SianyB Likes Elephants

The blog where Sian Bevan tries to be a better person

Saturday Night

It’s Saturday night for another five minutes, and I’ve spent my evening alternating doing a household budget, persuading a toddler that sleeping is cool, reading other people’s blogs and drinking beer (one bottle has lasted me five hours. I can’t decide if I’m proud).

One of the very many ways I’m incredibly lucky, is that everyone I know is incredibly talented. This has recently manifested into the appearance that everyone I know is now incredibly successful. And I keep meeting new people who are breaking new ground with writing while doing a PhD, managing a rock band and still finding time to write hilarious articles about feminist porn. I’m still working through that beer.

Doing the household budget (I know, I just keep writing it to try and titillate the readers) means looking for cracks in where our money keeps escaping, and tiny rooms of time which we should be using to earn more money. And, actually, reading blogs of people I admire in between trying to work out how to save money on almond milk, is a bit productive.

Here are some things I notice…

1. People I admire actually do the stuff I think about doing. They submit to things (probably a lot more than I see them successfully appear in) and they maintain energy in doing this, rather than my flurry of competition entries once a year when I get the guilts.


2. They tell people what they’re doing, in an unobnoxious way. They’re confident enough in their own ability to be interesting that they tell people when they’re performing, or when their work will be available to read somewhere. People who like them know where to find information.


3. They’re probably not at every event in town, as I think everyone is, all the time.


4. They’re usually fairly focused. Like, they might be doing stuff which is performing and academic and creative writing, but it usually ties together in some way. This means, when work comes up that’s about – say – architecture in Edinburgh, and they need a good writer who’s also shown themselves to be passionate about buildings, their name will come up.


5. I should spend more time reading other people’s websites.

So, as I finally finish this beer, I suppose what I’m saying is, that if this household budget is going to work well enough that I can buy another bottle of beer one day, I need to stop moaning, reclaim time spent fannying about and use it to try and achieve something. Or, we’re going to have to start using old books as nappies or something.

Well done, people I know. Long may you keep instagramming your weird, impressive selves.

I Want…

“I want a dyke for president…and I want a fag for vice president…I want someone with no health insurance…I want a president who had an abortion at sixteen and I want a candidate who isn’t the lesser of two evils. I want someone who has committed civil disobedience. And I want to know why this isn’t possible. I want to know why we started learning somewhere down the line that a president is always a clown: always a john and never a hooker. Always a boss and never a worker, always a liar, always a thief and never caught – “I Want A Dyke For President” (1992) by Zoe Leonard, artist, activist, member of Fierce Pussy

I think if I died tomorrow, people would probably describe me as quite pleasant. Not really remarkable in any particular field, but generally good company at dinner, smiley when appropriate and usually remembers to wish happy birthday on Facebook. I like being pleasant. It makes me feel like I have control over my little corner of the world: the power to make someone’s day slightly better is the closest I am likely to get to political influence.

Secretly, I am filled with rage.

The constant battle between the side of me that genuinely wants to try to be nice to people I meet and the part which is screaming and burning with misfiring anger, means I sometimes lie awake at night winning imaginary arguments against the universe. I love people, and don’t believe anyone is actually evil (they do evil, for sure) but I also want to sometimes scream in their faces, scratch my nails down tree trunks and twist the fat on my belly to see if I can screw it off.

I’m still nice at dinner parties.

I don’t even know who or what I’m angry with. When my toddler knows he feels frustrated but he doesn’t know why, he sits down and wails, or arches his back in protest. If I read news and see a tiny gang of individuals saving up money like Scrooge McDuck while public sector pay diminishes, I want to do the same.

That quote up the top there, that encapsulates some of the buzzing in my head. It’s from Zoe Leonard’s poem ‘I Want a Dyke for President’ and is the inspiration behind a night of performance art protest in Glasgow this week. I can’t go, but I wanted to do something.

Here were my ideas for what I would have performed:

• rewriting a Household Encyclopedia for the 21st century skint woman. I love old household manuals, because there’s a rule for everything. I know I would have hated it, and broken the rules about cutlery if I’d been forced to live it but, as an outsider, I find etiquette very comforting as an idea. I think it’s something I need.


