Dan McNeil's Blog

 I have a love hate relationship with social media.   I keep in touch with friends and family on Facebook, using it as a place where we check in with each other's lives in a way that we wouldn't if we didn't have our connections on Facebook.  Without doubt, the circle of people whose lives I felt involved in would be smaller if it weren't for Facebook. I use LinkedIn for work.  I post stuff about leadership, mental health awareness in the workplace and the need for further LGBTQ+ inclusion.  I have a fair number of followers on LinkedIn, and it slots nicely into my professional life as a way to get my thoughts on leadership out into the wild and also as a good tool to find candidates for open roles in my team. I've been on and off Twitter and - more recently - Instagram over the years, but have ultimately given up on them.  I don't really know anyone I'm interacting with, and all those people I do know are on Facebook or LinkedIn anyway... I have never subsc

  I'm a man.  I'm also a feminist.  Or an ally.  Whatever you prefer to call me.  Well... whatever women prefer to call me.   Generally, the only men who say "there's no such thing as a male feminist" are the kind of men who are definitely neither feminists nor allies.  But if a woman wants to refer to me as an ally rather than a feminist, then go for it.  Labels aren't that important to me. To talk about feminism if you're a man is dangerous, and generally for good reason.  Women have strong, powerful voices and are perfectly capable of telling their own story; I would never attempt to tell a woman about feminism.   So here, I'm writing this for men.  We all have our own window onto life, and I have striven to avoid describing things from anyone else's point of view, but have shared experiences and evidence from conversations I've had.  Of course, you're welcome to read this if you're a woman, but please don't judge me for telling

Last week's episode of Doctor Who - Rosa - drew me in like no episode has for a long time.  The last time I watched an episode which made me think so much was The Girl in The Fireplace and that was quite a few years ago.  I've been enthused with praise for the episode ever since last Sunday, and although everyone I've spoken to thinks it was "OK", at least, I don't seem to find many people who share my enthusiasm. And that got me thinking - what was it about that episode which I enjoyed.  Enjoyment is maybe the most subjective thing there is, and so those who didn't enjoy it much as I do aren't wrong, and I'm not trying to convince anyone.  I'm simply sharing without judgement, as I always try to do. But whilst writing about the episode, there was another ever-present thought swirling around me.   In writing about how much I enjoyed the episode, I am very conscious that I'm a white person writing about how bad racism is, and

It's now been just over a year since I quietly stopped drinking alcohol.  I'm not the first person to stop drinking, and I won't be the last, but making the decision not to drink alcohol has given me some insights into alcohol, and how people view it - and how people view those who don't drink it. Before I stopped drinking, I didn't drink that much anyway to be honest.  I certainly wasn't someone who drank much in latter years.  Back in my University days I could put away a whole bottle of Baileys, a fair amount of vodka and still not have a hangover the following day.  It was one of the few benefits of youth.  In fact it wasn't until my twenties that all those years of vodka started to catch up with me, and I started to feel what a real hangover could be like.  I started to get home at night and lie in bed watching the room spin around me, close my eyes to make it stop only for the spin speed to increase.  I just knew then that I'd regret it in

Last night, I went to the theatre with some friends to see Knights Of The Rose.   We bought the tickets when we saw the song list and couldn't resist it.  But then as the day of the show grew closer I started to read reviews, and let's just say they weren't great.  In fact they were mostly awful. Well, let's be a little more specific; the reviews were universally terrible. I started to become concerned. The main concern of the reviewers seemed to be that the show was unknowing.  They suggested that whereas shows such as We Will Rock You and Rock Of Ages were ridiculous, they revelled in their own pomposity and broke the fourth wall to let you know that they were in on the joke.  No such fourth wall breaking here, and there was a clear thread in all the reviews that the show didn't know how silly it all was. But we had tickets, and so we turned up at the theatre and chatted beforehand about just how bad this could possibly be.  And we braced ourselves and