Oh how this made me stop in my tracks today. I was hanging around waiting to go into a presentation about” how to get your first job in teaching” – not easy considering the jobs advertised for NQTs (newly qualified teachers) frequently have many hundreds of applications and the idea is to make your written application stand out above the rest so you can get to the interview and wow the interview panel. Then of course you have to make the panel believe you are the best person to walk through their door in who-knows-how-long. I have to say my confidence is so smashed to bits after this summer that I doubt if I’ll even be able to get over the first of these two hurdles, let alone both!
Anyway, I digress. This is my PaD because it’s the truest thing I’ve read in a long time. I’m as cynical as sin as you know and I can’t remember seeing anything as powerfully motivating as this in years.
I used to dance my heart out on a regular basis. I used to dance around the house, in pubs, clubs and discos, not to mention in the street and in my car. Once, when stuck in a traffic jam on the motorway on the way home from a gig with Claz and Shazbop, we were dancing so hard that the bloke in the car behind was despatched by his wife to ask what we were listening to because it looked like so much fun. It was. It was “them Q-Tips” if I recall. We laughed for hours after that.
I almost NEVER dance anymore and that is a major cause of concern in my world. But the trouble is where can I go to dance? There are no places for people like me. There are dance halls that cater for people who want to waltz or tango, ones for those who want to salsa and those for the ravers but there are no places where middle-aged folks can go and fling themselves around like whirling dervishes in gay abandon. There’s nowhere I can shimmy on down to “Wake me up before you go-go” or fling my arms around to “Deliverance” or tap my toes to “Reet Petite”. I don’t suppose for one moment a club catering for me and my type would be commercially successful – I could only afford to do it once in a blue moon but it doesn’t mean I don’t hanker after those days with a passion. I want to dance until I’m breathless and sweaty. I don’t even mind too much being the only person on the dancefloor…OK, I suppose it’s true to say a couple of glasses of the red stuff would have to be consumed in order to make that a reality. I want somewhere where the music is so loud it almost makes your ears bleed – it needs to be loud enough to drown out my belting the numbers out at the top of my voice while cavorting.
If I have painted a picture of someone who is utterly barmy then I would say that’s probably true. In my defence, I get so little opportunity to let down my hair that I’ve almost forgotten how. I can’t imagine that the situation is going to get any better – at least not until I’m in my dotage. I suspect that it suddenly becomes socially acceptable to dance again at around the age of 85, when it’s considered perfectly normal to boogie on down while holding tight to the zimmer frame. Until that day, my days are all lost.
