Vulnerability

My mind is in pieces today. Waking up from a long day interviewing staff with a mental healthcare client for some brand positioning work. I listened to directors, governors, front-line staff, carers. There were tears. It was at once enlightening and harrowing. And the working environment was oppressive, cell-like. One word chased me into sleep last night. Vulnerability. It’s still with me as, following instructions, I’m cleaning the house this morning before the monthly cleaners arrive. Then something stirs upstairs – in my mind, as opposed to the house, that is. Did I once see Dexy’s Midnight Runners play at Bradford University, or is this a figtree of my emancipation? My memory says yes, but my brain is uncertain. As the toothless Mancunian sage says, ‘There’s nothing stranger than the things you know but don’t quite realise.’ I saw a piece of paper which says that today was the day in 1980 when Dexy’s released Geno. My mind’s eye gives me the picture. Kevin Rowland ranting and gyrating, orchestrating the crowd. Almost straightaway, I’m thinking about Bradford University in another way. My long lost school and Bradford University mate, Rog, emails to announce he’s 50 tomorrow and confesses to struggling with it. What’s so great about reaching 50, he asks. ‘Is not being dead yet a cause for celebration?’ Only Rog could throw away a line as profound as that. The irony for me is that, at school, we always used to tease Rog for being one of the undead – something to do with the pale, translucent skin and tendency not to appear on photographs. So, while I think of what I’m going to be saying to Rog ('you're a long time undead?), I’ll be playing Monster Mash, by Bobby Boris Pickett, in his honour. And then, perhaps, Geno. Then maybe my mental jigsaw will begin to piece itself back together and I can get on with the two brand identity jobs that are leaning into me.



Mark Griffiths http://www.idealconsulting.co.uk/