We all live in glasshouses

It's been a wee while since we've caught up with the Trinity "case". In the past couple of weeks we received the result of the external arbiter's investigation, plus a defiant letter from the Chair of the Board, which once again threatens me with legal action if I discuss my experience with Trinity, and indeed my concerns about the entire process. However last time I checked we still lived in a free country (I mean, thanks to the Tories, only just) and I am completely entitled to publicly discuss my concerns, just as I am entitled to state that I've received additional information, so these constant threats of legal action are clearly designed to shut down a dialogue that I'm completely entitled to have. It should be noted the level of detail that I consciously go into in these blogs - I do this to justify clearly and rationally why things just don't add up, and why maybe another narrative that has been disclosed to me. . . does. Anyway. . .to continue

So the story so far from Trinity's perspective can be traced here, here, here,  and here. I feel that it's vitally important for you to read things from their perspective, after all opinions and thoughts are formed when we have all the information.

You might have read in The Stage that the arbiter did uphold our complaint with regard to the process taking so long, however, they didn't uphold our other concerns, concluding that Trinity "operated with appropriate due diligence as a validating body". As you might imagine I don't necessarily agree with that conclusion. If we hadn't pushed our initial complaint Trinity considered our case closed after complaint No 1. However we did escalate it, and our complaint was upheld, therefore is that due diligence? Of course, the counter-argument is that the organisation had a safety net in place which allowed us to proceed with our complaint, however, I would still argue that the complaint should have been taken seriously from the beginning. We had 6 pages of corrections on a 9 page report - is that due diligence? It should also be noted that the majority of these corrections were upheld. We have evidenced some serious concerns which have not been fully investigated - is that due diligence?  

The new narrative from the organisation appears to now be around a complete U-turn on original thoughts after an assessor watched one of our shows. A show incidentally that they had made positive verbal feedback about on the day. According to their records this assessor had clearly gone away and rethought their original praise which of course they are completely entitled to do, and on reflection felt that the show didn't meet the correct standard, these revised views were, we were told shared by our main assessor, however, they've never explained how he actually came to share these views, as he didn't come to see the show? So when did he watch it?  Given that this one show is pivotal to one of our "issues" surely this is a critical point? It would be great to have a straightforward answer to this given that so many things seemingly changed on these observations. 

Such was the level of their concern the narrative now is that they "diligently" watched additional material online to get greater clarity, oops sorry, that's now turned into sampled additional material online. The wording changed after we called them out on their original claim that they had watched our productions. Was there an expectation that they would have watched all the shows that they had asked us to send to them - of course not? Life is far too short. Do I think that you can judge the dance standard of a college by watching 6 mins of a show, 2 mins of which is a couple of title screens, 3 mins of which is a whole college dance piece expertly choreographed by Jreena Green as a piece designed to show the true origins of jazz dance, deliberately using set moves to trace that history? As an aside, this piece was part of our commitment after BLM to operate with an anti-racist policy. So the moves that they deemed to be "too simplistic" were an accurate, authentic re-enactment of the origins of jazz dance from the black history perspective! So do I think that they can form an opinion of a standard based on those 3 mins? I think that you can guess the answer. Then let's not forget at this point that in the classroom observations there were no concerns about the standard.  Is it any wonder that we still have questions?

Anyway. . .back to the concerns, it was noted in the arbiter's report that on 15th March there appears to have been a handover document between our assessor and the person that would eventually deliver the report to us. Just as an aside it should also be noted that this was the exact day that the original assessor wrote to me apologising for the delay in getting our report to us, stating that the other person (that'll be the other person that was involved in the handover) had been off work ill with covid for 3 weeks, and they were hoping to return soon. So was it usual practice for handovers to happen when people were off sick? I'm aware that the assessor was waiting to discuss some things with the other person. . .though interestingly nobody has flagged up those specific questions anywhere? Even more interesting to me as they were issues that I had flagged up given that we were the first accelerated programme to undergo a validation process. Anyway, back to the "handover document" it was in this document that the concerns around the standard of dance were documented, having "diligently" sampled more of our online work, but here's the thing. . . the online stuff wasn't "sampled" until 8th June. Our main assessor was on "sick leave" from at least 25th March. On 9th June they came to assess a show and assessed that all students had reached the standard required in all 3 disciplines? The dates just don't add up for the level of concern that was seemingly raised.

