Matthew's RSA blog

China crisis

The latest from the RSA Events team...

This week the Events team comforted themselves with copious quantities of luxury chocolate and pondered the meaning of life. We welcomed the end of the Hollywood screenwriters strike as it means more meetings of GDAC – the Events team’s very own Glossy Drama Appreciation Club (applications on a shoulder pad, submitted via an appropriate agent, are welcome).  Though the dramatic twists and turns of Damages have given us plenty to chew over in recent weeks, for lighter relief we’re impatient for the return of Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives.

A moment of real-life drama gave us our starting-point for this week’s RSA Thursday debate. Following Stephen Spielberg’s resignation as artistic adviser to the Beijing Olympics, an impressive line-up of China experts gathered at the RSA to debate the likelihood of human rights having a sporting chance at this summer’s games.

And while we’re talking news, this week’s evening lecture explored the serious matters of data protection, identity cards and privacy laws with a wide range of perspectives and, perhaps surprisingly, a high level of humour.  Look out for an edited audio download of the evening coming soon on our podcast...

Next week looks like being yet another very busy one with a packed programme of events ahead. So, we’ve re-stocked the chocolate supplies... bring on the drama!

Collective consumption… and perhaps a lecture

I wrote last week about the success of RSA Screens, at which film makers discuss their work with an audience prior to it being shown on Channel Four.

On my way into Clapham Picture House last week I saw an advertisement for a series of screenings in which operas at New York's Metropolitan Opera are broadcast live to cinemas around the globe.

In the summer months BP and others sponsor big screen showings of ballet and opera in town squares across the UK.

By its nature going to the cinema is a collective experience, but there is a difference. Unlike just happening to sit next to a stranger at the Odeon, these events involve people using film as the focus for a group activity, or exchange, recognising that this adds something (beyond the size of the screen) not gained by watching the same material in your front room.

This desire for collective consumption will be vividly displayed tomorrow when millions of us choose to watch the Rugby World Cup final in noisy, crowded pubs and clubs.

A few years ago, in the face of falling cinema and live sport audiences, it was widely assumed we were on the road to the complete privatisation of leisure. As home entertainment options expanded and improved why would people bother with the effort and expense of going to see live performance?

But then things turned round. Film makers rediscovered the blockbuster and cinema developers went multi-screen. Sports clubs (football in particular) starting treating fans like paying customers deserving of comfort and safety; investors and sponsors saw that live sport could be good business.

The growth in collectivism goes further.

Every large town and city (and even some villages) seem to have a growing book, film, theatre or comedy festival. Then there is the expansion of the lecture circuit, the multiplication of rock festivals.

It seems we do like doing stuff together.

And something interesting is happening to our attention span. A TV executive told me the other day that it is getting harder and harder to hold viewers for longer than a few minutes. A fifty minute drama can't succeed with one pay off at the end. It must be full of sub-plots and mini-climaxes.

Similarly, we are apparently very intolerant of websites that aren't up to the minute, fully functional and speaking precisely to our interests.

Yet, we will sit in a muddy field and wait for hours to hear a band, watch a boring 0-0 and be delighted with a last minute winner, or listen to an author's lecture with only a small chance of being picked in the Q and A.

It seems we are willing to put up with things live and together, that we would never accept as individuals consuming bytes of access-anytime information.

Others I'm sure have written more eloquently and authoritatively on this subject, but I find these trends interesting and encouraging.

Is there something here that links to the RSA's broader 'pro-social' debate? I'd like to know what you think.

Then again you've probably stopped reading by now - maybe I'll have to do this post as a lecture instead.

03:28:52

So I've done the marathon. Three hours 28 minutes and 52 seconds. Just inside my 3:30 target and just outside the top 10 per cent of runners overall. I started writing this on Monday morning and was still as stiff as a board, sunburned and sore all over.

The first fifteen miles were fine with my second 10 km my fastest. Between 15 and 20 it started getting rough and then...

Everyone tells you how tough it gets at the end but nothing can really prepare you.

When I got to 22 miles I was still three minutes ahead of my target pace but every few seconds I was being overwhelmed by the need to stop running. Between 22 and 23 I did walk for a minute and then between 23 and 24 for another 30 seconds until someone in the crowd caught my eye and urged me on.

I think the final mile must have taken getting on for 10 minutes and even at 400 metres I would have happily paid £10,000 to have been transported to the finish.

As the pain subsides I can remember the high points. Tower Bridge at the halfway point and running between the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf as you get past 20 miles are particularly memorable.

I found catching up with novelty runners a good motivation. I was determined not to end behind Scooby Doo (nine miles), Spider Man (15 miles), Elvis (20 miles) or Superman (21 miles and again at 24).

One the things that kept me going was all the kind people who have sponsored Oxfam through me so thanks to them for helping me over those last awful miles. With the additional cash and cheques I was given over the last couple of days I made the £2200 target.

It was the fundraising that won me a compliment from Conservative Leader David Cameron when he spoke at the RSA on Monday morning. As a lifetime Labour Party member this was a bit strange, but being chief executive of a fiercely independent organisation like the RSA it can only be good that a leading politician chooses to join our debate about 'pro-social behaviour'. The Cameron speech was a useful contribution to the debate.

Sometimes the discussion about how we encourage people to give more back can seem rather woolly and it certainly tends to get treated that way by the political media.

I think it can provide the basis for a more relevant type of politics, with right, left and centre variants of the analysis depending on your views of social justice and the state.

But anyone who has a tendency to under-estimate the contribution to social change that can be made through voluntary collective action should have been in Greenwich Park or anywhere between there and the Mall on Sunday.

The charitable efforts of the runners of all different ages and backgrounds - many of whom ended up running and walking in all kinds of costumes for five or six hours in a baking hot day - and the incredible support of the hundreds of thousands thronging the route reminds us what sacrifices and celebrations we are capable of when we turn our minds to it.