• standing still and ugly crying while someone reads Daily Mail comments to me.


• contacting people I went to school with who ended up being right wing, tricking them into a trip to Glasgow and then yelling WHY ARE WE SO DIFFERENT WE CAME FROM THE SAME BACKGROUND at them over and over again until they give an answer I find satisfying.


• standing still and ugly crying while someone reads Twitter to me.


• standing still and ugly crying


• standing still


• crying


• ugly

As it is, I’m writing this instead. In amongst the rage is a bolt of sheer gratitude that my world is filled with creative, kind people who also want a change. Who find Islamaphobia and racism and homophobia and transphobia inherently repulsive and illogical. Who want to see the world and everyone in it. Who want those in power to come from a range of places, to have more people who look like them and sound like them making choices for them.

We are all politics and we are all political.

It feels like everything is happening much deeper at the moment. People seem to be loving harder, and hating more and more frightened and lost and hysterical than I’ve ever experienced. Maybe it’s the point in life I’ve reached, with my own insecurities turned into a grotesque hall of mirrors by the shitshow of international politics. Maybe I’m just angry now. There’s a fair chance I’m just a bit of an idiot.

At least I’m still passing for a pleasant idiot. May the pleasantries direct the rage at the right targets, and may productive rage destroy the patriarchy. And may I still be good company at dinner parties with minimum ugly crying where possible.

Go. Enjoy. Be with the good people for a night.

I Want a Dyke For President Part II will be at 13th Note on 6th July. Take a bag of groceries for the Drumchapel Foodbank instead of a cover charge because most humans, I swear, I swear, are good.

On Value

I spend a lot of my time thinking about money in the arts. Sometimes I think about the money I would like, sometimes about the money I would like other people to have and mainly about how there isn’t enough money for stuff I love.

The currently situation in America has prompted lots of concerns that once arts programmes are cut, they’re hard to bring back. And, similarly, if you delve into the murky depths of the comments section underneath articles about arts funding, you find some really angry people. An argument I heard a few times in favour of Brexit was anger about the amount the EU spent on art (careful now, that’s a link to the Express), including this comment from someone with an England flag avatar, calling himself ‘Mr Angry’:

More disgusting squandering but just what we have come to expect.

Art is seen as squandering, a luxury like having whipped cream on your hot chocolate but the cream costs millions and the hot chocolate is England’s green and pleasant land. And I get why people think that, which is why people who work in – or just support – the arts, need to be more practical and vocal about why they matter.

We often fall back on the quality of life argument, which is important but feels like it’ll crumble under the first vicious spit hurled in its direction. Even when you yell that Winston Churchill quote about “what are we fighting for?” it doesn’t always crack open an negative opinion (which he didn’t say, btw, but he did say: “The arts are essen­tial to any com­plete national life. The State owes it to itself to sus­tain and encour­age them….Ill fares the race which fails to salute the arts with the rev­er­ence and delight which are their due.” So that’s nice).

And actually, we have great arguments – we just need to collectively put some time into quantifying them. Lots of things which are seen as non-essential are actually financially really sensible. For example, research shows that for every ?1 spent on libraries, ?8 of benefits are generated. In the health sector, Edinburgh Leisure produces benefits 3.5 times that of council investment, including savings to the NHS.

This isn’t just about your storytelling night bringing people together, making people feel better or increasing likelihood of empathy with people from other cultures. These things are all important but, gorgeous folks, we’re in a business which actually makes cold, hard financial sense.

Investing in the arts:

• Creates jobs (Buy a beer! Buy a book! Buy a t-shirt handmade in Leith!)


• Brings in tourism (Let’s go to the city where there’s art in the street and we can watch weird poetry at night. We could do that clicky finger thing!) (Don’t do that clicky finger thing).


• Gives your local area value, making it more appealing for business investors (Let’s invest in that area where all the cool kids knit dinosaurs in cafes).


• Obviously not for lots of serious issues, but generally creating and enjoying creative people is good for your mental health and maybe even your memory. Savings for the NHS!


• Brings communities together: that empathy which was mentioned up there? If your art is effective, it could save the police money long-term. You get one wee kid who’s grown up in a racist environment to feel less angry about Islam because of a band night which features Muslim musicians? That sweaty gig could stop a future hate crime.