They've used this perceived "concern" over dance to explain away the absence of any observations from the singing and acting classes on the day of the pre-validation assessment. Of course, this is quite key to our belief that the notes from the main assessor were not handed over in their entirety. The suggestion now is that the report "helpfully" focuses on the area of concern. They weren't concerned about our singing and acting so they didn't bother including any classroom observations. So why pop in an observation report about the voice class - that wasn't an area of concern? Or could it be as we've always suggested that two assessors watched that class? The only observations missing are the classes observed solely by the main assessor.

Trinity have created a strong narrative around us needing to put in a structure for formal assessments, and how this would have been a cultural shift for us, but erm. . .via our shows of work and via our productions, we had shifted to an assessment structure back in 2020, the main assessor was aware of that, he had seen the schemes that we were using. The arbiter quite rightly noted the adjustments that we would have had to have made if we were a college that didn't already have these systems in place eg they asked where these assessment points could come in our calendar, who marked them, what would be the marking guidelines, what grading systems would we be using, how could the feedback be given and in what timeframe. . .all extremely valid points, except that if they'd checked the student handbook all that information existed. Literally, the only thing that was recommended for us to change around assessments was the marking criteria. In fact, what they had asked us to do was far easier than what we had done previously. From 9 subsections of marking looking at personal development as well as industry-readiness their recommendations allowed us to just give 3 marks. We couldn't believe our luck.  The recommendations made had already simplified our infrastructure. As for when these assessments happened. . . that information was in the handbook too. Our students got marked twice a term - once for technical studies and once for performance. Who marked them (according to the criteria that was clearly set out), the heads of department for the technical studies, and our guest creatives for the shows. When was the feedback given. . .every last Friday of technical studies via four 1:1 tutorials, covering all core disciplines. Zero restructuring needed, and no big cultural change required.

As I've kept stating that zoom conversation was predominantly taken up with a conversation around Guided Learning Hours and moderation. The moderation of the course took up the bulk of the meeting, not the change of assessment criteria.  We chatted around various options as in fact, this stuff did have the potential to force us to change the course, and the discussion was around the fact that I wouldn't risk the integrity of the course for a simple box-ticking exercise.  To both of the assessor's credit, they agreed with me, and we worked hard to find a solution that we could agree upon. A system that was so simple to implement that we were already running it 4 weeks later. A system that I was informed in the July zoom meeting that they had failed to understand as the other assessor ended up being confused by it? So where were the notes from the main assessor??

I can 100% see how this can be viewed through the lens of the "distraught" Principal, unable to understand how their course could have any faults, maybe acting out of character due to the upset of them losing their college and of course their income as a direct result of this report (whilst also noting that there was another contributing factor). After all, as the arbiter noted, back in Feb & March we did feel that we were home and dry on this one. For the first time ever we could see a clear, attainable route to secure government funding streams for our students. A game changer. However, as a large number of my friends & colleagues have noted often with a wry smile - this is not out of character for me.  Name me the college principal that has shouted louder or more frequently about the need for greater regulation in our industry. . . I'll wait. I mean here's the piece that I wrote for The Stage just last year on this very subject, or scroll through the blog to note the recurring theme.

Am I upset that the college has closed? Of course, I am - it would be bizarre if I wasn't. Am I distraught by it - no. Life moves on and I'm excited to see what the next chapter holds for me. Am I hugely concerned to discover that this entire process is not regulated by anyone? Yes. I'm curious as to why in all their statements Trinity state that they're regulated and bound by the rules of OfQual, but omits to say that the process to get validated is not regulated by anyone. So what "if" my whistleblowers are correct, what "if" we somehow fell through the cracks of some systemic issues at the only organisation that can open up government funding streams at Level 6? "If" I'm right - how can we as an industry guarantee that this won't happen to another college?

Shouldn't the response to this quite simply be - look things went wrong, there are major loopholes here, let's investigate properly (and by that I mean an external investigation which looks at the process as a whole, with the key people involved in our case all being at least approached to be interviewed etc) silence these rumblings, and then put things in place to ensure that these questions need ever be asked again. Two charities looking to protect their reputations. . .working with total transparency to get to the truth. If that had happened back in July I would not still be blogging about it. Why do simple, reasonable questions get met with threats of legal action? Why have I acquired a Trinity troll on twitter? An account clearly attempting to discredit the college and indeed me? Why would somebody respond to reasonable questions by creating an anonymous profile? 

