Hoorah! I've only been promising this for 21 months and it's taken a day of the most atrocious weather, but finally I've got round to it. It's time for some Friend Sex! ...
... Well, writing about it anyway.
I'm pretty positive about the whole thing actually, partly because it's something I've enjoyed a number of times in the past and also because I've got some seriously sexy friends! You know who you are - I've probably told you.
Okay, kidding aside because I'm not trying to get laid here (Well ... mayb ... no! Behave!) it's time for a few helpful definitions.
Sex!
Many people have friends they find attractive, and often that attraction is mutual. I can think of a couple of examples in my own life without trying. Most people probably can.
So, imagine a situation where you've been out with a friend and are on your way home, let's say the heady atmosphere of a nightclub. It's been warm and a bit sweaty, you're (at least) slightly drunk, the people were gorgeous - especially through beer goggles - and, frankly, you're gagging for it! You and your friend happen to look deeply into each other's eyes and think, "Sod it! Why not?"
Okay that's just a simple and facile example, but it's not an uncommon experience with a multitude of variations. It doesn't even have to be two people either - I'm inclined to think that experimental threesomes are probably more common that pairings in the complex and wonderful world of Friend Sex.
Love!
I'm also inclined to place Friend Sex under the capacious umbrella of Polyamory. Why? Because it involves love. I've written about Polyamory elsewhere so I'm not going to go into it here. I am going to examine love a little though.
I've noticed that in the Occult community many people consider love to have the four forms using the Ancient Greek names codified and analysed by such luminaries as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle - Agape, Eros, Philia and Storge (G'wan, look 'em up). We can be a conservative bunch sometimes.
What utter bloody nonsense! We may only have one word for it in English, but there are as many types of love as you, personally, can think of and experience. Simply because some dried-up, old, Athenian pederast could only come up with four and wrote them down doesn't make it true. All it proves is that he had the "emotional depth of a teaspoon"
(Nothing wrong with pederasty above the age of consent, by the way. I'm just feeling a little iconoclastic today)
Friend Sex, therefore involves love, or at least should. It's simply an extension of that love between friends into a more physical experience. Sometimes once, sometimes as a long-standing arrangement. Some people have "fuck buddies", for instance. Personally I wouldn't dream of referring to any friend by such a crude term, but it certainly does what it says on the tin.
This - to me anyway - makes the whole Friend Sex thing a positive experience. Unfortunately, there are at least two sides to every story.
Ooops!
I'm going to tell a little parable now about a couple of mutual friends. Just so you know, I haven't slept with either of them ... although that's an intriguing thought! Anyway, it was a chat with the first of these friends a couple of months ago which reminded me about writing this post. The people involved will recognise themselves, I'm sure, so I'm going to attempt to keep this as anonymous as possible for their sake.
It was after an event a couple of years ago, with an outcome not unlike the nightclub example I gave above. She is an extremely intelligent, educated, attractive and well-adjusted adult woman and she was feeling bloody horny! He is an extremely intelligent, educated and attractive adult man, who was attracted to her.
So, they went for it. Good for them! - Or it would have been, if he had been as emotionally well-adjusted and in control as she was.
It turned out that where she believed she had been completely clear on the casual and friendly nature of the sexual encounter, he had interpreted the whole experience rather differently. Perhaps she wasn't clear (I doubt that) or perhaps because of his emotional difficulties he could only hear what he wanted to hear. Either way, though, it led to problems. He was left feeling rejected while she had to start avoiding him just for a bit of peace.
Communication!
As the above example shows, it all comes down to communication. How do we know that when we say "I love you" or "I fancy you" the person hearing it understands what we mean?
We tend to communicate badly about emotions and sex. I'm as guilty of this as anyone - I'm English, male and middle-aged. Talk about emotions? Err, no! Talk about sex? Meaningfully that is, not mucky jokes with your pals. Dear me, how embarrassing! Maybe if I get drunk first.
As usual, I don't have any answers. Questions and perhaps even suggestions, but no answers.
Is Friend Sex a good thing? I think so, but then I've only had good experiences (apart from one minor problem which was, of course, down to a lack of communication!)
