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#his friends sign Thomas as a model for some kind of a competition and it's Alastair as the makeup artist and he didn't know Thomas didn't-
davewakeman · 4 years
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Talking Tickets 15 May 2020--AFL! Bundesliga! Refunds! And, More!
Hey There! 
Thanks for being here again this week. If you are enjoying this newsletter, tell your friends and colleagues to sign up by visiting this link.
Don’t forget to check out what we are doing in the Slack Channel. The folks in there try to keep it fun and light while offering up ideas and perspectives on what they are thinking about, looking at, and doing.
A bunch of great free resources are going on right now, here are 3 from friends of the podcast and the newsletter that are worth your attention:
Eric Fuller has his virtual conference, Rescue Meet, going on the 19th from 9-11 AM PDT. He’s got a couple of conversations lined up with folks from venues, tickets, and the customer side along with a few other tricks, opportunities to connect with folks in the industry to work on solutions and to focus on moving forward.
We Will Recover is an effort started up by Einar, Martin, and the team at Activity Stream over in Europe. Frederic Aouad is co-hosting a webinar with me on 26 May at 9 AM EDT and 2 PM EDT to hit the North American and European markets. We are going to talk about recreating your revenue streams, rethinking your marketing approach, and building events that are destinations for your customers.
Andrew and Carol Thomas have put the Ticketing Professionals Conference online, or as many of the sessions from this year’s event as they could online. There are some really great ones coming up with Kara Parkinson, Kirk Bentley, and a bunch more.
There are a bunch more as well including weekly meetings with INTIX, Pollstar, and more.
And, don’t forget, me and my buddy, Ken Troupe, are hosting happy hour tonight.
To the tickets!
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1. Reopening events is starting to happen: 
I start the week by sharing Dave Grohl’s essay on why we need live entertainment.
Tonight, we will see the first American attempt, potentially, at a social distancing concert in Arkansas. (Spoiler, as I was finishing this up, the event in Arkansas was postponed.)
The Bundesliga is returning as well. 
These are all positive signs. But from my conversations with folks around the industry, we are still a long way off from being together with crowds again.
The UK released a three-phase plan this week. Cinemas are starting to reopen in New Zealand and the certification process for venues and stadiums to reopen safely is well underway.
In the US, we are still playing on the 50 state 50 strategy idea that likely means we are going to continue to experience a prolonged period of waiting for business to start to get back to normal. Which is going down against a backdrop of optimism around the NBA and NHL finishing their seasons and a lot of uncertainty around MLB even getting theirs off the ground.
Again, I’ve been pretty consistent on this one…
Watch what the countries that are out in front are doing like South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and China…see what works and see what doesn’t, recognizing that in certain countries and places, the response to the virus has been a little more robust, targeted, and comprehensive. Then, adjust accordingly.
I wish I had a better answer, but I think we have to recognize that the path ahead is going to be a bit bumpy and that there isn’t likely to be a straight line.
But…I mean, BUNDESLIGA!
Who is your side?
I’m taking Bayern Munich because Munich is home of Oktoberfest.
Or, do you prefer to go to see a drive-in show?
2. Marketing, Revenue, and Rethinking What We Do:
Ceci Dadisman wrote about the conversation that seems to be picking up in too many places about things “going back to normal”.
I had a colleague email me the other morning, bemoaning the nature of a lot of conversations that they see taking place as “not productive” or “looking at the wrong things.”
From my point of view, for a lot of places, the way things were wasn’t at a level they needed to be to begin with: sports attendance was down and something most organizations were thinking through globally; the arts, opera, and theatre were seeing challenges to their business model; prices were up and costs were up, making profits tougher to come by.
My vantage is that over the next few years we are likely to see more challenges to profits, greater competition for customers, and less free-spending from investors, the secondary market, speculators and consolidators.
What does all of this mean for all of us?
I think we all need to become comfortable with the idea of innovation being our friend.
