Blinkered vision

There was a piece in last week's Gazette about a post being offered at Turner Contemporary for someone to co-ordinate a project for teenagers. The general tone was a sadly blinkered prejudice, not only against the arts but also, even more sadly, to teenagers. An overwhelming message that they're not worth having the money spent on them.

The big issue was the outrageous idea of the post being offered at £200 a day - gosh, what a lot of money it said, 50K a year, matching MPs, deputy head teachers and architects (the examples quoted of such high rates of pay).

It made me cross. Very cross. Not only blinkered but petty and small-minded. It's a not-brilliant amount of money for a professional freelancer, the same that you'd pay any expert in their field, even a builder. In fact many professionals wouldn't even get out of bed for that amount. But it came across loud and clear that why on earth could an arts project be worth that, or the young people that would be benefiting from the work.

Hey ho. Rant over.