A Design for Life

Another foggy day but a lovely evening with Spokes at the newly opened East Avenue Bakehouse (good food, good atmosphere, lovely staff - I almost blipped it but there'll other opportunities...) followed by a fantastic play at The Unity.

Finding Joy is an absolutely brilliant piece by Vamos Theatre about the impact of dementia on families and the way 'the system' treats all concerned. Performed by a cast of four, all of whom wore masks the whole time, to portray many characters, and none of whom spoke a word during the entire 90 minute performance, it had the audience laughing and crying - I certainly found myself misty-eyed a couple of times - but was ultimately as uplifting as it was sad. The play's on tour now so do catch it if you can!

Whilst at The Unity we also enjoyed an excellent exhibition of line drawings by Jane Hughes, called In a Quiet Space. The drawings were all made 'on the spot' in Liverpool libraries, some of which have since been closed and others of which are under threat. Beautiful drawings and as moving as the play in many ways. Although not a drawing, I was particularly struck by this piece, typed on a page of an old library book. Woolton Library is now closed, a victim of 'the cuts'.

It seemed particularly fitting to blip this today in tribute to Tony Benn, a great loss to British politics, an orator whom I was lucky enough to hear speak on several occasions and a thorn in the side of those who don't have the vision to see that there are other ways of doing things. I didn't agree with him on absolutely everything but he's always been an inspiration to me - and will remain so.

On a related theme, Spokes and colleagues had assembled a Tony Benn display in their bookshop today, including the quote "Bookshops are universities that anyone can enter." RIP Tony.