Ever since the first Homo sapiens emerged from her cave on an idle morning and wondered “Who am I?” the human race has been inventing and re-inventing answers to that question. The latest people to pick up on that have been the scientists, as they start to tackle the great question of consciousness.

Their interest has been caught by dramatists, with On Ego opening last month at the Soho Theatre and Imposters opening tonight at the Union Theatre in Southwark. This surely must be the first London season that two plays have appeared in which a major part is played by the rare and strange Capgras’ Syndrome – in which the victim of a brain injury believes their nearest and dearest have been replaced by near-identical imposters. (Meanwhile in New York there’s a whole theatre festival on the subject, in which this play is included.)

Yet, when you think about it, what better way to tackle issues of identity than this? Certainly the American playwright Justin Warner has used this as a fruitful way to approach what is a common tale – a family and a marriage under strain when the children have grown up and the holes at the heart of a long marriage are suddenly exposed. READ MORE

I’m no defender of Ruth Kelly as an individual – someone so closely associated with an extremist and secretive religious organisation (Opus Dei) in charge of education is hardly ideal – but it does worry me the way female ministers seem to get into trouble much more easily than male.

The David Blunkett saga went on forever,and yet listening to Five Live this morning (and Kelly just making a parliamentary statement) she seems to be in trouble over something that is far more nuanced and complex – certainly not a clearcut mistake.

The issue is over the employment of teachers who may be allowed to continue to work despite being put on the Sex Offenders’ Register. At first thought, that sounds horrific, but discussion suggests that people can end up on the register for quite minor, and possibly unclear-if-they-were-offences matters. (Such as someone who was a 16yo was convicted of statutory rape with a 14yo, or perhaps someone who accepted a police caution – which means the evidence is not tried in court – for viewing child porn, perhaps on bad advice, without understanding all of the implications.)

It seems reasonable that in the borderline cases, each should be examined on its merits. A blanket ban might well exclude occasional good teachers who are no risk to their pupils. And like the broader situation – that sees teachers frightened to comfort 5-year-olds who have grazed their knee – excessive regulation and caution can also be harmful to children.

The phone-in this morning asked is there hysteria about paedophiles? The answer is certainly yes. How much risk to children, comparatively, are paedophiles and road
crashes? I wondered how much campaiging on road safety those
complaining about what the government have done?

The fact that children are believed today when they complain about abuse – when 20 or 30 years ago they would have been ignored – is great. But we’re now in a period of overshoot, when fear of paedophilia has exploded out of all proportion to the danger.

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And the real concern? Iran seems to have a dangerously unbalanced leader. A conundrum for America – he was democratically elected; promoting democracy in the Middle East might have more complex effects than a simplistic Bush Administration take on it would have.

Get together a group of women who’ve lived, loved and lost, mix in some alcohol and the freedom from inhibition that comes the luxury of “us” time, and you’ll hear things that make young males blush to their fingertips.

I can only conclude that the writer and director of The Ark, The Bride and the Coffin, who happens to be a bloke, has been listening in to many such evenings. For what is distinctive about Andrew Neil’s three discrete, if linked by theme and motif, short plays is that the characters always say the unsayable, always complete those sentences usually left to trail away into embarrassed silence.

Anal sex, penis size, menstruation, miscarriage and more – none of the gory details are veiled in silence. This is the female experience laid out in pain and anger, and many, many laughs. (Happily this is all talk, not action.)

The production company, inaccurately called fluff, was formed two years ago to promote “good writing and roles for women”, and there’s a lot of both here, at The Old Red Lion Theatre in Islington, for the six-strong female cast to put their hearts into. READ MORE

Having personally been known to fall over just after getting out of bed – not over anything, just over – I was reassured by this morning’s report that it isn’t just me.

A study by scientists at the University of Colorado suggests that the performance of people immediately after waking is as bad as, or worse, than if they were drunk.
The research showed that short-term memory, counting skills and cognitive abilities were impaired in the groggy period, known as sleep inertia.

The serious message is that you really don’t want a fireman who’s been sleeping called to your house; my conclusion – stay in bed a bit longer; it’s obviously healthy.

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A US take on the decline of newspapers. I don’t necessary agree with a lot of what it says – but interesting to get a view from across the pond.

The date of the play Thomas More, by Shakespeare et al, which I reviewed last week, makes a lot more sense after I read this in the BL today:

In 1592, only a year before new returns of aliens in and around London were ordered, complaints about the aliens’ interference with the retail trade were referred to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. The aliens were accused, among other infringements, of failing to observe the rules of seven years’ apprenticeship, and of acting like Freemen of the City. In 1593 a bill was introduced into Parliament during the course of which Sir Walter Ralegh attacked aliens vehemently, and only the dissolution of Parliament, since the bill had already been passed by the House of Commons, saved the alien communities.

Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London: The Dutch Church in Austin Friars 1693-1642 Ole Peter Grell, EJ Brill, Leiden, 1989, p21.

Then a delightful account from London Vanished and Vanishing, P. Norman, Adam and Charles Black, London, 1905, p. 7.
In the London Chaunticleres 1659, the tapster of an inn thus describes his morning’s work:

“I have cut two dozen of toste, broacht a new barrell of ale, washt all the cups and flaggons, made a fire i’ th’ George, drained all the beer out of th’ Half Moon the company left o’ th’ floore last night, wip’d down all the tables and have swept every room.”

The “Half Moon”, I believe, was the name of a particular room or bar in the inn.

The text itself is primarily a description of large numbers of simple paintings of old inns, houses and other structures in London that the author had made during the late 1890s. This seems to have been the chief time for the final destruction of the still quite numerous remnants of the medieval and early modern city.

What we wouldn’t give to have some of these around now … (Think of the tourist dollars, if nothing else – no need to go to Stratford!)

… that you can hear in the distance is a chorus of late Times editors, who’ve been spinning in their graves since they heard it has started a “Big Brother Blog”.

But if you sometimes worry that your blog is not getting many comments, be reassured that they are getting even less ….