Do we need to talk about these things? Yes, but don't ask me how.
Sex is very strange experience because it's entirely what you make of it. To some it's nothing but a bit of harmless fun, to others it's the seal of a monogamous relationship; to some it's a filthy burden, and to others it's the ultimate sacred act. Sometimes it's all those things and more to the same person.
So, here's to loving, pleasurable and, above all, properly understood Friend Sex.
Gissa kiss!
Love,
Seán
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Tuesday 14 September 2010
Monday 19 July 2010
Traveller's Joy
My posts seem to be a little thin on the ground at the moment. There's plenty to talk about, it's just a matter of finding the time to put it all into words - especially when you type as excruciatingly slowly as I do.
I was going to write a piece on the joys and perils of "friend sex", which is something I've had on the back-burner for about two years and was recently reminded of by a friend and her experiences. I'll get to it soon (no, really), but for now I've been inspired by a recent experience of my own to do a little psychospiritual navel-gazing on the subject of travelling.
I love to travel.
Most people who know me personally will read that statement and say, "Eh? But you've never been anywhere!". They'd be right, too. When most people talk of travelling they're talking about visiting far-away lands, experiencing new cultures, catching dysentery and so-on. I've never really done that because I've never been able to afford it, or when I could I've had other things to do with my money.
I did go to Paris once on a school trip, and I've been to County Clare, western Ireland a few years ago, which I loved. That's about it though. I'd love to do more, and maybe in future years I will but that's not the sort of travelling I'm talking about here.
I love to travel.
What I mean is the act of physically moving through space for an extended period of time - completely alone and under my own steam. I'm talking here about walking, cycling and driving. Trains, boats and buses are really just ways of getting somewhere. They aren't under my own volition nor am I alone.
The two most vital elements appear to be solitude and free will, and it's something I've been doing for a long time. When I was ten years old I used to take myself off for walk quite regularly, for about four hours at a time. I had no idea where I was going and neither did anyone else - it's a wonder my mother still has hair!
My bicycle has become a very handy part of this process, and I've managed to work out a compromise whereby I will take the train to some distant location and cycle home. I took the chance for a travelling session very recently by riding to and from a Morris band practise day about 20 miles from home.
I even do it in my dreams. Some people have situational dreams where they experience events in one place. In mine I travel (usually) aimlessly from one place to another, usually on foot and usually within my own dream-town. Oddly, I'm very rarely alone in dreams - I'm almost always accompanied by at least one other person and usually someone I already know quite well.
So, what is this travelling all about?
I've just looked up a dream-interpretation website. This is what it says about travel:
To dream that you are traveling, represents the path toward your life
goals. It also parallels your daily routine and how you are progressing along.
Alternatively, traveling signifies a desire to escape from your daily burdens.
You are looking for a change in scenery, where no one has any expectations of
you. Perhaps it is time to make a fresh start. If your travels come to an end,
then it symbolizes successful completion of your goals
That's quite interesting, but surely it can't be as simple as all that. I'm not exactly sure what my life goals are, and never have been. Do I even have any?
The stuff about escaping daily burdens and changing scenery (temporarily) makes sense nowadays, but I had no daily burdens when I was a kid. I do like the statement that the ending of travels means the completion of goals, because my travels never end.
There is a strong element of shaking off routine and expectations when I'm travelling - and when I return my batteries are definitely recharged - but there's more to it than that. It's a kind of meditation, unlike the accepted forms of shutting down against external distractions and concentrating, yet meditational nonetheless.
In fact, being open to the landscape and things going on around you (like not getting killed in traffic!), and getting distracted are important parts of the whole experience. The traveller becomes a part of the landscape through which he travels and the person, place(s) and act of movement become one overall process. That's an important word - it's not a thing, it's a process.
As Kerouac once said, "The road is life".
I'm not going to make any conclusions in this examination as to what it all means, and I'd welcome other opinions. (Am I asking for psycho-analysis? Hell, why not?) I think it's important to keep travelling though, because the journey seems so much more interesting than the destination. Sometimes it's better not to have a destination at all.