Transparency was one of the central tenants of The MTA. I guess that these blogs and again the level of detail that I go into in them is indicative of how much importance I put on that value.  Of course, it makes me hugely vulnerable - but by posing questions publicly I'm also allowing myself to be challenged.  For quite some time we've been very clear that whistleblowers had come forward to us, Trinity has made it very clear now in both letters to us and indeed to their staff that this sort of dialogue is not welcomed. I find that interesting, as for every single "event" in this day and age of social media forensics, there are people eager to find out the truth. We had it ourselves years ago when that vexatious grievance was made about the college and a certain blogger was publicly asking to speak to students to "find out the truth". Whilst of course I had feelings about it, I wasn't anxious as I had nothing to hide, and more importantly, if there was something going on then we needed to address it.  As brilliantly described in a podcast that I listened to the other day, organisations have to understand that they no longer operate within a "black box", thanks to social media we are all living in glasshouses.

It can't be wrong to ask these questions. The concerns noted above are valid concerns which have still not been adequately answered or investigated. I believe that the external arbiter did a great job with the information made available to them but I'm still curious why the remit of that investigation did not extend to interviewing the only person that could really answer our accusations - the main assessor. 

Given what was lost as a result of the pre-validation assessment. . . wouldn't you want to know the full story? Similarly, students, colleagues, and staff - all of whom have seen every bit of documentation that's been passed between the two organisations are equally entitled to ask questions. That's not a campaign - as one student wrote in a thread the other day - they are questioning things of their "own volition", because it wasn't "my" college, it was "our" college. Over 300 people were directly impacted by the closure of The MTA, it's just that only one of us blogs ;-) 

The Right To Reply

All I wanted to do was to run a small drama college, when things went tits up last year I took time to process it all and then just move on, and in truth whilst I've found this year's closure announcement harder, it's only because of the way that it's come about. Now, simply by standing up for the college, the course, the staff and the students, I've unwittingly found myself embroiled in some ridiculous battle for the truth.  

This week I was accused of embarking on a social media campaign against Trinity, with Trinity emailing me with an ultimatum of removing my blogs, publishing this letter, or run the risk of them setting their lawyers on me.  Now as regular readers will know for the past 7 years I've used this blog account in an attempt to raise awareness of certain issues, a place where my voice can be heard unedited, after all, I am only ever writing my truth. So given the ultimatum and the contents of the letter, I was delighted to share it, even though it was worded to raise questions about the validity of our concerns.

In their letter they once again attempted to address our complaints. I mean I have some observations about some of their statements. Let's start at the beginning - by noting that we had a well-publicised campaign to fundraise back in 2021 in order to stay open, they're sowing the seeds of doubt as to whether or not we were financially viable.  This is because we've been very clear that two things would have saved us - one being the validation, and the other a private benefactor. Both together would have been exquisite, but having just one of them would have potentially saved us. 

Moving further down I'm curious about this sentence when discussing our main assessor how he'd "reflected the view of his colleague that the performance which she attended in early March was strong in material and acting, but the dance numbers were basic and overall the work seen did not fully demonstrate appropriate Level 6 standards." I'm a massive fan of John Gardyne our main assessor. I could talk for hours about the conversations that we had which bore no relationship to what they're claiming were his private concerns, but of course that would come down to my word against theirs (or indeed for some of those statements, our word against theirs, as both students and staff heard a very different version), so I won't bother going into it all again, however I'm really curious about how John came to the same conclusions that the other assessor allegedly came to over the show, as he hadn't seen it. Only one assessor came to watch SOSN and that was Brenda Garrett-Glassman. 

In this situation I'm always curious about what people don't say eg in their response, you'll note that they failed to mention that the assessor on our final show clearly named that all of our students did meet the right level in all 3 disciplines? Anyway, I'm sure that they just wanted to keep their statement brief? I mean they also agreed that the short film that they did watch met the standard too, even though it was cast with 1st years. So in August the students met the criteria, in January when they were with us they did, somehow it went wrong in March, but got back on track in June? How odd.

