Kate Bornstein speaking at reunion.

Kate Bornstein is a failure as man and as a woman.

She’s in her sixties and has been talking openly about her life as a trans person.

I studied some of her performance work and writings at university in my first year. She blew my mind. Imagine a boy from the Middle of Nowhere Wiltshire trying stuff out at university, discovering who I am, what the world is and then a lecturer plonks Kate Bornstein in front of me and says “Read”.

I like where she says “do anything it takes to make your life more worth living”. I also like how she says the F word and then asks for permission to say it.

Kate talks the language of theatre which is something I’m very familiar with. One of the greatest lessons I was taught was how to die on stage and get used to it. I remember in my second year of my degree we performed in Alfred Jarry’s King Ubu. I played the King of Poland but my character was killed fairly early on. I then switched coats and played someone else who was equally dispatched. I stood right up and popped on an eye patch, reversed my coat and became someone else who was quickly killed. I died around thirty times during the one play in various ways dispatched by various methods. Once I got over the initial discomfort of feeling “Gosh, I don’t get any character development” I got into the idea of just dying and from that I began to get over my fear of things going wrong on stage.

I then wondered aloud about how rich a seam #Travelfail could be.

So begins the bidding war. We’re looking for the worst travel experience you’ve had personally. We’re trusting people (so don’t start making stuff up just to get a mention on the blog).

The bidding starts with @danslee and

“standing in a tinkle smelling layby outside Halesowen for an #Ashes lift which is stuckinatrafficjam”

I’ll be watching the comments & the hashtag and we’ll close bidding in one weeks time. I’d also be interested to hear your thoughts on what you learned from #travelfail.

(::UPDATE:: Lots of people asked me why I wasn’t adding my UN stories. Firstly an auctioneer doesn’t always bid on their own items. Plus coming in with the stories would be like having an opening bid of five pounds and then someone bidding “One Thousand Pounds”. It’s more fun this way. Honest)

There used to be a statue called Forward by Raymond Mason that dominated the space. It was affectionately known as the jelly mould or the Lurpack statue. It was destroyed by arsonists n April 2003 and it’s never really been replaced.

Now, there’s just an awesome set of steps which are perfect for skateboarders to use. The fourth plinth in that London has had a bit of a fuss made about it and I’ve always pined for someone to make a bit of a fuss over the empty plinth in the city centre. If I’m ever walking down Broad Street towards the city I’ll imagine what the statue used to look like & feel a little sad when I see it’s no longer there. Yes, the statue was a bit ugly and it wasn’t 100% clear what it was about but it made a strong statement. It clearly had a strong impact on me as it’s left an imprint like the negative of a photograph on my soul.

I’d love to see something take that space. If it’s a direct ripping off of the fourth plinth project from London, great. But I’m fairly certain that the great minds of Birmingham could come up with something equally expressive of Birmingham for that space.

C’mon great minds, don’t let me down.

Who haven’t we talked about yet?

What kind of fail haven’t we mentioned?

What inspirational nonsense haven’t we looked at?

What conversations do we need to have?

The best people to advise us, is are you. (Grammatical fail, there) You might be thinking that your suggestion isn’t clever enough or nonsensical enough but it could be exactly what we’re looking for. Set us some failure homework.

Update- Don’t be limited by thinking we just need to see video on youtube. Are the filmmakers, inventors, singers, actors, fashion designers, films, songs, even places that embody the spirit of failure and learning from failure?