Love and sore feet,
Seán
I was going to write a piece on the joys and perils of "friend sex", which is something I've had on the back-burner for about two years and was recently reminded of by a friend and her experiences. I'll get to it soon (no, really), but for now I've been inspired by a recent experience of my own to do a little psychospiritual navel-gazing on the subject of travelling.
I love to travel.
Most people who know me personally will read that statement and say, "Eh? But you've never been anywhere!". They'd be right, too. When most people talk of travelling they're talking about visiting far-away lands, experiencing new cultures, catching dysentery and so-on. I've never really done that because I've never been able to afford it, or when I could I've had other things to do with my money.
I did go to Paris once on a school trip, and I've been to County Clare, western Ireland a few years ago, which I loved. That's about it though. I'd love to do more, and maybe in future years I will but that's not the sort of travelling I'm talking about here.
I love to travel.
What I mean is the act of physically moving through space for an extended period of time - completely alone and under my own steam. I'm talking here about walking, cycling and driving. Trains, boats and buses are really just ways of getting somewhere. They aren't under my own volition nor am I alone.
The two most vital elements appear to be solitude and free will, and it's something I've been doing for a long time. When I was ten years old I used to take myself off for walk quite regularly, for about four hours at a time. I had no idea where I was going and neither did anyone else - it's a wonder my mother still has hair!
Aside: This all seems to be making me look like an antisocial
misery. I'm not. I love my family and friends, and I love their
company. This just seems to be my yin to their yang.
My bicycle has become a very handy part of this process, and I've managed to work out a compromise whereby I will take the train to some distant location and cycle home. I took the chance for a travelling session very recently by riding to and from a Morris band practise day about 20 miles from home.
I even do it in my dreams. Some people have situational dreams where they experience events in one place. In mine I travel (usually) aimlessly from one place to another, usually on foot and usually within my own dream-town. Oddly, I'm very rarely alone in dreams - I'm almost always accompanied by at least one other person and usually someone I already know quite well.
So, what is this travelling all about?
I've just looked up a dream-interpretation website. This is what it says about travel:
To dream that you are traveling, represents the path toward your life
goals. It also parallels your daily routine and how you are progressing along.
Alternatively, traveling signifies a desire to escape from your daily burdens.
You are looking for a change in scenery, where no one has any expectations of
you. Perhaps it is time to make a fresh start. If your travels come to an end,
then it symbolizes successful completion of your goals
That's quite interesting, but surely it can't be as simple as all that. I'm not exactly sure what my life goals are, and never have been. Do I even have any?
The stuff about escaping daily burdens and changing scenery (temporarily) makes sense nowadays, but I had no daily burdens when I was a kid. I do like the statement that the ending of travels means the completion of goals, because my travels never end.
There is a strong element of shaking off routine and expectations when I'm travelling - and when I return my batteries are definitely recharged - but there's more to it than that. It's a kind of meditation, unlike the accepted forms of shutting down against external distractions and concentrating, yet meditational nonetheless.
In fact, being open to the landscape and things going on around you (like not getting killed in traffic!), and getting distracted are important parts of the whole experience. The traveller becomes a part of the landscape through which he travels and the person, place(s) and act of movement become one overall process. That's an important word - it's not a thing, it's a process.
As Kerouac once said, "The road is life".
I'm not going to make any conclusions in this examination as to what it all means, and I'd welcome other opinions. (Am I asking for psycho-analysis? Hell, why not?) I think it's important to keep travelling though, because the journey seems so much more interesting than the destination. Sometimes it's better not to have a destination at all.
Love and sore feet,
Seán
Monday 15 March 2010
Ye Gods!
The problem with writing an opinions blog, as opposed to some sort of diary, is that you eventually run out of things to have strong opinions about. Or at least ones you feel qualified to rant about.
So, it seems that things have been quiet at Dionysian Towers. They haven't really - your humble host has been doing lots of stuff, just not much blogging. Anyway, my lovely friends at Clarian Faeries (Hello darlings!) decided to start a discussion on their Farcebook page which has got me thinking . . . and blogging.
The original question was "What does deity mean to you?" and my original answer was "An awful lot, actually". But then I realised that doesn't really tell you anything at all. So, I'm going to use this page for a personal consideration of what deity means to me.
