to take arms against a sea of troubles

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles...

Hamlet, Act3, Scene 1,  Shakespeare, c1600's

I love that line - to take arms against a sea of troubles - the boundlessness of anxiety when it feels overwhelming, the crashing of waves over one's head - and the thought of madness, to take one's sword and slash at this mass of water, a futile act. This is a visual thing, a dramatisation to evoke a picture in one's mind, for me, as strong as shattered Ozymandias,

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies...

Ozymandias, Shelley, 1818

Powerlessness gives rise to anger and madness, and makes for great entertainment if one chooses to see the funny side of a man slashing the waves with a sword in his despair, and Shakespeare was good at that and all. Today, we have the Simpsons to poke fun in our eyes, laugh at our social and cultural values and vastly entertain us, soothing us into the illusion that there isn't an agenda, unlike the BBC which is quite unmasked in its Auntie kind of way, to feed us morally upstanding stuff like The Bill. I actually know people who live that dream, that idealisation of being the statistical average and dutifully shopping where and when they are told to with their loyalty cards and their mail order catalogues. Nothing new there.

So, what is new? Heston Blumenthal. www.channel4.com/hestons-mission-impossible. Predictable in his always having something new - but how Channel 4 have chosen to edit this series of four programmes, prepackaged with the right balance of information, presentation, narrative- introduction, emotional journey, conclusion, pat on the back, thanks Heston, time to go home. This man isn't media-savvy, not slick in his reading from the autocue, is self-contained and lives in a world of creatives in a laboratory in Bray, and has his eye on only one thing: how food works. "Mission Impossible" is the madness of taking arms against a sea of troubles - and food is the least of his challenges. I can't believe the high-handedness, the derision, the patronising attitudes, the rudeness with which he is met. A personal challenge he meets with grace and understanding is how threatened others feel, how misunderstood he is in terms of how he works, and what he does. The double-edged sword: our lust for celebrity, and then misunderstanding why they are famous - not for snail porridge but for visionary talent and the hard work to see it through. There is an impetus in others to kill that kind of person, but in his humanity, rises above it all and develops good relationships with people to achieve his aims. A truly great man, and a David to society's Goliaths.

WOW

We're standing in Southend Library this morning, looking out the window, and she comments on the press coverage this tree has recently had. I'm not a morning person, really - bit slow on the uptake, so she kindly pointed out that it's March, and this tree has forgotten to shed its apples. It still thinks it's the growing season. I made a politically incorrect joke about her comment on the tree being some Scottish breed - I said, well, the Scottish are known to be tight, but... funny at the time. Anyway.

I don't blame the tree: it may or may not know there's a recession and to hang on to - and show off its assets seems to me to be a good move. It also appears not to know that it's not autumn any more; winter has passed, it's spring. To be in joyful denial of the seasons passing is quirky but I find optimism in it. Or it's ruthless determination, but either way, me and the tree might be kindred spirits.

And we have to be: the recession has hit the arts badly, and the landscape is changing at a daily pace; worried faces, an unsure future; considering options, plan B, plan C... let's go to a Kibbutz instead and leave it all behind.

Hardly: really exciting to hear Syd Moore on Womans Hour www.bbc.co.uk/programmes11/03/11 'give it some' about reclaiming the Essex Girl stereotype, her Essex accent loud and clear, but what a pleasantly feminine and eloquent voice. Syd is an intelligent, articulate woman with a lot to say: unshakable conviction in her beliefs and and a determination to carry on regardless, refusing to shed any assets along the way. I take my hat off to her. She does it in style.

"Launching this year, WOW - Women of the World - is a joyous celebration of the formidable strength and inventiveness of women - a pioneering, groundbreaking annual festival, which will present, recognise and celebrate women, and act as a conversation space for issues of all kinds." www.southbankcentre.co.uk/women-of-the-world Incidentally, a Kibbutz is a combination of Socialism (common or public ownership) and Zionism (self-determination) through agricultural sustenance. So we may not have to travel to Israel to have some of the pioneering energy and celebration of ourselves, a sense of identity, a new growth of joy and optimism.

I'm not the kind to hug a tree, but that's what I might just go back and do.

Love in a Cold Climate

John Stezaker Love XI, 2006, collage. Private Collection, Switzerland. © The Artist.

I went to see John Stezaker whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/john-stezaker at the Whitechapel last week. Glamorous images - manipulated - altered - intervened; the visual language of surrealism, a central loneliness, and she remarked to me, as we stood looking at these images "How can he spend his whole life on one thing?" She's young, and we're talking about a retrospective that is pre-digital where the platinum print is iconographic and loses none of its mistique, stark in the contrast of today's expendable culture.

He must have been in love. I know I fall in and out of love with my own work, and go through times of disillusionment and times when it is so rapturously engaging. How can we fall in love with what we do? Part of it may be sublimation - to immerse and invest in one's personal dialogue. But, there are many kinds of love, as we know, but watching Michael Sandel talk about Kant and the Catagorical Imperative, it seems Reason is the one ulterior aspiration: what the "right" thing to do is; to see others, their welfare as the prime; to set an example. And so it is with love: to want the best for that person, to put that person as prime, to put them before oneself. That could be a mothers love, for some, or for a lover, a truly altruistic love; for others, it's giving to a purpose higher than themselves for the greater humanity.

The "right thing"  - these are simple rules we live by, mostly, maybe, but where was Reason when Love walked in the door? That's the gap between aspiration and motivation. By bringing the two together we become morally upstanding citizens, maybe, but where's the glamour, the romance, the loss of reason to make images as elusive and timeless as Stezakers?