Marketing had gone to the crapper before the coronavirus. I could go on and on and I have in private conversations about the deterioration of the marketing role in organizations because folks are afraid to talk about being in marketing because that’s where the money is.
Instead, folks get lost on misguided ideas like “clicks”, “likes”, “reach”, and other terms that aren’t directly attached to money.
Our marketing efforts going forward are going to have to be heavy on revenue generation, getting people into events, and making one time customers repeat customers. For any business, you have to create and keep customers. In far too many instances, that idea is being mouthed, but not followed through on.
I say more about revenue and rethinking below. But marketing and strategy should be on the agenda for every call, meeting, and brainstorming session we are all having.
3. Australian Sports Business Is Back, But What Comes Next?
Australia has a lot of news coming out about the return of sports with the big news of the AFL’s blockbuster return on 11 June. 
While the return of sports is exciting for all of us, especially Melbourne fans like me?!
A lot of the conversation around the return of sport has revolved around will the industry contract and how will the country deal with potentially having to endure its first official recession in almost 30 years.
Hawthorne president Jeff Kennett is asking questions about how to reform the AFL’s business heading out of the pandemic, the NBL could see players leave the league due to the virus, and the A-League is having to go to a hub system to complete its fixtures.
There have been a lot of interesting things going on in Australia and New Zealand both since they’ve handled the virus very well and they are in the Southern Hemisphere.
First, we need to pay attention to how these leagues and organizations monetize. The AFL’s membership program is a pretty great example of monetization of your audience, globally.
Second, we will have to watch what happens as they head into the fall and winter and whether or not there is a snapback of the coronavirus as they head into their flu and cold season.
Third, it will be interesting to see how the Australians capitalize on the absence of sports in the States over the next few weeks since the AFL was broadcasting live to the west coast of the US before the coronavirus shut down Australia as well.
4. Ticketmaster, Refunds, and Finger Pointing:
Representatives Pascarell and Porter wrote a letter in Billboard this week, admonishing Ticketmaster’s behavior during the pandemic.
The letter from Washington was quickly followed up by one from Jared Smith, defending Ticketmaster’s practices.
Jared Smith is absolutely correct when he is explaining his points, but the first rule of crisis PR as credited to Ronald Reagan is “if you are explaining, you are losing.”
That’s where Ticketmaster finds itself along with StubHub and other companies.
I’m not saying it is right or wrong, but the pandemic has exposed the shaky financial underpinnings of a lot of businesses, including live entertainment.
Currently, Live Nation is raising around $800 million by selling off debt.
And, it was good to see that the company is thinking about experimentation heading into the back half of 2020.
From a customer point of view, every one of these examples is a stain on the industry. We’ve had StubHub getting hit heavy, early on. Ticketmaster and Live Nation are taking heat now. We’ve had mismatched refund, exchange, or compensation packages from teams all over the place around the world.
Maybe, most amazingly, I sat in on a call where people were debating ways to avoid paying back fees to customers on tickets they purchased for events that can’t happen, won’t happen, or might never happen.
Again, each of these points creates another dent in the armor of trust between industry and customer and the habit of going to shows, events, and games.
I feel a lot like a broken record here, but none of this stuff happens without customers, fans, and buyers. In an industry where there are so many unsold tickets to begin with, to expect that folks are just going to come rushing back and eat poop to do so is ridiculous.
I recognize it is an uncertain time for everyone, but the longer these refund stories stick around…the more damaging it becomes.
5. Vince McMahon and the XFL…
Well, the XFL isn’t going quietly into the night…I see.
This isn’t the kind of story that I typically find interesting, but as we are dealing with a lot of new ideas due to the pandemic, it pays to think things through differently.
With this story about Oliver Luck and Vince McMahon, there are a few things to pay attention to here.
First, Vince McMahon guaranteed Luck’s contract. I’ve had a couple of folks call me and ask me about taking on new jobs or moving after our lockdowns let up.
Basically, they are looking for advice and I think the wise decision is to make sure you get guarantees.
Second, the basis for not paying the contract is pretty weak.
