Of all the animals of prey, man is the only sociable one.
Every one of us preys upon his neighbour, and yet we herd together.
The Beggar's Opera: John Gay

Tuesday 5 February 2013

We can dance, we can dance, Doing it pole to pole...

An update on 'Leading Horses to Water', 19th January.

Well, Dalkeith Public Library has had its 'Love your Library Day', complete with pole dancing - sorry, pole fitness - and there's footage to prove it.

The event has been declared a 'great success' and attracted plenty of interest, some of it from unexpected quarters:
Among the participants was community beat officer Lindsey Hughson from Lothian and Borders Police, who tried her hand at pole dancing.
Well, it certainly puts a new spin on community policing, though I can't see it going down well in some of our more ...er....vibrant areas.

Given the unashamed way the Library has exploited the pole-dancing for publicity purposes, the best bit of the news footage (apart from a uniformed officer of the law twirling on a pole) has to be the po-faced spokeswoman sternly insisting that it's all about 'a healthy mind in a healthy body' - a triumph of respectable Calvinist virtue over salacious imagination.

I admit I remain to be convinced that those who came to gyrate will remain to read, but if it works, it raises the interesting question of other libraries following suit. With the healthy eating and exercise lobby becoming more vociferous by the day, we may yet see an outbreak of pole dancing enlivening the rest of the nation's libraries.


4 comments:

  1. I suppose you have to book seats.

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  2. It all feels a little desperate to me.

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  3. Demetrius, if so, then it looks as if the elderly women with cauliflower perms were first in the queue - mind you, experience in the sales would suggest they manage to be first in any queue.


    Perhaps they read your comment before the event about participating...

    AKH, tawdry was the word that sprang to my mind; there's something very depressing in general about the lowest common denominator attitude to publicity.

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  4. You didn't ... er ... give it a try, Macheath? :)

    ReplyDelete

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