Andrea Mann

Andrea Mann is a Screenwriter and Freelance Writer based in London, UK

Labour Of Love (Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Join A Political Party)

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labour badge

broadcast news

One of my favourite movies is Broadcast News – and one of its many, many beautifully written, witty exchanges that has always stuck with me is the one above. Super-smart, super-informed TV news producer Jane Craig (Holly Hunter) schooling not-as-smart, super-handsome TV news anchor Tom Grunick (William Hurt). I think I’ve always remembered it because deep in my heart, I want to  be Jane Craig – but somewhere even deeper in my heart, I have a terrible fear that I’m Tom Grunick (without the super-handsomeness). It resonates because my inner Tom fears that my inner Jane is right.

It’s a scene that came back to me recently in the run-up to the election. Like most people, I read news stories and political commentaries, and occasionally shake my head and sigh at the computer screen (in the absence of a TV). But, like Tom, how informed, how prepared, how qualified am I, really, about the issues I care about, about the things that make me shake my head at my computer screen? And more importantly: what do I do about them? Apart from sharing links and writing satirical pieces – the latter of which had a very powerful impact on the final election result, clearly – very little. My ‘taking part in the political process’ has, in practical terms, consisted of voting in elections. And that’s it.

But there was something about this election that galvanised me. It may have galvanised me at the very last minute – but it did galvanise me. Many polices of the Tory-led coalition – and the policies the Conservatives were proposing if they won – are things which I am opposed to. Austerity, and the ideology of austerity – which effectively punishes the most vulnerable in our society for something which they didn’t bring upon themselves – is something I am very strongly opposed to. Not only did I firmly not want the Conservatives to win – I firmly wanted Labour to win. And the closer the election got, the more important this became for me.

So while I have always sat left of centre (politically, not literally – it’s not some weird tic I have when choosing concert seats), I have never aligned myself fully and properly with a party. Until now.

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Now That’s What I Call Music 1925!

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charleston

An American woman teaches English boys the Charleston in 1925 (according to Reddit)

I think everyone has one family member who most influenced their music tastes. A parent, perhaps, or an older sibling, or an aunt or uncle. (Obviously, I hope to be that person for my niece and nephews. “Mummmm! Auntie Andie’s made me ANOTHER Bruce Springsteen playlist!”) But while I have to thank my older sister for playing lots of The Police, my older brother for playing Rainbow’s Since You’ve Been Gone, and my parents for introducing me to classical music and MGM musicals (and even, in a surprisingly hip move from them, Dave Brubeck), it was my Uncle Den who introduced me to jazz.

Uncle Den turns 90 this week. If you get a telegram from the Queen when you turn 100, I wonder what you get when you turn 90? An email from Prince Philip? A Facebook poke from Prince Harry? Something, surely. Even a postcard from Sophie Of Whatsist wouldn’t go amiss.

Den lives in Bristol – and one of my strongest childhood memories is being at his and my Auntie Kay’s house for Sunday lunch. Every so often, on a Sunday, my family would pack into the car and drive down to Bristol from the West Midlands (and being six of us, we really did pack into it: I spent many journeys sitting in the footwell behind the front passenger seat. Apparently this was acceptable in-car safety in the 1970s). And one of my strongest memories of this experience – even stronger than the memory of looking up at motorway lights from the footwell of a Marina – was the music that Uncle Den played.

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