The precedent that is set here if McMahon wins would be pretty awful for folks, period.
I highlight this story for a few reasons, but I think if you look at what this story highlights about the coming future of what we are dealing with in events and especially sports a couple of ideas come to mind:
1. Strategy matters and it seems like the strategy that the XFL was built on was suspect. The pandemic has highlighted this at a macro level now and I think we are going to see a renewed necessity to adjust the sales process, innovate pricing, and focus on driving attendance.
2. Pick your partners well.
3. Multiple streams of revenue, product-market fit, and testing the basic assumptions of “what everyone knows” or thinks is going to be more important than ever.
Look at the NBA, they are as “innovative” as any league in American sports and 40% of their revenue is tied up in getting fans to come to the arena. This tells you that really two revenue streams drive their entire business: TV and in-game. Something about “all your eggs in one basket” comes to mind.
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What am I up to this week?
Not a lot planned. It is the final week of 4th grade homeschooling…so once we are through that, maybe I can get back to a slightly more normal schedule.
Make sure to check me out on social media and follow along with me at www.davewakeman.com 
Please follow and like us:
Talking Tickets 15 May 2020–AFL! Bundesliga! Refunds! And, More! was originally published on Wakeman Consulting Group
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adrelianafernandes · 7 years
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Feathers
Disclaimer: I do not own Miraculous Ladybug. All rights belong to Thomas Astruc and his team.
Summary: In Mr Pigeon, Ladybug was witness to Chat Noir's allergies to feathers. So was Marinette to Adrien's allergies after being judged winner of the design competition. What if Marinette actually connected the dots?
Notes: Another repost. I’m also looking for a beta to bounce ideas off, since I love to hear feedback about my work. Message me if you’re interested!
XxX
"Is this a joke?" Mr Agreste asked, staring closely at the two identical hats.
Chloe gasped dramatically, stamping her foot. "No fair!"
She crossed her arms, wailing: "Marinette copied my design! It's scandalous! How could you do that!"
If that weren't enough, she started crying into the podium dramatically.
Mr Agreste raised an eyebrow at her dramatic behaviour.
"I apologise for the situation, Mr Agreste, but I can prove that this hat is my original design," Marinette said smugly, her arms crossed as everyone's attention was drawn to her instead of the wailing Bourgeois heir.
Instantly, Nathalie turned the tablet away from the wailing Chloe to face Marinette.
"Go ahead," Mr Agreste said solemnly to Chloe and Sabrina's gasps.
"Uhm," Marinette began as she took the hat off its podium. "Everything on my derby hat is hand-made, from the embroidery to the weaving of the band to the stitching of the brim."
Chloe scowled as she realised that Marinette was just about to unravel her carefully laid plan.
"It was all done by myself," Marinette continued. "And last, there's a special design element that only the true designer knows about."
She turned the hat upside down, tilting it to expose the gold embroidery that spelled out her name in elegant gold cursive. "I signed mine."
Chloe gasped in shock as her hands flew to cover her mouth, accidentally knocking over her podium. Instantly, everyone turned at the sound of the crash as the hat too fell upside down, exposing the gold embroidery.
Chloe ran off, sobbing once more as she departed the school grounds. "Daddy!" she wailed.
Nathalie turned the tablet around to face Marinette once more, Mr Agreste looking impressed.
"Very exquisite creation," Mr Agreste said approvingly as Marinette blushed, staring at the hat in her hands. "You definitely have the labouring hands of a hatmaker, Miss…?"
"Marinette," Adrien interjected, placing his hand on Marinette's shoulder as he gestured at the aspiring designer.
"Congratulations on your demonstration, Miss Marinette," Mr Agreste continued. "You're the winner."
Instantly, Marinette and Alya looked to each other, exchanging looks of glee.
"Thank you, thank you!" Marinette gasped in joy, bowing, her face absolutely ecstatic.
"Adrien will wear your derby on our next advertising campaign," Mr Agreste continued.
