How can you tell when a politician's lying???

His lips move...

It's an old joke...I first heard it when I was about 8.

Doesn't make it any less true though.

I went to a public meeting on Thursday night at the House of Commons about the Arts Council Cull chaired by Conservative MP and Shadow Arts Minister Ed Vaizey.

Just me and 50 or 60 other representatives of the condemned.

And no, Vaizey's not the untrustworthy politician of this blog. He actually seems a decent bloke, genuinely concerned about the Arts Council's wanton decimation of the Arts.

Andrew Whyte, the Arts Council's Executive Director of Advocacy and Communications, on the other hand...

On Thursday night it was my privilege to watch him obfuscate...dissemble...verbally bob and weave as he sought to shape reality, spin it through a combination of doublespeak and bovine scat, weasel words scurrying from his lips and nipping at the audience's ankles.

A snakeoil salesman of the highest order, a 21st Century Elmer Gantry, you had to admire Whyte for staying unwaveringly 'on message' in the face of both the facts and his audience's hostility.

Slicker than babysnot, it really didn't matter that his arguments were dubious, based on half-truths and factual inaccuracies. I doubt he believed the gobbledygook and bunkum he spouted any more than we did.

He's a game-player. All that matters is the game.

Sure he'd try to persuade us that the Arts Council was right and justified, that there was no hint of croneyism or bias in their decision-making, no whiff of corruption, no conflict of interests. He'd seduce us, cajole us, pontificate and posture, arrogantly assert his own version of the truth.

But none of it matters. Truth doesn't matter. Accuracy doesn't matter. Honesty. Fairness. Justice. Morality. Trust. They're all meaningless.

To the Whyte's of this world, truth and accuracy are far less important than the ability to lead your audience by the nose. Dazzle them with your rhetoric. Dance around them like a prizefighter, just out of reach, before slipping through their defences and WHAM!

But for Whyte's magic to work, for him to convince us his sow's ear was a silk purse, that his magic beans were really worth buying, we have to be culpable.

For his seduction to work, we have to be on the market.

We have to want it.

And on Thursday night no-one in Committee Room 6 was buying.

He was a distraction and he knew it.

A henchman offered up for sacrifice, running interference for his absent boss, Peter Hewitt.

Who was far too busy to grant us an audience.

After all he had a party to go to.

His own leaving do. A private and very exclusive celebration, attended by the cream of the Arts Establishment, at the top of the South Bank Centre. One of the biggest winners in the Arts Council's Cull.

So nothing whiffy there then, everything above board...

Blood and the Arts Council

I need a holiday.

I’m tired.

Frazzled.

Absolutely knackered.

Since before Christmas, since joining LDAF in April as editor of art disability culture, it feels like I’ve never had the chance to stop and smell the roses. For me its been a steep learning curve. I’d never edited a magazine before. I’d never worked in Disability Arts before. Suddenly, I was thrown in at the deep end writing, editing, redesigning and revamping Europe’s only disability arts and culture print magazine. I’m a glutton for punishment though.

One of the first things I learned when I joined LDAF was that not only had there been a Disability Film Festival, there had been seven of them. Which surprised me. Mainly because as a screenwriter who’d worked in the film and TV industry for the last 10 years, as a writer who’d contributed film-related articles and film reviews to several magazines and journals and, more importantly, as a disabled person, I had never heard of it. I’m not quite sure how it happened but somehow myself and LDAF’s Business Development Director, Peter Kinkead (who has 25 years of experience in film and TV), took it upon ourselves to relaunch and co-direct the eighth.

So, I’ve had a fair bit on my plate.

Apart from a romantic weekend in Venice that was slightly marred by a stinking cold (hers) and a boil in the ear (mine), I haven’t had a holiday this year.

Admittedly, I went to a wedding in the Czech Republic. But it was anything but restful. I almost bled to death.

Long story short.

Had tonsillitis.

Had a swollen throat.

Took some ibuprofen to reduce the swelling.

Ibuprofen reacted with some aspirin I take for high blood pressure.

Burned a hole in my stomach.

Bled internally for over a week.

Almost died.

Never felt a thing.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the Man of Steel or anything, I just don’t feel pain. I had a couple of strokes 12 years ago and ever since I…don’t feel pain.

Which is a bit of a bugger really.

Pain is good. Pain is our friend. Pain warns us of impending doom. Most people, sensible people, if they’re at work, and they’re doubled in two with agony and they’re throwing up black gunk constantly, well, most would think “This can’t be right. Maybe I should visit a doctor.” You take pain out of the equation and all you’ve got is a little vomiting. Might be mild food poisoning. Certainly nothing to see a doctor about. And if you’ve got a deadline, if you’ve just been off on a jolly to Prague and now you’ve got a magazine to put together and get to the printers, its certainly nothing to take the day off for.

Even if you start passing out through blood loss.

Without pain, it takes pulling an Elvis in the disabled loo at work and waking up in a puddle of fresh, red blood while alone, working late, for the penny to drop that maybe, just maybe, your tonsillitis/mild food poisoning may be serious.

And it’s not like I got much rest in hospital. My folks came to see me. Came from Scotland. Just to see me lie in a hospital bed. Now, I remember, when I was a child, visiting hours were strict. 2pm to 3pm in the afternoon and 7:30pm until 8:30pm in the evening. At the end of visiting time on the dot!, Nurse Ratched would appear, ring a bell and throw all visitors off the ward. Happy days. These days, it’s pretty much an open door policy. And it’s Hell. Not only do you have to put up with your own relatives, you have to put up with the chav in the next bed’s. Hardly a recipe for recuperation. So Christmas and New Year was going to be my first chance to have a break. For Christmas, I planned to go home to Scotland, spend some time with my nieces, see some friends, get miraculously drunk. New Year, I planned to spend in a pub in Stoke Newington with my girlfriend and some friends. And get miraculously drunk. Above all, I planned to unwind. De-stress. Relax. Then we got a lovely Christmas card from those Scrooges at the Arts Council adding LDAF’s name to their death list. Which kinda put a damper on the whole festive period for me.

A big chunk of which (when I wasn’t doing jigsaws with my two-year old niece or watching In the Night Garden) was spent working on our appeal. Ever since coming back to work on the 2nd I’ve been working my arse off writing appeal documents, redrafting appeal documents, re-redrafting appeal documents, re-reredrafting…well, you get the picture.

But quite apart from the Arts Council riding in like the Sherriff of Nottingham and cancelling Christmas, everything at LDAF has had to be put on hold while we’ve sweated blood writing our appeal.

Which probably won’t be read.

Not that I’m implying the Arts Council aren’t conscientious but I still haven’t formally met our lead officer. He briefly grunted disinterestedly at me and shook my hand while picking something from between his teeth at last year’s ICI exhibition. That hardly counts as an introduction. I’ve been stabbed by people who showed more interest in me. Good to know our future’s in such safe hands.

So now the appeal is in and all I have to do is put the next issue of the magazine out. And organise the Film Festival. And sit around waiting for the Arts Council to decide LDAF’s fate one way or the other.

My girlfriend’s already decided my fate for me. She took the bull by the horns and booked a holiday while I still have a wage. Turkey in May. A whole week in Kas, home of dolphin therapy. Maybe I’ll give it a go, see if the pings can reroute my brain.