Crime is expensive. Bad health is expensive. Poverty is expensive. Share any data you have on how your art financially benefits the world, and let’s open source the crap out of this argument.

The arts can suit up, and hold its head high that it is of actual, financial benefit to the world.

Sometimes, without the whipped cream, the hot chocolate just isn’t worth as much.

Get Bullish (and why I love it)

The other day I was filling in an application for some funding and I was feeling blue. You know that listless feeling when you’re completing an application form and you can’t remember what any of your skills are? When you look at old CVs and it reads like it was written in a sarcastic voice by someone who hates you? When they ask questions about why you’re the best person for the job, and you’re not even sure you’re the best person working on your laptop right now?

You know that feeling. It feels like putting on damp socks.

I mentioned Get Bullish the other day, and since then have converted a few more folk, so thought I would write this as my official plug for a website which lifts me out of self-loathing grumps like no other place on the internet. Yeah. I said it. It beats videos of raccoons stealing stuff, and that’s pretty major.

Written by Jennifer Dziura (who is overwhelmingly cool, like a cat with a diamond collar), it’s aggressive lady advice for the ambitious and hopeful. She says many things which make me want to hi-5 the sky (the latest, which I’ve said before, is the sensible advice to only have a baby with a feminist. More on that to come) and says other things which make me write things furiously in notebooks.

It’s not for everyone but it super speaks to me. It feels like the world is a particularly exhausting place at the moment, and – in case it helps you – this is the website that I treat myself to when it all (the patriarchy/my laziness/my inability to slap the bitch in my head who tells me I’m stupid) get too much.

You are bloody well welcome.

Storytelling and CVs (or How Making Up Stuff Helped My Career)

I wrote a blog a while ago about how performing comedy to drunk people had helped my career skill sets. I got some nice comments from some nice people about it so I thought I’d talk about another element of my experience: telling stories.

Telling stories, whether written or through performance, is a skill which is often under-valued in the workplace. I often don’t even put it on my CV, as it feels like such a vague tenuous thing to put on, like ‘I like watching films’ or ‘I am a people person.’

However, by learning how to spin a yarn, I can…

– structure a speech with a proper beginning, interesting middle and an end which doesn’t make everyone in the room want to chop off their fingers with boredom

– present complicated ideas in a way which people are more likely to remember. I often tell stories to children, and if I can get them to understand what platelets are, I can probably get a grown-up to understand the point of the mid-year financial review.

– be interesting at the office Christmas party

– use imaginative metaphors and similes to make abstract information feel like it has a coherent flow.

If you’re nervous at presentations, find your imagination is drying up with too many spreadsheets or worry that you are losing your creative spark, I highly recommend getting yourself along to some storytelling nights, or even workshops. The Scottish Storytelling Centre is a good place to start and then, finally, you can dazzle everyone with your Little Mermaid/Data Analysis mash up.

This content was originally posted on Linked-In

Here’s to a decade and all that…

Tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of my relationship with the human commonly known as The Boy. I haven’t got a card because I wasn’t sure what I wanted it to say. Maybe…

Hurrah! We made it! We held on tight as we were swept along by the last ten years and now, maybe, an anniversary is a chance to put our heads above the water and gasp for air before the next part of the journey. Look at the view. We’re a long way from where we started, eh? Holy crap, is that a shark?! No, no, it’s fine. It’s a plastic bag. No, screw you, it LOOKED like a shark.

THANKS!

“Thank you” seems like a weird thing to say about a relationship. Saying “thanks for loving me” is a really bleak sentence which sounds like it should be snivelled into a cardigan sleeve in the rain. Saying “thanks for putting up with me” suggests that there isn’t the reciprocity of tolerating each other’s irritating habits. I mean, I’m annoying, but so is everyone. I am grateful though. I was pretty broken when we met and I’m grateful for the support while I mended myself. But, on the other hand, I have made him a lot more cake than he’s made me, so it all kinda balances out.

LET’S CONTINUE!

