Recently, photographs of mine were used for ambiguous commercial purposes without permission. They were used for a university prospectus. With universities transforming more and more into Big corporations, I am on the one hand cynical about the indiscriminate use of pretty pictures to sell university degrees as commodities, especially when the images in question bear little direct relation to what is being offered. On the other hand, I live in hope that at some point soon universities with their student body will grow out of its contractor-client relationship and return to something that resembles the shared experiencial aquisition of wisdom from student and scholar alike, with the university authorities acting more like an alma mater than Chief Executive. And so images like mine, that were made for research – to understand more about the thing that was photographed – will become symbolic of the university’s desire to attract keen scholars to the institution. But I digress.

All this business with my photographs got me thinking and I was led to read about Creative Commons, a new licencing initiative that seeks to right the many idiocies surrounding the interpretation, misunderstanding and fear of copyright and reproduction law and encourage a respectful culture of sharing creative work. It puts the author, photographer, artist, composer, etc, back in charge of his/her work and on his/her terms in a non-defensive fashion. This is the kind of enlightened thing I would expect to eminate from a university but I suspect like so many other good things that are emerging, some clever and thoughtful people just decided to ‘do it’. So, from now and forever for all photographs, texts, artworks, music or any other original work created by me, shall be governed by a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License. This license will apply equally to future works and retrospectively.

This is Minerva as Victory in the Roman city of Ostia.

Today, the British government lauched its new (well it had to be ‘new’ didn’t it?) ‘Respect agenda’. I can here it now, “about time too,” “bloody yobs, something needs to be done” etc., etc. But what does it all mean? Many of us have suffered the stupid behaviour of other people, perhaps having to live near junkies or loud and self-absorbed students, or be verbally abused by gob-shite kids on our way home from work, or just having to walk down your own street or town centre seeing it strewn with rubbish, broken glass and over-flowing bins, for example. I can’t help thinking that this is yet another pathetic and shallow attempt by our government to tick another box on their contrite list of ‘things to do for Britain’.

Now they may go home happy that they’ve done something about it, none of them having to live around the few idiots that cause the many to have a more and more diminished quality of life. And there are many of the latter who just don’t care about these things and tend to retreat further and further in their own shells, living in bubbles where they don’t see the point of doing anything about our less than satisfactory social situation. They fratonise with their own, remain unobservant and uncaring of the community, environment or universe in which they live. They go from relationship to relationship, pay-rise to pay-rise, large house to larger house until one day, they decide they’re old and now the world owes them. So who’s being anti-social?

Among other things, the ‘Respect agenda’ will:

• ban nuisance residents for three months from their home
• impose on-the-spot fines
• impose parenting orders
• have ‘face the people’ sessions between the public and local council and police to demand tougher action on the anti-socialites
• a crack team of 16 ministers to go around the country to spread the message

Yet again, the government treats the individual with contempt. Their lack of any understanding of, and respect for people, nature, society and history used to amaze me but now it makes me feel sad. The ‘Respect agenda’ is another football that our mis-guided Prime Minister will kick about in the garden for a while until he gets bored and asks Mummy for a new toy.

Most of the people who perpetrate so-called anti-social behaviour are sad types who don’t value themselves, let alone others around them. People who do not have the good fortune to be raised by loving people who treat them as individuals from the very start, who are encouraged to love themselves, will never see their way clear of being nice to others. Destruction of the self and of others (material and human) locks them into a cycle of angst and anger and depression and it all comes out as violence, abuse, vandalism or whatever. The only way more people will behave better is if they are given a creative purpose – something that deflects the self-ishness, that virtually all of us fall into from time to time, to an interest in the collective ‘other’.

We all (can) learn from the expiernce of others and from how we relate reciprocally to eachother. So instead of a fine, why not ask that person to sew a seed and nurture it to germination and then to seedling and plant? Let them watch the flower unfurl and perhaps turn into a berry or nut? So instead of eviction, why not take them into the world of volunteering: clearing up a local park, working as a farm-hand, or talking to the residents of old-people’s homes so they may learn from the wisdom of years? So instead of parenting orders, why not ask these people to work with local artists or musicians and create beautiful things, so then they may show the wonders of this great and terrible world to their children and cherish them into beautiful people? So instead of sending a ministerial task force around the country, why not ask that minister to be a road sweeper for three months, or farmer, a refuse collector, or a shop keeper and to live in the streets where people’s lives are made miserable?
Why am I telling you all this? I just felt like talking.