Last March blogpost about a last march

This last week has been a bit up and down. Added some bits to the costuming of my last pieces (love a bit of metal leaf) and actually got all the varnish/sealing done. Thought about my artist statement...

That was as good as it got cos stuff came up – did something not good to the brake lever while changing brake pads on bike so lost a whole morning trying to fix it and taking it to the repair shop then spent ages on buses getting to work and back, then out again next morning to pick it up again. Hours of valuable time gone.

I was considering going to a gymnastics event at the O2 Arena on Saturday but couldn’t justify a whole day out instead of painting so decided not to go. Then not half an hour later, decided I was going to the People’s March in London! If this next bit bores you, apologies but it has effects on everything.

If you’ve been off planet for a while, this is about Brexit; with the UK acting like a bunch of school kids flouncing out the classroom two and half years ago because they didn’t want to join in the big skool project cos who needs a stupid project anyway when we’re waaay smarter and can do everything better.

Then they complain at not being allowed to use skool’s materials and pretend they weren’t told about the rules even though the kids helped make them.

Meanwhile, the ringleaders are calling the rest of the class horrid bullies and arguing among themselves about what they want to do instead, while trying to pretend they don’t know that lots of others in their group actually do want to join the project. After many months of listening to the ringleaders bickering and telling big fibs, it’s obvious they aren’t anywhere near as clever as they made out, and the project is looking like a pretty damn good idea actually.

So. The march was to let our government (using the term lightly here) know that seeing as how they allow themselves to vote over and over to try and get the same (shit) deal passed that neither side likes anyway, could we, the people, actually get some say in the matter? And NO; the chief ringleader is not on anyone’s side except her own no matter how many times she says ‘will of the people’.

UPDATE: some MPs have changed their minds!!! on Brexit and the PM’s deal today. Right, so you get to do that but we can’t? And thank you Donald Tusk for standing up for those who want a say in this.

I don’t care whether someone voted in or out. That was the only question we were asked. Now we know what out looks like, we have a perfect right to confirm that it’s still what we want. Or not. That's democracy Mrs May(bot).

There’s a huge irony, that while hundreds of thousands marched for the EU (leaving will make life much more complicated for anyone in the creative field who buys from or sells to the EU), the very next day, another demo took place in Glasgow (the day after the continental demo) - to vote against the EU copyright directive which will have a huge effect on creative content. A sledgehammer to crack a nut seems to be the general consensus. We shall see how that goes. But it does show that there is no cut and dried answer to any of this - ambivalence is a good word.

So many things changing and so much of it seems to be out of our hands. We need this to be sorted so businesses can make firm decisions. Brexit adds another layer of uncertainty to where my life, my creative work and my job might go and recently it’s taken too much of my time and is affecting my mood a bit. Just have to plough on and tackle things as they come up. What else can we do?