The letter did for the first time say that our main assessor "withdrew" from our assessment, so you guys found that out at the same time as us. Lucky you!  As far as we were concerned until that statement was sent John went off sick with covid sometime around 25th March and never returned.  When we chased the report we were told that we'd have to wait for his return, so really interesting to now hear that he withdrew from it all. Of course, we've tried to track John down, after all, he was the person that we'd dealt with, unfortunately, when we contacted him he told us that he'd left Trinity and therefore couldn't speak to us. 

I think that the wording of the statement was interesting eg when discussing watching online performances which is one of the areas that we think is contentious they said this: "Trinity has never represented that it watched in entirety the hundreds of hours of recordings that you submitted." See that's really interesting to me as that makes me sound a bit mad doesn't it? Like I've been sending them hours of recordings? Why on earth would I have been doing that? In reality, John asked me to send all of our archive performances from Dec 2020 - just 7 shows in total. They literally received the shows that they requested, so not hours at all. In fact, John had been monitoring our shows since June 2020 and had already watched some of our online work prior to the 2021 stuff, as he wanted to be sure that our work was meeting the correct standard before agreeing that we should apply when the criteria changed.

I find it interesting that they attempt to discredit me again when they write about me not understanding the validation process. It's like they hadn't received a handover of the 90 mins conversation that John, Brenda and myself had when they were giving me their original recommendations in a zoom, as if they had there was no way that they could have made that statement after all that zoom discussion wasn't an informal chat, it was part of our formal assessment procedure, they were literally giving me their report recommendations? 

Similarly, their stuff around funding is somewhat muddied, for sure the EFSA allocate the DaDAs but you must be offering a Trinity Level 6 Diploma in order to be considered. As for "other ways for in which your students can access ALAs" (I think that they meant ALL) well at Level 6 there isn't, and our course operated at Level 6. What I find fascinating is how all the assessors that we dealt with had such pride in the Trinity Diploma, all of them were pleased that we had elected to take this route to student funding as opposed to a degree route, yet here it's like Trinity themselves don't understand the value of their course?

To add a bit of authority to their response they make out that they're regulated by OfQual - but fail to point out that OfQual's regulations don't apply until you've been validated. At the point of entry they're not regulated by anybody.

Anyway - their letter (I'm mindful to keep sharing it, as I want all of you to read exactly what they're saying) was clearly designed to scare me, the threat of the lawyer and all that. Of course, you can't involve lawyers if the person making the statements that you feel are harmful to your organisation are true. I mean you can. . . but you really run the risk of being exposed. I would be bloody stupid to be fighting this report if I wasn't sure of my facts. For me, the reputation of my college, students and staff is every bit as valuable as the reputation of a global organisation such as Trinity. The MTA is closing in 2 weeks and I'd like the final word to be the report that John had written, not a report cobbled together with huge inaccuracies. 

Of course, things are even more interesting now as 2 whistleblowers have come forward from Trinity. The definition of a whistleblower is "a person who informs on a person or organisation regarded as engaging in an unlawful or immoral activity". I've discovered that Trinity staff were sent an email warning them not to talk to us (or the press), once again being advised that Trinity "do not tolerate personal attacks on their. . . staff" so I'm hugely appreciative of the people that have come forward. 

For obvious reasons I'm not going to divulge what we know as that would be dumb right? We were hoping that OfQual would have investigated for us, but see note above. Our concerns are still sitting with the Charity Commission so we'll wait to see what they do. As a result of the new information, we are now also taking some legal counsel to see what our position is.

Meanwhile, in line with the ethos of The MTA to always be transparent I've shared all the information that I was given with the wider college community, and I guess IF the Trinity external arbiter fails to uncover the truth then it'll be down to me to get the truth out. However we're a way off that, as it seems only fair to let the Trinity internal investigation run its course, and I'm looking forward to chatting to the arbiter.

You see we all have a reputation to protect, and just because some charities are bigger than others, it doesn't make their reputation any more valuable. I spent 14 years building a college on a foundation of integrity & transparency, and that is the relic that I want to be leaving as a legacy.  In the meantime though. . . keep reading their letter

Levelling Up not Dumbing Down

I'm not really sure how this happened but over the past few years, the idea of elite training has become a bad concept, synonymous with "exclusive", and frowned upon in an era when everybody should be able to access everything. I mean the roots of this are plain to see - elite training comes at a cost, and for the majority of people those costs are prohibitive. Similarly for lots of people "elite" training is seen as a thing steeped in a western culture vacuum, thereby blocking off so many brilliant pathways before we even get going.