I’ve already written about marriage, which still stands even though now we have a baby together. Being in a relationship means working at stuff and talking about stuff and OH GOD WHY IS THERE NO BREAD LEFT ARGH but we’re both pretty keen to only stay romantically together as long as we both really want to. Knowing this, and that there’s no obligation to stay other than love/laziness, means we both feel pretty confident in us as a couple. We’re joined for life through the small person, whatever happens, but maybe an anniversary is a good chance to check everything for vital signs and nod in agreement that we keep this romantic ship sailing.

STARTING A RELATIONSHIP IS SUPER AWKWARD SO THANKS FOR DOING THAT WITH ME!

One of the best things about being in a long-term relationship is that you don’t have to have that excruciating conversation where you mutter ‘so, errr…are we, like going out officially then?’ and everyone dies a bit inside. It was ten years ago that The Boy and I drunkenly had that chat (while outside a goth club in Glasgow because THAT IS WHERE DREAMS ARE MADE) and I still get itchy feet thinking about the awkwar

THIS IS A GREAT EXCUSE TO EAT LOTS OF FOOD!

This. Yeah, probably this.

Happy anniversary, idiot.

Bullets, lists and other organising things

I love ticking things off, even if one of those things is ‘write list’ and my list only has two things on it.

However, I’m also really interested in making myself more efficient and – without a hint of irony – spend shed loads of time looking at organising systems which can justify me buying more pens.

If you’re into this kind of nerdery, you may have come across the bullet journal craze which has sparked a million instagrammers to show off how good their calligraphy is. The premise is nice: an analogue system for a digital age. I love fancy gadgets and am a big fan of software which makes life easier (Evernote is a particular lifesaver) but holy moly do I love a notebook.

The bullet journal concept is definitely worth a look. It’s all about arranging your planning in a more systematic way, using symbols and indexes to help keep focus. I realised when reading this that I pretty much do that in my diary. I love a weekly Moleskine, with my weekly to do list on the right, daily appointments on the left and a scribbled daily to do list drawn from both of them and then recycled at the end of the day. That way you get to rip up your to do list which is just delicious.

However, I’m interested in how a slightly adapted version of this can help me keep focus on longer term creative projects. My diary is very much a screaming timebomb of things which have to be done immediately, and it would be nice to have a space which is just for the planning and project management of creativity. So, I’m going to give it a go and will report back next week.

I started with a log for my blog (I get to colour in a wee square for writing this! I am great), and will be looking at giving myself deadlines for a stageplay/monologue thing which I want to get going and then I’ll make loads of money and buy pens.

And do you know what? In looking at different systems, and trying to set one up for myself, I’ve totally realised that I get why people use beautiful fonts and washi tape and ink and lines and cute paper. It’s pathetically motivating to open a notebook and see something delicious that you want to keep beautiful by keeping on top of everything. (Writing that did make me think I should probably spend less time on Pinterest and more time talking to actual people).

Right, I’m off to dive into a packet of felt tips…

This post is also published on The Creative Office blog

The Great British Sewing Bee and Politics and That

As the world tumbles around us, as Game of Thrones gets ever more dramatic (apparently) and as we try to work out what’s happening with Taylor and Tom, the BBC has delivered a sanctuary of pleasantness. The Great British Sewing Bee had its final on Monday and I cried my eyes out with happiness when the winner was declared*.

It was a competition where the prize was an adorable little trophy and where the participants helped each other out and were genuinely happy for each other. It involved skill, determination and a lot of biscuits. The youngest person in it was 18 and the oldest was retired and they were PALS! Having a laugh, getting tips from each other, pals. Lovely.

I was watching it, thinking about how utterly tranquil it made me feel. I started pondering what profound life lessons you can learn from a show which involves a lot of bias binding and – because I am obsessed with finding meaning and metaphor in all sorts of crap – I came up with…

What We Should Learn from The Great British Sewing Bee to Help Improve Politics**

**title may need improvement.

1. A competition doesn’t mean you have to crap on other people.

The programme followed the tried-and-tested format of losing a participant each week. They were all in competition with each other, but also realised that their chances of winning wouldn’t be improved by slagging each other off and trying up undermine everyone. It resulted in happier people, happier viewers and an atmosphere where everyone got better at their skill. We need to not only be nicer to other people we’re in competition with, but create forums where this is possible. By allowing conversations and skill sharing – even within a format which involved time restrictions and competition – people didn’t flag because they weren’t getting the bloodspill of The Apprentice, they were flourishing under the sunlight which radiates from Claudia Winkleman’s fringe. Take note, Labour Party.