Note: Please don't expect a sensible, coherent philosophy here. I'm making this up as I go along!
Oh God!
The first question, then is whether or not I believe in god or gods. The answer is a very definite yes. I don't believe in the modern Judaeo/Christian/Islamic concept that there is one (and only one) infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent and consciously active power. I'm sure there is some overall spiritual essence of which all things partake (the Tao), but to consider that deliberately active and conscious, especially in the form of an all-seeing father figure makes no sense to me. It's more environment than object, and to consider it conscious feels like the sea telling the fish what to do.
I do, on the other hand, believe in gods. Yep, plural! I don't like labels, but one that fits me very well is "polytheist" (I'm poly-lots of things, actually. Does that makes me a polypolyist?)
I believe in all the gods, every last one of 'em. Even poor old Yahweh/Allah/Hashem/G-d, who normally comes in for a lot of stick from me, is as real as any other. He's one god amongst many whose followers' rather warlike tendencies imposed a larger role upon him than he should have had, but he's there all the same.
There's another note. Believing in gods doesn't necessarily mean treating them with respect!
Okay, so I think they're real. In fact I think they're more real than most things. For example: Looking at it in terms of time, I have a limited reality. I have existed for 44 years and with luck and good judgement I hope to exist for at least another 44. Choosing a god at random, Zeus has existed for at least 4,000 years. Simple maths makes him a hundred times more real, and from his point of view I'm just a blip - hardly having time to exist at all.
But temporal existence is only one way to judge the reality of something. For some people things aren't real unless they can experience them for themselves, using their "normal" senses. That's fair enough. My coffee table is real, especially so when you walk into it and mangle your shin. The computer I'm typing at is real too, because I can see it and touch it and hear the click when I press keys.
That works pretty well until we get to more abstract things such as, for instance, a tune.
When you hear a tune it obviously exists. You can hear it, sing/play along, dance to it and so on. But does it exist when it's not being played? It may be written on paper, but that's a fairly recent idea (especially to a folk musician) and anyway, that's not the tune. It's only a "picture" of the tune. It could be captured in a recording, but again that's only been happening very recently and it isn't the tune itself - it's simply a very reliable way of repeating the tune.
Yet when the tune is being played it very definitely exists, so it must be real.
To me gods have an analogous form of reality. If a tune can be real, or a dream, an emotion, an idea - the gods also are real in a very similar way.
All this implies that reality depends upon someone experiencing it (When a tree falls in the forest, etc). It does, but only for us. Personally I believe that the gods have existed before humanity and will do long after we're gone, but what matters to us is entirely our experience of them. The only way we know anything is via our own experiences, so whether the gods exist without humanity is a bit of a pointless question. It's humanity which is experiencing them in the first place, and to some extent recreating them.
So, what are they?
My daughter, who is 8 years old and therefore a very clear thinker, recently asked me what gods are. The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: "You know how trees have spirits?"
She: "Oh yeah"
Me: "Well, the god of a forest would be like, a really big spirit made up of all the little spirits of the trees, plants, animals and so on"
She: "Oh. Right-oh!"
And that was that!
Okay, all that was a bit simplistic but notice that we don't just have random gods. We have gods of things, like love, war, mountains and so on. Now imagine a spirit of love. What would it look like?
All cultures across the globe have, or have had, deities of some form and, interestingly, their appearances seem to reflect the appearances and experiences of the people and cultures they come from. Very nature-based cultures, such as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes and subsistence farming villages tend to have a lot of gods which look like animals and a few who look human. This can be related back to the tree-spirit conversation. What would a tree spirit look like? Well, it would certainly have an element of tree-ness. The same goes for say, Anansi, Coyote or the Rainbow serpent. The more abstract powers tend to look more human, such as the Navaho goddess of night and day, Estsanatlehi.
As people become more "civilised" their gods tend to lose their animal qualities and become more human. In ancient Egypt the gods often had animal heads, which suggests a culture which became extremely conservative in the middle of a transition period. In ancient Greece something even better happened, their gods are entirely human but they have animal companions. So do the Germanic and Norse gods, and many others.
