I see that Rishi Sunak, our soon to be possible unelected Prime Minister, has made it known that students should have ‘ proper’ degrees from ‘proper’ courses at places of higher education. So, he’d prefer us to have degrees in what are called proper jobs.

A degree in graphic design or philosophy might then be on the margins of what is acceptable to his “Unelectedness”. Drawing cartoons is of course, not a proper job. Writing about the meaning of life, or even about our future Prime Minister, might also be deemed “unproper”. Odd really, when the previous incumbent as PM was light years away from being “proper”.

It’s that tired old thinking that what we need are engineers, doctors, scientists and train drivers. I’m sure we do but we also should have the right to choose what we aspire to do to earn a crust. Most young people who go into the arts are not blind to the possibilities of not earning very much from it. I recall an uncle of mine, himself an engineer, made very light of what I wanted to do for a living. He was a lovely kind man and it hurt me terribly to think he thought what I was doing was somehow worthless. My mother, a respectable teacher of small children could see my unease, and simply said that I should take no notice. It has stuck with me though as one can see. We creative types take things to heart Rishi. It’s called sensitivity.

It is just these creative types that have over the years created the massive Games industry, the same business employs dozens of ‘cartoonists and designers’. Similar “creative people have designed TV programmes and built world beating businesses. The TV industry here in the UK is bigger than the car industry, apparently. Simple out of work writers have become world beating authors of massive franchise operations, Harry Potter written in the back of a cafe. ( I’ve never read it myself, but one likes to hear of its success )

Anyone wandering past a writer with his or her head in the air, might think they are not working, but they are, they are thinking. I thought about this blog whilst in the shower getting the lightly perfumed shampoo in my eyes, though heaven knows why I need the stuff having just the odd bit of hair left these days.

The difference between proper jobs and the creative areas is that the “propers” go to work, and the creatives are at work all the time, even in the shower. The propers like to quantify what they do, and at times have to, for their businesses to run properly. The creatives need to be thinking about what to do next when they leave that desk. The creative brain should never ‘clock off’

So as Derek Trotter might say: “Leave it out Rishi!“. Let young people choose what they want to do. The ‘ Propers’ will always get work, the Creatives will just be thinking how best to get work, so let them choose.

This is the equivalent of three blokes staring into a hole and not digging,
but here it’s all happening ‘upstairs’ …perhaps.