Adrien grasped Marinette's hands, the girl gasping and blushing at the contact.
"Awesome job, Marinette," Adrien praised, his emerald eyes meeting sapphire. Instantly the blush grew tenfold and Marinette's smile grew larger as she met his eyes.
Taking the derby hat from Marinette's suddenly warm hands, Adrien started to put it on his head… only to stop when he felt a ticklish sensation up his nose.
"Ahh, ahh, ah, ah, ah, choo!" he sneezed, startling Marinette and Alya at its suddenness.
He sniffled, eyes lidded as he wiped his nose. Marinette blinked in astonishment, sapphire eyes wide. Then Adrien's eyes rested on the shocked looks on the designer and reporter's faces, and he paused.
"Uh, sorry!" he said, looking apologetic at the two. "I'm allergic to feathers."
As if to prove his point, he sneezed again.
Marinette gasped in realisation. "Oh!" she said softly, before flinching as he sneezed again. Then a smile graced her face. "Gesundheit!" she called, waving at him.
"Ah, ah choo!" Adrien sneezed again, before sniffling and waving to her. "Thanks," he said weakly before walking off, presumably to somewhere where he could get some tissues.
Behind him, Marinette exchanged another excited look with Alya, before jumping in the air. "Woohoo!" she cheered as the two laughed in joy.
Then a thought occurred to her, and called a quick "Sorry! Gotta go!" to Alya before chasing after Adrien. "Adrien, wait!"
The boy paused, just about to step foot into the limo, derby hat in hand, and turned to her. "Ah choo!" he sneezed once more, before turning to Marinette.
"What is it, Marinette?" he asked, sniffling.
"Uhh, the derby hat. We could, I mean, I could, not to say you can't, but obviously you're the model and all, but not saying you're not because you're perfect…"
"Miss Marinette," Mr Agreste interjected sharply from the screen inside of the limo. "Can you get to the point? We're on a tight schedule."
"Yes!" Marinette snapped back, and once more confident and all business. "The feather in the derby hat. I could switch it for something else, since you're allergic to it. I could use a flower, or maybe a fake feather, or some other ornament for derby hats."
Mr Agreste raised an eyebrow, before looking at the derby hat in Adrien's hats. "Impressive, Miss Marinette. Most designers wouldn't alter their completed and submitted designs, particularly switching out the centerpiece of the design - in your case, the pigeon feather. Very well. Nathalie, clear Adrien's schedule for the rest of the day. Adrien, go help Miss Marinette pick out a new ornament for the hat, since you are the model and we should make sure that you aren't allergic to the new ornament, or Miss Marinette's efforts will be wasted."
Adrien gaped in shock for a moment, before grinning. "Yes, father," he said, before closing the limo door. Instantly the car zoomed off, and he sneezed again.
"So, where to first?" he asked.
Marinette pondered it for a moment, a comment from Chat Noir suddenly popping in her head about feathers. It was weird, that both of the blonde-haired, green-eyed boys she knew were allergic to feathers…
"Achoo!" Adrien sneezed again. "Sorry," he said, sniffling.
"Well, you're not allergic to flowers, are you?"
"Shouldn't be." Adrien said cautiously.
"Great! Then first stop is my house to drop off the hat so you don't sneeze all the time, then we'll go to the florist's to see the flowers!"
XxX
"Oh, hello Adrien!" Mrs Cheng said cheerily from the counter of the bakery. "It's good to see you again!"
"H-hello, Mrs- achoo!"
"Well now Adrien," Mrs Cheng said cheekily. "I doubt my ancestors had the name achoo."
"No, no!" Adrien said frantically. "Please accept my sincere apologies."
"Oh, relax Adrien." Mr Dupain said, coming out from the kitchen. "She's just teasing you."
"Oh," Adrien sighed in relief. "Hello, Mr Dupain, Mrs Cheng."
"Now, Adrien, you can call us Tom and Sabine, all of Marinette's friends do."
Adrien froze. "A friend?"
Marinette smiled at him. "Yeah, you're a friend of mine!"