To a certain extent, what this means is that we create the gods in our own images, but that doesn't mean we create them out of nothing. The power, quality, experience (etc) is already there but we need to experience it in a way we can understand, a way that we can relate to. We give the gods their shapes.
What about Chaos Magick?
Our society is going through a massive and extremely fast transition period. It's been happening with ever-increasing speed since the industrial revolution and doesn't look likely to slow down anytime soon. Religious experience, to be relevant, needs to keep up with those changes.
Personally I prefer my gods to have tried and tested forms which I can research and understand - my personal favourites being Dionysos (well, duh!), Shiva and Ishtar - but for some it's Cthulu, Shub-Niggurath, Bugs Bunny or Laurel and Hardy. The point is that the "power" is already there, but we need a way of relating to it in order to understand it better. Frankly, if it works who am I to say nay?
The last question remains, "What are the gods for?"
Some people worship their gods. They ask them favours, they give them gifts, they blame them when things go wrong. Fair enough, I suppose, if it works. And, for them, I'm sure it does.
Personally (which is what the question is about), I don't. I honour my gods by dedication of various activities (dancing, exercise, drinking, sex, etc) but in the end they are that which I am aiming to become. It's all very Dionysian because to me the gods are for ekstasis (to stand outside oneself) and entheos (to have a god within oneself). To become one with the nature of the gods is my personal aim.
So, I think I've come up with an answer to the question, "What does deity mean to you?"
To me it means potential, direction, ecstatic union, "An awful lot, actually!"
Love,
Seán
So, it seems that things have been quiet at Dionysian Towers. They haven't really - your humble host has been doing lots of stuff, just not much blogging. Anyway, my lovely friends at Clarian Faeries (Hello darlings!) decided to start a discussion on their Farcebook page which has got me thinking . . . and blogging.
The original question was "What does deity mean to you?" and my original answer was "An awful lot, actually". But then I realised that doesn't really tell you anything at all. So, I'm going to use this page for a personal consideration of what deity means to me.
Note: Please don't expect a sensible, coherent philosophy here. I'm making this up as I go along!
Oh God!
The first question, then is whether or not I believe in god or gods. The answer is a very definite yes. I don't believe in the modern Judaeo/Christian/Islamic concept that there is one (and only one) infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent and consciously active power. I'm sure there is some overall spiritual essence of which all things partake (the Tao), but to consider that deliberately active and conscious, especially in the form of an all-seeing father figure makes no sense to me. It's more environment than object, and to consider it conscious feels like the sea telling the fish what to do.
I do, on the other hand, believe in gods. Yep, plural! I don't like labels, but one that fits me very well is "polytheist" (I'm poly-lots of things, actually. Does that makes me a polypolyist?)
I believe in all the gods, every last one of 'em. Even poor old Yahweh/Allah/Hashem/G-d, who normally comes in for a lot of stick from me, is as real as any other. He's one god amongst many whose followers' rather warlike tendencies imposed a larger role upon him than he should have had, but he's there all the same.
There's another note. Believing in gods doesn't necessarily mean treating them with respect!
Okay, so I think they're real. In fact I think they're more real than most things. For example: Looking at it in terms of time, I have a limited reality. I have existed for 44 years and with luck and good judgement I hope to exist for at least another 44. Choosing a god at random, Zeus has existed for at least 4,000 years. Simple maths makes him a hundred times more real, and from his point of view I'm just a blip - hardly having time to exist at all.
But temporal existence is only one way to judge the reality of something. For some people things aren't real unless they can experience them for themselves, using their "normal" senses. That's fair enough. My coffee table is real, especially so when you walk into it and mangle your shin. The computer I'm typing at is real too, because I can see it and touch it and hear the click when I press keys.
That works pretty well until we get to more abstract things such as, for instance, a tune.
When you hear a tune it obviously exists. You can hear it, sing/play along, dance to it and so on. But does it exist when it's not being played? It may be written on paper, but that's a fairly recent idea (especially to a folk musician) and anyway, that's not the tune. It's only a "picture" of the tune. It could be captured in a recording, but again that's only been happening very recently and it isn't the tune itself - it's simply a very reliable way of repeating the tune.
