed in amazement. “Nobody puts Stevie in the corner!” she would coo.
It was time to stop watching Dirty Dancing.
The room was full of the kind of old, decrepit people I knew would be able to dance their socks off and make me look a twat in the process.
A Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen lookalike pair were there; Sid must have been pushing eighty but he glided effortlessly with Nancy across the floor as I looked on with obvious envy. Why had I not just stayed in The Scruffy with a comforting pint?
The cheery lady teaching us began with a move so simple I could not understand why my brain and body could not replicate it. My feet and brain refused to connect as they moved in opposite directions; a look of horror spread across my face.
What was happening? I could drive a car; operate a computer; even iron shirts! Why could I not master seven little steps that a five-year-old would do in the time it took to turn on their iPad?
I looked at the clock; there was still the best part of an hour to go – help me I cried silently.
We had been asked to nominate a lead and a follower; hard as it will be to comprehend, I had taken on the lead. There was only one lead needed and it should have been around my neck.
Nobody was happier in the room than Sal when the tutor instructed us to find new partners; the pace she left me was cruel. If only my feet could move that quickly. She necked the last of her wine in blessed relief and clung to her new lead like a liferaft.
A kind old lady approached me with an offer of help but even she looked like wetting herself at my inept attempts at the promised seven “simple” steps.
It had been one of the longest hours of my life and there were five more weeks to follow. I now remembered why the school disco was an annual ritual humiliation.
Surely, things can only get better…?
Brainless
Last weekend’s Yorkshire Post front-page story led as follows: Bradford Council have been accused of a “shocking” misuse of taxpayers money after it spent nearly £200,000 of covid funds on £25 gift vouchers for staff.
Time and time again Hapless Hinchcliffe bleats on about austerity, a policy introduced in 2010 and long vanished into the history books. She would argue that central government lavishes cash on inept local authorities who cannot even manage existing pots of cash sensibly.
Of course, a council “spokesperson” replied albeit there was as much chance of Hapless fronting up as any of the 6,858 “bonuses” being returned.
How comforting too that the outgoing CEO and “top earning council employee in Yorkshire”, Kersten England would get her record voucher too! The paper points out too that the same council “spent more than £10,000 on badges for Covid volunteers” in 2021.
Watching this week’s meeting of the laughably titled Executive – it was a slow day – Hapless bemoaned nasty government cuts. On the evidence of how her shoddy lot spend our money I cannot see her point.
Meanwhile, in another story – Bradford appoints LGBTQIA + Arts Instigator.
What the hell is one of them and what do they actually do? The appointee, Sonia Sandhu, says “I am keen to…provide spaces for peer support and to spark creative collaborations.”
The really worrying thing is that the bunch of numpties have committed £10m to the City of Culture Piss Down The Drain Festival presumably to be spent by the likes of Ms Sandhu.
I give you the world of local government.
The Return of Greek George
Like paleontologists discovering footprints millions of years old, so Greenfingers and I discovered that Gregarious George the Greek had made his overdue but welcome return to the allotments.
Last year’s broad bean jungle had been cleared and it looked as if a mini-horse and cart had been walked up and down creating fresh new trenches hiding what we could not guess. Even though the weather remains unpredictable at this time of year, Gregarious’s boundless optimism has no limits.
He’d gone by the time we arrived and as we enjoyed our first survey of the plot, sat in the reliable green plastic chairs after barely ten minutes of “graft”.
Life was good.
Wise Men Say
There is likely to be a blitz on littering and anti-social behaviour in Bradford to make sure the district is “prepared and dressed” in time for its 2025 City of Culture.
So screamed a T&A article which led me to a favoured saying of a wise old man who reads this column – You can’t polish a turd.
Spending tens of thousands just to tart the old place up will be money down the drain because, as soon as the clean-up stops, the thickos and lawless halfwits will take no time to render the spend pointless.
Create a lawless city and you reap what you sow…or what others throw away.
Fiona Campbell says
Things can only get better Steve – brilliant piece The Cheery Lady