Tom grinned. "A really good friend, actually."
"Papa!" Marinette exclaimed, before making to drag Adrien upstairs with her. Halfway up the steps, though, she suddenly remembered all of the pictures that were still up on the wall.
"Oh no!"
"What is it, Marinette?" the three chorused in unison.
"Uhh, nothing. Adrien, why don't you stay down here? I'll just put the hat up. It'll only take a minute, heh."
Adrien had barely nodded his consent before Marinette ran upstairs like a whirlwind. He shrugged, before he walked down the steps when he heard crashing upstairs. He made to go back up, but Mr and Mrs - ahem - Tom and Sabine stopped him.
"No need, Adrien. This always happens all the time."
"Really?" He asked dubiously.
"Oh, you don't know the half of it. Especially in the mornings when she's in a rush to go to school."
"Papa!" Marinette exclaimed.
"But Marinette, I'm only telling him the truth!"
Adrien laughed, stopping the incoming banter between the two as they heard him. He stopped for a moment, and smiled nervously.
"Are you staying for dinner, Adrien?" Sabine asked.
"Then he can stay forever!" Tom exclaimed.
"Papa! Mama!" Marinette screamed.
Seeing his cheeky grin, she immediately grabbed hold of his arm and began to drag him out of the bakery door. "Bye Papa! Bye Mama! I'll see you later!"
"... I still ship them."
"Me too."
XxX
"What flower is that one?"
Marinette blushed. "It's called a black cat petunia."
"Black cat?"
"Yeah, it's kind of a tribute to Chat Noir. After he saved me from the Evillustrator and all."
Adrien smiled to himself strangely, before looking closer at the flower. 'An even more fitting tribute than you think.'
He took out his wallet. "How much is it?" he asked the florist.
"What- no Adrien, you can't pay for me!" Marinette shrieked, still holding the flower.
Adrien handed the money to the florist. "Too late," he said, smirking.
Marinette glared at him, before she jolted, rubbing the back of her neck nervously. "Should we- Ahh, I don't mean in that way, but oh my god, it's we anyway - go?"
Adrien stared at her, shocked, for a moment, before nodding. "Yeah, I want to see how you're replacing the feather with a flower."
"Huh? Haven't you seen the designers do it? I mean, some of them might replace things like buttons and such, right?"
"I haven't seen it unless I'm the one wearing the clothes. Models don't really see the clothes unless it's the final product. Even then, it's mostly fixing seams."
"Oh," Marinette murmured, rolling the flower in her hand, before her phone beeped. "It's 4 already. We should get going."
Then Adrien's phone rang, and he frowned at seeing the caller ID. "Sorry, I've got to take this."
He picked up. "Hello, Nathalie?"
Marinette sighed at that. It looked like her time with him was going to be cut short once more.
Adrien hung up. "I'm really sorry about this Marinette, I really wanted to watch you work."
"It's okay! Tomorrow's a weekend, so you can come over and watch me work then!"
His eyes widened. "Really?"
Marinette nodded firmly. "Yeah!"
He smiled - a real smile, not the smaller ones he had at school - and grasped her hand. "Thanks, Marinette."
XxX
"Say, Chat Noir, are you really allergic to feathers?"
"Yeah," the response came. "Why, My Lady, concerned for this poor alley cat?"
"As if! It's just that my friend, he's also allergic to feathers."
"It's a common allergy, I suppose."
"Well, it was weird how I found out, I suppose. I didn't even know until today!"
He laughed. "Tell me about it! Two of my friends just found out, and one of them was really nice about it."
"Oh?" Ladybug raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah, see, she designed a hat for me, but she used a feather in the design. I kept on sneezing, but I had to wear it, so she generously offered to change it for me - and she dedicated it to me, even! Well, superhero me, but she doesn't know that."
Ladybug froze. "What?" she said weakly.
"Yeah, it was really nice of her, right?"
