So… UFOs.

Random? Let me explain. I’ve been reading a lot of conspiracy theories of late and similar rubbish that can be found floating along the intertubes. You may be surprised to hear that this sort of behaviour is not particularly unusual for me – I enjoy sifting through the bizarre and peculiar things that can be found on the glorious marvel of technology that is the internet, and regularly find a topic of interest that consumes me for a few days or sometimes weeks, or occasionally even months.

UFOs has been days so far, although I should clarify that by adding that the general theme of ‘conspiracy theory’ is a recurring one for me  – especially over the past year or so while I’ve been slowly ‘researching’ them for an as yet unnamed and undiscussed project that I have lurking in the back of my brain – more on that another time perhaps.
So, where was I? Ah yes, UFOs. I’ve spent a bit of time reading about them of late, and it seems things have moved on somewhat since the late nineties when I last showed any kind of interest in this subject (largely thanks to Gillian Anderson). There is now, it seems, a growing movement of people clamouring for ‘disclosure’ in an increasingly loud and, what I imagine to be, somewhat irritating manner for the governments of the world who may or may not be hiding things from everyone else. What’s new about that? Well, it seems this ‘disclosure movement’ have become pretty organised and respectible. No longer are we looking at a bunch of star-trek convention rejects wearing rubber alien masks, waving bits of fence around and shouting ‘Roswell! Roswell!’ – no, these guys are wearing suits and have serious jobs with acronyms and a website (http://www.disclosureproject.org/) and are willing to swear a whole bunch of stuff before congress.

Now if it were just about swearing in front of congress, then I’d go right in there and cuss ‘em out myself, but as we all know Governments are pretty tricksy where things like UFOs and Aliens are concerned. Which is why I’m so impressed with these disclosure folk because they essentially ARE the government, only retired or kicked out or moved on. Every single one of these people who’ve come together (and there’s about 400 of them) have worked in sensitive situations where they’ve had access to first hand evidence of UFOs or ETs, and some of them have brought it with them. Tell me that’s not cool.

You can see some of them on this video here:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1166743665260900218

From the lowliest Air traffic controller to the loftiest ex-moondust soldier, each of those guys has a story to tell, first hand, with plenty of corroborating evidence – whether it be hard-copy stuff, or just a cast iron personal history that verifies they are who they say they are, it’s pretty impressive for UFO stories which can usually be traced back to nutcases spouting drivel somewhere or other.

I don’t know what to make of it all really. I have this sort of love/hate relationship with conspiracy theories of any type. On the one hand I love to read them – there’s something about a well written conspiracy that’s quite captivating. On the other hand they live in the portion of my head devoted to fiction. On the one hand I can usually see a lot of sense in how the stories are laid out, and my natural distrust of authority plays right into their hands. On the other hand, I can’t help but laugh at the ludicrous nature of most of the claims.

Most folk tend to come down on one side of the fence or the other – either loving and believing or loathing and denying. Whichever side, they’re usually vehement. However, I find it very difficult to do either. When it comes to conspiracy theories I’m a born fence-sitter. I love hearing them, I enjoy chewing them over, but I can never really wholeheartedly embrace or reject them. I just… sit on the fence. It’s about the only area of life where I find myself paralysed with indesicion. I love it.

So if you find yourself with an evening to spare, join me on the white picket fence that separates the Governments of the world from the lone gunmen with their rubber alien masks, respectible acronym-laden jobs and potty mouths, and watch while the two sides tear up the ground stakes and beat each other over the head with them. Who knows what’s going on out there? Who cares? This is some serious entertainment. It sure beats season 9 of the X-files anyway.

It shocks me to look at the date of the last entry and realise that a) it feels like last week that I wrote it and b) I have not really stopped being hyper busy between then and now.

I’ve just got back from teaching on the Riding Lights summer school where our group put on a production of Cabaret in approximately five days and I’m totally whacked, so please don’t expect this entry to be full of insightful comment on the human condition. However, I’m once again profoundly humbled and moved by the whole Riding Lights summer school phenomenon. For the curious, there’s a link to their blog: http://ridinglights.blogspot.com/2008/08/friday.html

Today will be a day of rest and relaxation but I promise I’ll update again later in the week now that things have calmed down work-wise. I have several half-finished posts so it should be easy enough to get something up.

