The first time

Just watched a great programme on the making of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of The Moon. Right at the end, David Gilmour said that he would have loved to have been somebody putting headphones on, sitting back and listening to the album for the first time because as creator, it was a luxury he would never ever experience. It got me thinking.

That's the bane of everyone creative; you never get to experience the thing you create in the way it was meant to be seen, heard or read so what the hell drives us? (I have to include myself because that's all I do now, create stuff. There isn't much out there with my name on at the moment but wait a while and keep your fingers crossed). Is it ego or is there an inherent talent or intuition there for knowing "how it should be"? For me I have to admit to little rushes of pleasure whenever somebody is complimentary about anything I've done as it makes the dreariness of the creative process worthwhile, especially when you know you're not going to witness the surprise involved in an unveiling.

Back in the 70s I had an art teacher, Miss Gorwyn. Her mantra was never visualise the end product. I have to admit, I've always held that advice dear. It works on many levels: you're free to meander around a subject and make changes without being beholden to nothing more than an idea, for a start. At the very least it's an excuse as to why you've not finished yet. It can also help to replace the missing element of surprise as the satisfaction gained when something works unexpectedly because you've gone off on a tangent can be immense.

Outside the artistic environment that advice should be turned on its head. Those who formulate any kind of policy or strategy are also so closely involved that they'll never experience the finished article free of the prejudices of the creator. They'll never feel the full effect of their conceptualising and theorising in quite the way the public will. It's foresight and it's practically non-existent and it's costing the taxpayer a fortune.

A pretty good example of this are the posters currently decorating virtually every wall of our local hospital in Crewe and I dare say those of every hospital nationwide. They exhort the general public to report members of staff for breaching hygiene rules by quoting the odd statistic about the spread of infection. What the designers of this campaign have singularly failed to appreciate is that the general public as a whole will not question a professional in this manner. Even I, who knows the potential effects of bad hygiene more than most because I live with someone who has to practise a strict hygiene regime, find it difficult to confront a doctor and tell them their job. Earlier in this blog I mentioned the recycling bins we've had delivered and which we can't store. No consultation or thought, just given out and presumably then collected from all those terraced houses unable to keep them safely at vast public expense. I've decided to save them the bother and leave mine out front and wait for it to be stolen by a builder wanting a mobile water butt.

I'm heartily fed up with highly paid so-called professionals lacking either this foresight or any kind of intuition as to what's going to work. So many times I've offered my professional services as a fed-up consumer or bloke in the pub, ready to advise them where they're likely to fall foul of common sense but I'm continuously being ignored. Just because it looks good on paper doesn't guarantee it'll work.