Marinette's mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. Adrien was blond. So was Chat Noir. They were both allergic to feathers. Chat Noir's friend had designed a hat for him, and she used a feather in it. Marinette designed a derby hat for Adrien using a pigeon feather. Chat Noir's friend replaced the feather. Adrien and Marinette had gone searching for a flower to replace the feather that afternoon. His friend dedicated it to Chat Noir. Marinette had told Adrien the petunia was a tribute to him.
"-Lady! My Lady!"
"Adrien?" she said cautiously.
It was Chat's turn to freeze. "What did you say?"
"Adrien. You're Adrien. Oh my god, why didn't I see it before! Oh my god, I've been so blind!"
Instantly Chat slapped a clawed hand over her mouth. "Quiet! Do you want the whole of Paris to know?"
She stopped then, but her eyes met his. "So, you're really…"
"You can't tell anyone!" he whisper-shouted fiercely, before his expression turned melancholic. "Being Chat Noir is my freedom. If my father knew, he'd trap me in that mansion again. Alone."
Ladybug touched his cheek. "Oh, Chat."
"Do you understand now? No one can know."
She nodded. "No one else, kitty."
They sat in silence there for a moment, before he spoke up again. "How'd you know that I was Adrien?"
"Well," she said slowly. "First of all, you're both blonde. Then, you mentioned being allergic to feathers."
"Those two are common enough," Chat said. "It could have been a lot of people."
"I know. What actually confirmed it for me was your friend. The one who replaced the feather for you."
"How could that have clued you off?"
"Tell me, Chat," Ladybug spoke, excitement bubbling inside of her. She knew her most closely guarded secret was about to be given away, but to this person, she would entrust all of her close secrets to.
"Did she happen to replace that pigeon feather with a black cat petunia?"
"What- how did you know?!"
"Look at me, Chat, really look at me."
For the second time that day, emerald eyes met sapphire. Then Chat Noir let out a soft gasp as he realized he recognised the confidence in those eyes. While he always saw them on Ladybug, it was also in someone else's eyes - someone who had bested Chloe at her own game and impressed his father earlier that day.
"Marinette?" he breathed.
Ladybug exhaled. "Yeah."
Then he took a deep breath. "Can I… kiss you now?"
Ladybug gasped softly.
"It's something I swore to myself during the first Akuma attack. I told myself whoever it was beneath the mask, I'd love the girl. It's not just because you're Ladybug, it's also because you're Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl who's class representative, the one who beat Chloe down and also impressed my father."
"Chat," she breathed, before her eyes glowed with confidence again. "I've love you too. Since that day in the rain. When you gave me your umbrella. And also when you're Chat, the one who saved me from the Evillustrator, and the one who protected me from Timebreaker."
"Ladybug…"
"Chat…"
"I love you."
They both closed their eyes, and their lips met.
Then their lips parted, and now their eyes met, brilliant emerald meeting glittering sapphire.
No words were needed then. Their eyes met and thousands of words passed between them.
Then they smiled.
They knew everything was right in the world.
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papaculture · 7 years
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Ivor the Engine
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There is a moment in most parents’ lives when their children discover trains. Having been a budding trainspotter myself — and briefly, if less glamorously, a bus-spotter — I’m at a loss to fully explain the magic that things on wheels possess. To be honest, I’m still slightly magicked.
Most magical of all trains is, of course, the steam engine. With its belly of fire and snout of steam (the mechanics of which appear reasonably and appealingly explicable to a young ‘un), it’s the closest most kids will get to coming face-to-face with a mythical beast.
Trains are also all about rules. While cars and trucks are unwieldy and unpredictable, capable of going anywhere, a train (and to a lesser extent, a bus) is confined to a fixed course. I suspect there is a comfort in that.
Signals and junctions and forks and turntables provide kids with a whole language of control. As a six-year-old, I used to plot extravagant courses with marker pen and butcher’s paper and run my Matchbox trains to a strict timetable. Clearly, I had issues.
