Being Nice

..........or Being Kind. (see following day's post 'Being Candid', but only afterwards.)

The strain is telling. Attempting to be both positive and honest at the same time can tear you in two. Like trying to stay vertical standing on the deck of ship tilting 45 degrees. To me it may stand out a mile and a half that the consultation document of the EMP Management Plan reflects the most dismal failure of imagination yet can you really say that without offending? So I don’t say it, in fact I retract it ….for now.

“People have put a lot of work into that”, will be one response from past experience. That’s it then. Briefly you think of all those other things that people have worked very hard at (Moscow’s tenements, Kelvin flats, most present-day television, my singing, etc.). There is a strand of modern culture which feels the need to treat any project as if it's a worthy effort from schoolchildren who must be praised lavishly lest they get discouraged and need expensive counselling.

A failure to be positive about plans labels you as being negative, not constructive, condemns you,the commenter, as being a non person exiled from influence and stakeholder status, or beyond the pale (not 'pail' by the way). Some of our local councillors are a bit like this, I've found. If you complain about an organisation, a policy etc. they are prone to come back at you with "What's good about it/ them?" You know straight away that they are working to a formula: if this bloke only tells me what's wrong then he's just a belly-acher with no balanced view so I can safely ignore him. So it’s wise to have a comment like “Joe Stalin loved his grandchildren and was kind to cats”.

The great and always technically brilliant Australian operatic soprano Joan Sutherland understood this very well. An interviewer once asked what she thought of the Welsh singer Kathryn Jenkins and she replied simply "Nice boobs".

So let's find some positive things to say about Eastern Moors Partnership's Plan.

1 The pdf file shows it as being a fine-looking glossy document packed with pleasing graphic design features.
2 Some attractive photos litter the pages adding greatly to the overall positive impression.
3 The general presentation is of a professional standard indicating a good grounding in public communication skills.
4 We should give a welcome to the clearly drawn charts with well chosen symbols. It's easy to refer to.
5 Following on from 4 above, we certainly know some of what EMP is going to do, at least regarding what they say here, unlike Sheffield Wildlife Trust who present their RAG attenders with barely decipherable maps and charts as if they are afraid someone might understand them.
6 Unless they’re not telling us there is no suggestion that barbed wire will be a major new feature.
7 No wind-farm planned, no travellers camp, no caravan site, no concreting over for a skateboarding park, no skyscraper office complex for EMP, PDNPA, NT, RSPB, NE wildlife trusts and other conservation bureaucracies, (unless this comes later to administer the expanding empire).
8 No grouse shooting plans, (though links may be established with the grouse industry given the ‘gardening for grouse’ style of land management enabling grouse to breed comfortably on the Eastern Moors then fly over to be shot on commercial grouse shoots.)
9 An impressive collection of adjectives in the text: exciting, stunning, amazing, stunning (again), healthy (twice), sustainable (predictably), iconic (kept us waiting for that),and, inevitably ‘wild’ – (steady, remember the resolve to be positive) …..although I could not find ‘tip top condition’ this time. Otherwise boxes well ticked.

Having, I hope, earned myself some credit points I may be tempted to use them up in a coming post.