WRITTEN ON May 30th, 2010 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Ideal Goverment - project, Identity, Pertinent Art
In 2008 I made the rash promise that when the benighted ID Scheme was cancelled I would perform a celebratory “Dance of the Intellectual Pygmies”. Well – here it is.
The idea is we can all do it en masse at various celebratory events.
Choreography is by Aliya Saleem, filming, editing and captions by Richard (shortly to be Lord) Allan, music borrowed on a wave of goodwill from the Pet Shop Boys. The whole thing, triggered by a comment in Parliament by David Blunkett, is a tribute to the relentless hard work of many activists especially Phil and Guy at No2ID, Simon and Gus at PI, the JRRT, everyone at FIPR, ORG and beyond and to many of our more enlightened politicians and journalists.
20 Responses to “How to perform the “Dance of the Intellectual Pygmies””
Absolutely marvellous. Were the dustbins in the background a subtle sign too?
Thumbs up
As they said about Peter Crouch, for a tall man, you are possessed of deceptively dainty feet.
XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
+1
William
Congratulations on the campaign. Eurovision song and talent school beckons…
And let us nor forget Frances Stonor Saunders, who single handedly reached millions of people with the truth about ID Cards via her briefing document.
Hi William,
Love the dance and love even more the reason for it.
all the best,
Brian
Fabulous! Have linked this from the NO2ID forums: http://forum.no2id.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=32350
Are those chipped bins in the background?
[…] Back in 2002 when ID cards were called “Entitlement cards”, the Home Secretary David Blunket responded to ID scepticism during a parliamentary debate in March saying: “I am disappointed, because this is degenerating into a contest with intellectual pygmies.” Following the recent news that the scheme ushered in by Blunkett is to be cancelled, William Heath over at the Ideal Government website has posted up a video of a celebratory “Dance of the Intellectual Pygmies”. The video begins with Star Wars style opening credits that state: “Once upon a time in a far off land an evil authoritarian emperor described opponents of the benighted ID cards scheme as “intellectual pygmies”. On that fateful day, plucky rebel commander William Heath vowed to fight the ID card legislation.” See http://idealgovernment.com/2010/05/2063/ […]
Are those chipped bins in the background? They look like they’re watching you.
I’m sooo happy about the scrapping the ID card system I nearly joined in the dance 🙂
Oh, how wonderful! More pioneering joyousness and good humour from Open Government! Hurrah!! Marvellous, splendid, and I HOPE EVERYONE DANCES IT. All over the land, in all the parks. Imagine. If William and Aliya can – we all can….
And a great tribute too, to the people who never gave up hope, and steadily worked towards the goal. Of course not forgetting this very site, a veritable beacon, as per the logo.
Now for the next steps. Onward, bravehearts.
Well who would have thought it, a politics and dance mash-up. Excellent news, and progress at last.
Thank you for all comments. Sorry akismet was a little over-eager and they all got trapped in a spam folder (I was wondering…) Yes, there are many others to name and praise; happy to have more names here. And Lord Allan’s bins are the stars of the show, chipped and with built-in CCTV no doubt
Right, well, pleased i caught that little beauty. Will find an appropriate event for you to lead a performance.
Groovy guys, nice suprise all round. Let’s do it at the festies, specially the one on July 30th!
why isn’t this stored under PERTINENT ART???
Weird postscript here. I was all huffy about Blunkett’s “intellectual pygmies” comment because I thought he was dissing Phil and Simon. But I now think Blunkett’s comment was a Parliamentary barb aimed at Ollie Letwin, who is genuinely short of stature (not that that makes bodysize related remarks acceptable) and undeniably intellectual. Have to verify this…
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Glyn Moody, williamheath and Jim Webster, PublicSectorBloggers. PublicSectorBloggers said: How to perform the “Dance of the Intellectual Pygmies”: In 2008 I made the rash promise that when the benighted ID… http://bit.ly/9Xmjhw […]