2. Celebrating a learnt skill is super inspiring

I know Britain’s Got Talent is meant to shine a light on people who’ve worked hard to get good at something but a) Simon Cowell b) it pisses on way too many chips to be encouraging and c) it doesn’t show the process. The Sewing Bee showed how things were done, encouraging viewers to have a go themselves. Practice and passion are rewarded, creativity celebrated and focusing in on a skill applauded. I will never be able to sing well enough to win the X Factor. I could learn to sew well enough to make a dress. That makes me want to get off my arse and make a dress. Maybe politics should do the same: make processes, reports and research more open to the public, and demystify major decisions. Those working in politics are not Gods with some unknowable talents. Encouraging people to do their own research and really understand politics, particularly locally, could be really energising.

4. I love Claudia Winkleman

Now, although that statement is just true, it did make me think of something else. The commentary on politics is often aggressive, regularly male and primarily a bit posh. I understand the need for aggression (keep them on their toes, etc) but, actually, the combative approach to interviewing is pretty ineffective. It means experienced politicians are just playing conversational tennis, batting back questions with nonsensical replies and bright-eyed newbies are unable to more the conversation forward because they’re busy stammering out a defence. It would be nice to see more affable conversations about politics. It would be wonderful to have a political programme which could be funny, provoking and make people feel like the world of politics was accessible. (I would add: a good example of this was the Gary: Tank Commander’s Election Specials. They were a total treat which actually brought out the politician’s personalities).

So, go and watch the sewers and then be nice to someone who’s beating you at life. One day their needle might snap and it’ll be your turn to get the tiny, adorable trophy.

*spoiler alert: I really liked the winner, but it wasn’t the person I’d secretly hoped it would be. Look away if you don’t want to know who I wanted to win…..

Mam-ing and Work-ing

There are lots of conversations about being a parent which I have several times a day. The answers are usually:

• Yes, he’s a boy


• He’s four and a half months


• I know! (this is the answer to lots of things, but normally about how tall or awesome he is)


• Not yet, but he does sleep pretty well and I don’t mind that he doesn’t sleep through COS HE IS A TINY BABY.

However, there’s something which a few people (mainly lady-people) have asked me about a bit more quietly: what it’s like going back to work soon after having a baby and leaving the bulk of the childcare to the daddy bear.

Short answer? You can totally make it work, don’t worry about it.

Long answer involves the logistics of boobs.

I’ve had reactions ranging from hi-5s to pretty harsh judgements when I’ve told people that I’ve been working for most of wee Thane’s life. My work is a bit unusual, as it either involves working at a fantastic festival, where the appearance of a baby has been met with delight and understanding (thanks Edinburgh Science and Imaginate Festival! Love ya <3), or working in our office/studio where he can come and have a feed, have a play and generally distract my office mates whenever he likes.

However, there are still a lot of things we had to consider.

I’ve been very lucky that I’ve been able to breastfeed without too much bother, but it does mean the BabyDaddy spends a lot of his time chasing me round so that we can latch a small baby onto my boobs regularly. Wee Thane is a super ravenous small thing so has had top up feeds of formula from the beginning, which means they’re able to do things like go swimming without me. I discovered early on that expressing breastmilk is my least favourite part of being a parent by a mile. It’s slow, it’s difficult and if you’ve anything less than a bra bursting with mamamilk, then it’s going to make you feel sad and worthless when you end up with 10ml to show for half an hour stuck to a milking machine. Science needs to fix that crap, ASAP.

There’s nothing like a small person to get you focused…for a while. And then the pressure mounts because sometimes you catch yourself spending too long on Facebook, when that is time you SHOULD BE SPENDING WITH THE BABY. If you’re considering going back to work early as a freelancer, I’d recommend making some plans in advance. Like, bulletjournal, to do list, mindful the arse out of your ambitions because your emotions will be everywhere, your fears will be big and your love with be larger and you need a piece of paper which says ‘send invoices’ on it.