I believe that elite arts training should be "inclusively exclusive" and by that, I mean that our industry is so much richer with a diversity of voices, different ethnicities and different demographics all coming together as one to create an arts scene that is vibrant and evolving. However, I don't believe that we should become a "lifestyle" industry.  I 100% believe that training in the arts makes people well-rounded, gives confidence and should be compulsory to all children, but I also believe that it's OK to have a space where the best of the best train, and in those places, it should not be the buyer's market. Selection for that training needs to be robust and selective. I'm so proud that in the 14 years that The MTA operated we never once lowered our standard. Even when financially it was a struggle, we found a way to make it work. Personally, the thought of accepting somebody that I truly believed was never going to make was abhorrent. I would have been nothing more than a grifter.

Somehow the arts have been dumbed down so much that the only equivalent that I can think of is if the National football team had to try out everybody that was vaguely interested in kicking a ball, and more than that they had to put a few keen but useless amateurs on the team. . . just cos those people really wanted to be in the team. It's ludicrous, isn't it? Yet that's where many colleges are now when it comes to vocational training. 

We can't keep using the argument of "inclusivity" as a way of dumbing down elite training. We need to find people from all walks of life that meet the standard (and my goodness there are hundreds of them) and then we have to fund that training.  We need talent scouts going around youth groups, dance schools, and state schools ensuring that it's not just the nice middle-class kids that know about vocational training. Soccer scouts actively start looking for their next stars from 13 up so this isn't a unique concept. We should have a national network where talented youngsters are scouted, nurtured (in their home environment) and then at 18 undertake "elite training".

Why have we become satisfied with mediocrity? What's the thinking behind the "cream will rise to the top" in overcrowded colleges - as that cream battles against a wave of at best "average" but very often "not that good"? We're ripping off the people that are electing to train with us if we're accepting them knowing full well that they don't stand a chance of making it.

We're in an overcrowded industry as it is, and year on year we're just piling more "highly average" out into it, meaning that lots of extremely talented people leave our profession earlier than they need to.

I've genuinely lost count of the number of conversations I've had with people that came to work at The MTA because all of our students were good, the shock on people's faces when they realised that all of our students could sing (and by that. . . I mean sing well). We were a musical theatre college for goodness sake - shouldn't that be the norm? I'd hear story upon story of how college X had a handful of brilliant people but all the rest were. . . well. . . average. 

UK training is considered to be one of the best in the world, hell that's why so many colleges make a handsome profit overcharging overseas students. It's supply and demand, isn't it? Yet if we keep dumbing down our training industry we end up devaluing our arts scene, and at one point that was a big old jewel in the cultural crown.

We have to fund elite training though - and stop lying to people that £9K/year pays for it. Those colleges perpetuating that myth have devalued their own training, and eventually, I fear they too will pay the price for that Tory bit of spin. We need the government to be supporting the arts scene like they support elite sports. We need that support to be properly regulated.

We need a proper qualification for that training, a degree isn't the one, it just sits uneasily within our industry. Like a funded apprenticeship scheme or something, properly regulated from start to finish. 

Where people are looked after and not treated as conveyor belt fodder. Funding needs to be attached to results, and not to worthless bits of paper. 

Back in the day of the PCDL colleges had to prove their track record, the funding wasn't automatically gifted as it is nowadays to every degree course out there. Our industry needs to wake up to what's happening - the dumbing down of our standards as everybody chases the pound. Now if that's not a metaphor for Tory Britain I don't know what is.

 

Trinity's Reponse

Very happy to share this as requested - my response along with supporting evidence is now with OfQual and the Charity Commission

Trinity's Response  

A Time For Reflection

 It's been over a week now since The MTA announced that it was closing in Sept 2022. That's a week of everybody including me attempting to process the news.

Having bizarrely gone through this week last year too I'm struck by how different it is this time. Maybe of course because last year as soon as we announced it some hope materialised within days, so it never really felt real at all.  

Last time we knew that this was coming. We'd had months recognising that the problem was real, with weeks passing before people applied to join us. It was inevitable that the closure announcement was going to come.