Yet when the tune is being played it very definitely exists, so it must be real.
To me gods have an analogous form of reality. If a tune can be real, or a dream, an emotion, an idea - the gods also are real in a very similar way.
All this implies that reality depends upon someone experiencing it (When a tree falls in the forest, etc). It does, but only for us. Personally I believe that the gods have existed before humanity and will do long after we're gone, but what matters to us is entirely our experience of them. The only way we know anything is via our own experiences, so whether the gods exist without humanity is a bit of a pointless question. It's humanity which is experiencing them in the first place, and to some extent recreating them.
So, what are they?
My daughter, who is 8 years old and therefore a very clear thinker, recently asked me what gods are. The conversation went a bit like this:
Me: "You know how trees have spirits?"
She: "Oh yeah"
Me: "Well, the god of a forest would be like, a really big spirit made up of all the little spirits of the trees, plants, animals and so on"
She: "Oh. Right-oh!"
And that was that!
Okay, all that was a bit simplistic but notice that we don't just have random gods. We have gods of things, like love, war, mountains and so on. Now imagine a spirit of love. What would it look like?
All cultures across the globe have, or have had, deities of some form and, interestingly, their appearances seem to reflect the appearances and experiences of the people and cultures they come from. Very nature-based cultures, such as nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes and subsistence farming villages tend to have a lot of gods which look like animals and a few who look human. This can be related back to the tree-spirit conversation. What would a tree spirit look like? Well, it would certainly have an element of tree-ness. The same goes for say, Anansi, Coyote or the Rainbow serpent. The more abstract powers tend to look more human, such as the Navaho goddess of night and day, Estsanatlehi.
As people become more "civilised" their gods tend to lose their animal qualities and become more human. In ancient Egypt the gods often had animal heads, which suggests a culture which became extremely conservative in the middle of a transition period. In ancient Greece something even better happened, their gods are entirely human but they have animal companions. So do the Germanic and Norse gods, and many others.
To a certain extent, what this means is that we create the gods in our own images, but that doesn't mean we create them out of nothing. The power, quality, experience (etc) is already there but we need to experience it in a way we can understand, a way that we can relate to. We give the gods their shapes.
What about Chaos Magick?
Our society is going through a massive and extremely fast transition period. It's been happening with ever-increasing speed since the industrial revolution and doesn't look likely to slow down anytime soon. Religious experience, to be relevant, needs to keep up with those changes.
Personally I prefer my gods to have tried and tested forms which I can research and understand - my personal favourites being Dionysos (well, duh!), Shiva and Ishtar - but for some it's Cthulu, Shub-Niggurath, Bugs Bunny or Laurel and Hardy. The point is that the "power" is already there, but we need a way of relating to it in order to understand it better. Frankly, if it works who am I to say nay?
The last question remains, "What are the gods for?"
Some people worship their gods. They ask them favours, they give them gifts, they blame them when things go wrong. Fair enough, I suppose, if it works. And, for them, I'm sure it does.
Personally (which is what the question is about), I don't. I honour my gods by dedication of various activities (dancing, exercise, drinking, sex, etc) but in the end they are that which I am aiming to become. It's all very Dionysian because to me the gods are for ekstasis (to stand outside oneself) and entheos (to have a god within oneself). To become one with the nature of the gods is my personal aim.
So, I think I've come up with an answer to the question, "What does deity mean to you?"
To me it means potential, direction, ecstatic union, "An awful lot, actually!"
Love,
Seán
Thursday 21 January 2010
WNBR 2010
WNBR Manchester 2010 – An Announcement
Hello all you wonderful naked cyclists.
After our first request your friendly-neighbourhood planning committee have come up with a provisional date for Manchester’s 5th Naked Bike Ride –
Friday 11th June 2010.
It may seem a long way off yet but we need to be getting our heads together very soon in order to keep our agreement with the police (details below). With that in mind we’ll be calling a meeting asap for anyone who wants a say it what goes on.
If you want to be involved, watch this space.