3. The Delicious Heartache of Missing

Oh my goodness, I miss that wee splodge when he’s not in my immediate vicinity. I miss his tiny fingers and the way he laughs when I do overly-dramatic-peekaboo. And people say ‘how can you work, don’t you miss him too much?’ and I say, yes, I do miss him. Like every dad who’s had to go back to work 2 weeks after the arrival of their new child. Nobody seems to mind that the poppas close their eyes and think about squidgy toes, but I’m a good feminist so I am obliged to point out that my hardship is no worse than their hardship. I’m happy knowing Thane’s having an awesome time with his Dad (who’s an incredible parent, despite the terrible disability of having a penis) and I’m lucky that I have a work situation which means my kid gets two parents for lots of the time.

So, this isn’t really a recommendation or a warning about going back to work early as a new Mam. You have to do what’s right for you. It’s more of a wave over the battlements…I struggled to find other people who went back to work as quickly as I did and I’ve shed many tears of guilt and fear. If you’re doing the same, or thinking about it, then feel free to contact me using the form below and I’ll try to say something comforting.

However, if you know someone who’s thinking about it, or are pals with people who are co-parenting, or if your best mate is a Dad who’s feeling a bit forgotten, then could you just tell them that it’s all ok? If their kid is happy and loved, please just tell them they’re doing a great job in a complicated world. And then maybe buy them some chips, because that helps too.

Digital Steps (down a digital hallway filled with digital ghosts that make me feel a bit stupid)

So, I am many things. I have that terribly 2016 problem of being completely unable to describe my job because it’s a kind of writer, performer, producer, host, workshop leader, festival kinda thing. It’s ridiculous, because lives are ridiculous now and if you don’t believe me look at the news and cry.

I realised recently that I was getting frustrated about taking my career (such as it is) to the next level. There were certain things which I was finding hard to articulate with the tools at my disposal after two arts degrees, and I couldn’t quite link together all my skills/things I love into something which made me a more viable business.

Oh yeah. I said business. And I have an ENGLISH degree.

I’m trying to be less scared of talking about money/ambitions of owning more than 4 pairs of shoes (one of these pairs is flip flops, the other is a pair of boots with holes in). I’m fairly avidly obsessed with Get Bullish, an awesome website and concept of aggressive lady advising which my pal Kaite pointed me towards and which I now live by. My ravings about it are for another day, but Get Bullish sparked something in me: wanting to nail down my aspirations in a more businesslike way.

Being ‘in the creative industries’ means there’s a lot of applying for things, submitting your hopes and dreams to people with a sheepish email offering to rip it apart and do it again if it suits their whim. It’s easy to feel out of control: the ridiculous dilemma of being self-employed and stifled by too much freedom, and able to do anything you want as long as someone validates it for you. Which is, of course, nonsense.

I want to take back control. I want to start to understand tech.

So, I’ve got a plan. I’ll be talking about it more in a different blog post (there’s a project coming up) but part of it involves increasing my digital literacy. I took part in ‘Learning to Code for Digital Analysis,’ an Open University course which I studied for free through Futurelearn. It took me so far out of my comfort zone I felt like I was in a different country and everyone spoke the language but me.

I did it. I finished it. I answered the questions and did the projects and now I know a little bit about Python and how to organise data.

Feeling pretty proud of myself.

I suppose the point is: there are so many routes to so many destinations but just picking one, and having a proper explore is feeling like a healthy thing to do. I’m very guilty of walking about three steps down 20 different paths, then getting distracted by a snail and falling asleep while everyone gallops over my snoozing body. Taking on the challenge of my digital literacy feels like a stride in – even if it’s not the right one – a direction.

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Just so you know…

I do quite a lot of different things, including: being the Programme Manager for the Edinburgh City of Literature, writing a bit, hosting a bit, Mam-ing a bit and daydreaming about owning a log cabin.

Always keen as mustard to talk about reading, spoken word, stand-up, feminism, Clueless and writing.

Although I'm not actively seeking bookings for 2017, if you think I could help with your event please feel free to email me (sianyb at mac.com) and I'll do my best to be helpful.

This blog, including the events page, is very half-heartedly maintained but I'm much more reliable on Twitter. Follow me and learn how little I know: @sianbevan.