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Thomas the Brown Noser
For Child One, the train obsession really took off when she was two. It sprang from her early love of books. We found a beautiful volume of Thomas The Tank Engine stories in a Chapel Street op shop, which tickled her bibliophilia and my nostalgia bone. While One enjoyed the stories (except the distressing one where Henry was bricked into a tunnel), it didn’t take me long to realise the Thomas stories are pretty seriously unpleasant.
Leaving aside the issues around gender representation (the later books attempt to redress this somewhat, but even then it’s often a female engine a) causing trouble or b) trying to prove she’s almost as good as the boys), there’s a real well of nastiness to Thomas.
The engines are constantly bickering and attempting to “pay each other out”. Their sole purpose to is to become “really useful engines” — rather literal cogs in the machine. The Fat Controller is a cruel headmaster figure, frequently delivering extreme scolding and punishments.
If you went to an English boarding school in the 1950s, it would likely feel grimly familiar. Likewise if you went on to work in a bullying corporate environment. I quite enjoyed a recent theory that argued that the Isle of Sodor is actually set in a dystopian parallel universe.
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Ivor the Engine
Looking to cater to One’s new obsession with steam, I remembered Ivor The Engine. As a child, I’d had two Ivor books — The Elephant and The Dragon. Written by Oliver Postgate and illustrated by Peter Firmin (the duo behind Bagpuss, Noggin the Nog and Clangers), these lyrical tales are a perfect antidote to Thomas’s brutal world of bureaucracy, backbiting and workaholism.
In one of the stories, Ivor and his driver take the day off to go fishing. When Thomas tries his hand at angling, it nearly kills him and he learns to keep his mind on the job.
Ivor doesn’t have a face or a voice. He doesn’t even have a name (Ivor is a nickname because “the  Locomotive of the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company Limited… was a long name for a little engine”). But through his whistled interactions with driver (and interpreter) Jones the Steam, he is given more depth and humanity than any of Awdry’s trains.
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Ivor lives in rail shed attached to a railway in the top left-hand corner of Wales, a branch line that is described as being neither long nor important. When he proves himself useful, it’s as a member of the local community rather than through ruthless efficiency. He helps lure pigeons from a villager’s roof, assists a wounded elephant, saves lost sheep and runs packages to the needy up and down his branch line. When hunters threaten the lives of a local family of foxes, Ivor and Jones effect a clever escape.
While Thomas and “friends” are in constant competition to prove themselves the fastest, prettiest or most efficient worker, Ivor instead takes pleasure from his surroundings, his friends and, well, just being alive. There's mindfulness for you.
POOP POOP POOPETY-POOP went Ivor’s whistle as they rounded the bend above Llaniog. He wasn’t whistling a warning. He wasn’t whistling a signal. He was whistling for the joy of being alive and steaming, for the joy of seeing the cows in the fields and the sheep on the hills and the big wheel of the Pit spinning in the sunshine.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to see a touch of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood to the writing here, which embraces its Welsh setting through a conversational style peppered with colourful turns of phrase. Even if a parent isn’t bold enough to attempt a Welsh accent, these books are a joy to read aloud.
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Rail Against The Machine
Bureaucracy is often the enemy here. In the first story, Ivor decides he wants to join the local choir, so Dai the Station has to check if it’s against regulations. (Head office ultimately sign off on it.) In The Dragon (star Idris is “not one of your lumping great fairy-tale dragons… [but] a small trim, heraldic Welsh dragon, glowing red-hot and smiling”), Dai tries to force Ivor’s scaly new friend out of his firebox and into the “proper container for carrying livestock”. Later, Idris is forced to flee from the railway after an “investigation” is launched into his existence.
“NO!” cried Idris. “No! Dragons are mythical! No, I must not be investigated! No! No! No!”
Thankfully, the local community come together to shield Idris from the excoriating gaze of authority.
Most frighteningly, Ivor himself is threatened when the owners of his railway decide to sell off to a national company that plans to replace him with a diesel. (Not quite as frightening as when Thomas’s cronies are threatened with the scrapyard.) His salvation comes not by proving himself a vital asset to the functioning of the marketplace, but rather as repayment for his past kindnesses.