Love and bicycles,
Seán
After the problem on last year’s ride Becca, Dave and I had a nice chat with our local constabulary and worked out how to have a safe, fun and trouble-free ride this year. Not long after that Manchester’s Finest sent me a letter stating the agreements made. I think it’s very reasonable – hell, they even apologised, which is fantastic!
Here is a transcript of the letter:
Tuesday 28th July 2009
Dear Mr Fitton
RE: The World Naked Bike Ride Event 2009
Thank you for your letter dated 21st June 2009 regarding the policing of the 2009 World Naked bike Ride Event in Manchester.
We apologise for the confusion which led to your event being disrupted. It appears that there were initial misunderstandings in the planning process for the event; communication issues within the police in relaying the event details to patrol officers; and confusion by officers as to how to deal with the event when a complaint was received from a member of the public.
On Wednesday 24th June 2009 you attended a debrief at Bootle Street Police Station. Present at this meeting were Inspector Ron Orr (senior officer in charge of the events planning office), Constables Steve Dodd and Ann Ferguson (events planning), you and two other representatives of the organisers.
The issues listed above were discussed in detail with the resultant recommendations being agreed.
Hello all you wonderful naked cyclists.
After our first request your friendly-neighbourhood planning committee have come up with a provisional date for Manchester’s 5th Naked Bike Ride –
Friday 11th June 2010.
It may seem a long way off yet but we need to be getting our heads together very soon in order to keep our agreement with the police (details below). With that in mind we’ll be calling a meeting asap for anyone who wants a say it what goes on.
If you want to be involved, watch this space.
Love and bicycles,
Seán
After the problem on last year’s ride Becca, Dave and I had a nice chat with our local constabulary and worked out how to have a safe, fun and trouble-free ride this year. Not long after that Manchester’s Finest sent me a letter stating the agreements made. I think it’s very reasonable – hell, they even apologised, which is fantastic!
Here is a transcript of the letter:
Tuesday 28th July 2009
Dear Mr Fitton
RE: The World Naked Bike Ride Event 2009
Thank you for your letter dated 21st June 2009 regarding the policing of the 2009 World Naked bike Ride Event in Manchester.
We apologise for the confusion which led to your event being disrupted. It appears that there were initial misunderstandings in the planning process for the event; communication issues within the police in relaying the event details to patrol officers; and confusion by officers as to how to deal with the event when a complaint was received from a member of the public.
On Wednesday 24th June 2009 you attended a debrief at Bootle Street Police Station. Present at this meeting were Inspector Ron Orr (senior officer in charge of the events planning office), Constables Steve Dodd and Ann Ferguson (events planning), you and two other representatives of the organisers.
The issues listed above were discussed in detail with the resultant recommendations being agreed.
1. GMP will liaise with other force areas holding the same event, London and York primarily, in an attempt to adopt a common event policy.
2. An initial event meeting will take place between the North Manchester Forward Planning Office and the event organisers at least two months prior to the 2010 event. At this meeting the route and any conditions of entry will be agreed.
3. There will be regular contact between the organisers and the police between this meeting and the event.
4. Event organisers will ensure that all event participants on the day conform to the agreed conditions of entry.
5. The police will ensure that fully briefed officers accompany the cycle ride from start to finish to alleviate any confusion.
6. The police will ensure that all interested parties are made aware that the event is taking place.
We hope that the meeting addressed your concerns and that we can work together to make next year’s event a safe and enjoyable experience.
Stamped and signed “pp.Steve Dodds, PC 3841”
28 July 2009.
2. An initial event meeting will take place between the North Manchester Forward Planning Office and the event organisers at least two months prior to the 2010 event. At this meeting the route and any conditions of entry will be agreed.
3. There will be regular contact between the organisers and the police between this meeting and the event.
4. Event organisers will ensure that all event participants on the day conform to the agreed conditions of entry.
5. The police will ensure that fully briefed officers accompany the cycle ride from start to finish to alleviate any confusion.
6. The police will ensure that all interested parties are made aware that the event is taking place.
We hope that the meeting addressed your concerns and that we can work together to make next year’s event a safe and enjoyable experience.
Stamped and signed “pp.Steve Dodds, PC 3841”
28 July 2009.
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