Today’s entry deserves a little bit of background explanation.

One of the things I’m doing at the moment is something we’ve called “The Lifetime Memories Project”. Around October last year we managed to secure funding for this project from a trust that specifically funds things benefiting OAPs. The aim of the project is to record the personal histories of OAPs in our area by interviewing them and producing a DVD with edited footage of the interview, and digital copies of any pictures/documents they have pertaining to significant moments in their lives. The idea is that we will be able to preserve pieces of living history, and provide these OAPs with a lasting record of their lives that can be passed on to their loved ones in order that it might outlive them.

The idea was born out of something I did with my Dad about a year before he died – we sat down with a minidisc recorder and I interviewed him for a couple of hours – that night I found out so many things about my Dad that I never knew, and when he died a year later it became a priceless record of the man he was. I’ve cherished it ever since.

Anyway, today I was interviewing one particular pensioner with a colleague of mine. I’ve only done one other interview like this so far, so my experience of it is relatively limited, but something particular has struck me about the stories of each of the elderly people I’ve interviewed so far – my own father included- for each of them the defining event of their lives has been The War.

For everyone who lived through it the war has had an overwhelmingly significant effect on their lives it seems. For the old lady I interviewed today, it changed the entire course of her life – she had been a farmgirl on her parent’s farm in a remote northern village when war broke out, and ran away from home with her best friend to join the RAF. There she met and married an airman, went on to have five children, and has lived most of her life in London. Without the war, she would have remained in her remote northern village, married a farmer, and lived her life out as a farmer’s wife milking cows.

But the effects of the war on the lives of those who lived through it did not end in 1945, neither did it end with rationing, or the cold war, or the fall of the berlin wall.

A friend of mine has a theory. In fact, he is writing a book about it, and one day I hope to pick up a copy in Waterstones for the snatches he has read to me are truly excellent, but his theory is that for these wartime survivors the war is still going on.

This was certainly true for my father. Every night that I can remember when he was alive, no matter whether we were at home or on holiday, he would meticulously switch off every electrical appliance in the house at the mains, and unplug them all. It drove my mother (postwar generation) absolutley potty, althought I find it somewhat touching now, when visiting her, that she has taken on this night-time ritual for herself – probably as a means of remembering him. My father also hated wasting food, and saved all manner of unlikely objects “in case they might be useful”. When he died and my mother decided to move house, she had to pay the local handyman for a full day’s work cleaning out our garage of all these “potentially useful” items dating back decades. The poor fellow spent all day loading up his van, driving to the tip, coming back, loading up, rinsing and repeating, before the accumulated detritus of my father’s habit had been disposed of.

For my father, the scrimp save and scavenge mentality had been born out of teenage years spent living through the blitz (he was never evacuated, unlike his siblings) and he never shook it off. For him, subconciously at least, Hitler’s panzers were perpetually at the channel – the need for vigilance over his own wastefulness never fully disappeared.

For the lady I interviewed today, I recognised similar signs – the unplugged electrical appliances, and useful items readily to hand in case of an unexpected blackout.

How will we cope, I wonder, when we come to the end of our lives and, disappointed by our meagre pensions and living on the poverty line we struggle to make ends meet? Will a lifetime of wastefulness catch up to haunt us? Will we finally learn the lessons of our fathers? Will the panzers of poverty make it across the channel or will a resurgence of the spirit of the blitz repel them?

Time will tell.

While I may still be trying to work out precisely how to go about writing a blog, I’m pretty sure that I don’t want to write a load of angsty pap about blogging and becoming a blogger and all that nonsense, and I can’t imagine for a moment that anyone would want to read rubbish like that.

Therefore I will attempt to restrict my navel gazing and blogging angst to this first post only, and perhaps talk a little about a project I’m thinking of attempting.

For a while now I’ve felt the desire to write more, and have an outlet for my writing that carries it to a potential audience. Now that I’ve taken the plunge with this thing I’m thinking of using it to tackle a research project into performing arts and their history within the church. Who knows? Something here may make itself useful to someone.

We shall see.

For now I’m content to write and link to some blogs that I like.