There is a joy and a magic to these tales that doesn’t undermine the background texture of social realism — the mines, the gasworks, the fish and chip shop. Thomas might depict society as it often is, but Postgate and Firmin offer a glimpse of community as it should be. People who delight in their interactions, who tolerate eccentricity and who find pleasure in their work but are not crushed by the weight of material aspirations.
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Compassion and Contentment
The real star, Ivor aside, is Jones the Steam. He is a man in his element, happy in himself and his work and seemingly wanting nothing more. He doesn’t aspire to be a station master or to run his own railway. Although he enjoys performing his errands, Jones’s greatest pleasure is making his morning cup of tea from Ivor’s boiler.
He is compassionate and sensitive, always keen to help, and blind to his own quirks. It’s left to us to decide whether Ivor has an intelligence (I think he does) or whether Jones merely ascribes one to him. Other characters rib him for talking to Ivor, but affectionately so. There is no cruelty here. Only once do we see Jones lose his temper, when dealing with a truculent elephant.
I first encountered these stories as books, without realising they were sprung from a television series that originally screened in the 1950s and 1960s. (The books are far from the usual afterthought cash in, each story lovingly rewritten and reillustrated by the original team.) 
The colour episodes are available on DVD and were some of the first television we showed to Child One. There is an enchanting simplicity to the cut-out animation and a leisurely pace to the storytelling that makes them feel very much like a picture book brought to gentle life.
Postgate does most of the voices himself. He is a perennially comforting, sedate presence. As Charlie Brooker once wrote: “there is no more calming sound in the world than the voice of Oliver Postgate. With him narrating your life, you'd feel cosy and safe even during a gas explosion. It floated above all these stories, that voice; wound its way through them.”
The episodes are also available (in pretty terrible quality) on YouTube and, thanks to Postgate’s tender narration, make for delightful audiobooks if you leave the screen off. By a stroke of luck, I recently found a copy of ten of the stories on vinyl.
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BOOKS
The Ivor books are all out of print, but readily available via eBay or Abe’s Books.
Ivor The Engine Storybook (published 1982). This is the perfect starter, containing four tales. The First Story, Snowdrifts, The Elephant and The Dragon. Hardbound. Each story takes about 10 minutes to read.
The First Story
Snowdrifts
The Elephant
The Dragon
Ivor’s Birthday
The Foxes
All released in hardback in the early 1990s.
DVD
The Complete Ivor The Engine (Universal Pictures, 2006, 186 minutes)
All the colour episodes of the classic Sixties and Seventies children's series. Enjoy once again the adventures of Welsh steam engine Ivor, Jones the Steam and the good people at the Merioneth and Llantisilly Rail Traction Company - not to mention the dragon and his chestnut barrow!
AUDIO
Ivor The Engine And Pogles Wood by Vernon Elliott
Not sure how much the kids will enjoy this, but it’s pretty delightful. Woodwind and brass score, which (like the sound effects from the TV show) has the benefit of being easily imitated by non-musical parents
MERCHANDISE
Not a lot. There’s a board game I haven’t played, some resin models of Ivor and — perhaps most tempting — a plush Idris the Dragon (not baby safe). Etsy has a few handmade treasures.
THE SHORT STUFF
Age and stage: 2+
Gender stuff: not great. There's a female vet, female shopkeepers and a batty old woman or two, but that's about it. I tend to read the dragon as female, but he's described as being male.
Drama: minimal, with few moments of tension. When younger, Child One was only distressed by the fox hunting sequence in The Foxes (spoiler: the fox lives).
Outdated bits: leaving aside the old school tech and above-mentioned gender issues, it's hard not to feel uneasy about the stereotyped Indian elephant keeper. There's otherwise a distinct lack of diversity.
Themes: community, individuality, compassion, anti-bureaucracy, mindfulness, tolerance, contentment, mythology, the wonder of steam.
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