This year the hope came before the announcement, which somehow made this feel all the worse. You see even though we'd lost a benefactor there was always the hope of the Trinity validation pulling through for us, after all, as I've written about a fair few times now, the evidence from the day of the assessment and subsequent assessors coming to see our shows was overwhelmingly positive.  Literally, hours chatting to the main assessor both on the day of the pre-validation assessment and even before had clearly raised no red flags at all (and trust me when I say that I'm always on the lookout for red flags). The assessor (John Gardyne) clearly understood what he was talking about, and was hugely diligent in his dealings with us. 

We always knew that we needed 3 things to survive beyond this year, and we knew that we could have survived with 2 of the 3 things in place, we didn't need the full house. The 3 things were simple, additional funding, the cohort size returning to pre-pandemic levels and the all-important validation from Trinity. Now 1 and 2 and intrinsically linked - which John completely understood. If there were no major issues on our course and we were able to whiz through the validation process, for the first time since 2018 we would have been in a position to offer assistance with fees.

For background from 2011 - 2018 we were able to offer students help via a government back Professional Career Development Loan - the PCDL. Whilst not massive - just £10K/student, we saw our applications increase once we were in a position to offer that help. Interestingly the criteria for that loan was determined by a government office all based on paperwork and stats, ensuring that we weren't some rogue organisation.

I had attempted to shout loudly when the PCDL was suddenly pulled with no warning, and have subsequently continued to scream into the abyss like some harbinger of doom with vocational training's death knell ringing loudly into my own echo chamber, but nobody listened. They all just turned away because it didn't impact them. We were after all an outlier of a college so we were hugely insignificant. Our problems were exactly that. . . "our" problems.

Anyway, back to 'now' and our situation, suddenly being able to apply for a validation that could access the Advanced Learner Loan, a loan worth £22k/student for us, was clearly going to be a game changer. Even taking into account the current cost of living crisis, the increased competition within the training market, the number of phone calls and conversations on lives on various platforms was proof if proof was needed that having an ALL attached to the funding options for the course was going to completely put us back on track. We 100% had to get through another year with a teeny tiny cohort which was always going to be a challenge BUT there were ways and means around that. Our business plan was going to look hugely different with that student funding stream secured, meaning that we could have looked to the bank to help us through the 2022-23 academic year. My wife and I were still down as guarantors for loans taken out by the college, and we had already discussed the possibility of guaranteeing a loan to get us through the next year. There was no way that we'd do it without the validation in place though as we had already loaned the business a lot of money back in 2015 to facilitate the move to our new premises and that money was still in the college, so we would have had to be really sure of success before committing even more finance.

So with all of these "knowns" in place, we had hope in abundance. For sure with each passing week that Trinity failed to send us the report that hope waivered. We needed to move onto the full validation assessment with a real urgency in order to secure it and advertise the fact that our training came with some form of student funding. 

When the report landed in July a few days after having made a formal complaint to Trinity about the 4 months of delay, it was devastating to discover that the report that was presented to us bore no relationship to the report that was verbally discussed with me back in March. In fact, I barely recognised the college within that report.  Over the past week, we've released that report to our students & graduates (as I've always believed in completely transparency), and they are equally bemused by what they've read. 

You see #theMTAway truly is unique, and unless you've taught at the college or been a student there or, like John, spent hours trying to understand how it worked, you just couldn't blag a report on it. Well. . . I say you couldn't, somebody at Trinity has clearly given it a bloody good go.

So this year's closure does feel vastly different - but predominantly because this year's closure is unfair, and whilst we all come to terms with that, the fact that a major organisation such as Trinity has not only failed to own up to their part in our demise, but rather lie even further in the most ridiculous of press releases that salt is being rubbed rather harshly into the wounds. 

They have just 9 more days to present the findings of their external arbiter, plus 9 days to present the full report - complete with our 6 pages of corrections. I'll say it again though - a report on our training cannot be blagged, it's a unique 2-year training programme so unless they've found the original report or at least spoken to our original assessor this is all going to get very messy. THAT'S why this year feels so different - we're definitely closing, but the post-mortem into why we've been forced to close is going to drag on for months, and eventually, I know that we're going to be vindicated, at which point that hope will turn to despair at all that we might have been and all that we've lost. The loss of a truly unique college amongst the homogeny of training available, the loss of free training & rehearsal space for our graduates, the loss of a creative hub for new writing, and that's before you even start to count up the financial cost of it all that, wages, redundancy monies, lease, deposits, damn it. . . even our loan.

We're over. . . but we're not