"Zanna, Don't", is a musical set in a society where being gay is the norm, and heterosexuals are a persecuted minority. It climaxes into a fantastic moment where a boy and girl fall in love and kiss, and the audience feels awkward because they desperately want something gay to happen again. It struck me that if our attitude can be changed in 40 mins, surely it can change in the next 6 weeks.
You know those summer jobs that you hate? You get paid terribly and have to work your arse off day after day, whether hungover or not. I also feel that the Edinburgh festival is slightly responsible as the clubs don't shut until 5 and that as a result some days involved me coming home, having a bath, getting changed and watching tv until work without so much as a wink.
Anyway... my point is... in order to motivate myself and the other dedicated students of Aitken and Niven, the private school uniform shop in Morningside, a poster existed in the staff room which attempted to serve the purpose of motivating us in times of woes and sorrow...
It read something along the lines of...
"For many years athletes had tried to run the four minute mile. Many came close, but none succeeded. John Landy, an Australian runner had come so close, but never made it within that magic four minute mark. He tried and he tried, but lost by tiny seconds which in his heart felt like hours.
But on an Oxford morning in 1954, a young medical student at Oxford University called Roger Bannister, cheered on by thousands, ran the four minute mile.
Just two months later, John Landy succeeded and broke the magic mark.
What changed? His trainers? His track? His running technique? His fitness?
No. His attitude."
Now I don't think my attitude made much of a difference to pricing shorts, or trying to communicate to an Edinburgh Academy mother that if she's had a blazer for a year, broken the zip and kept biscuits in the pockets then it couldn't get replaced, but nevertheless I always remembered what that poster said.
It is our attitude which this upcoming by election is pinned upon.
I don't think the candidate was too much of an issue. The Labour candidate has been of much greater interest and scrutiny than any candidate the SNP have put up, but I don't think that's too important. All 3 candidates in the short list were perfectly qualified, but I fear that whichever one is chosen is being forced to walk a set path in this election. Not a path set by London, but a path created by London. A path created by the attitude which our government has allowed to happen, without making enough of a stand to justify why it was or was not doing what it did.
The attitude we hold of ourselves is what is killing us. It happened in Glasgow and it will happen here unless we change. We need to believe in ourselves again. We need to know that we can do it.
I believe we can, and I think we will.
But then again I'm a little bias... Maybe it's my attitude, right...?
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