MEET WILL BALDET, PREVENT COORDINATOR

At St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society this morning for a meeting with Will Baldet, Prevent Coordinator for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland.

I first met Will last month, at a Knowledge Exchange Seminar in the Multifaith Centre at the University of Derby on the topic of Islam and Higher Education. We've been looking for the chance to get together for this conversation since then.

I'm grateful to Will for clearing a couple of hours so close to the international conference that he's organising at De Montfort University this Saturday. "Virtual Voices, Real Lives" will consider the realities of radicalisation and the role of social media in Islamophobia, extremism and social change. As you can imagine, faithful reader, I'm excited at the prospect of social media being taken seriously in this context and am looking forward to taking part in the conference myself.

Will was appointed Prevent Coordinator for Leicester in October last year. He talks me through how Prevent has changed, what it means now and how it relates to the distinctive circumstances of our city. I, in turn, walk him through the structure, function and relevance of Leicester Council of Faiths. We map out areas of overlap between Prevent and the Council of Faiths, complementary aspects of his work and mine, particularly regarding social cohesion. It would make sense for him to meet the Board of Leicester Council of Faiths to brief them on Prevent. I hope we can make that happen soon. I also offer to help him make contact with other appropriate organisations and agencies, such as Network for Change and Leicester SACRE.

The appointment of a Prevent Coordinator at S Philip's Centre was funded by the Home Office and is designed to co-ordinate the preventative strand of the Government's counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST in Leicester. The aim of Prevent is to help communities develop the resilience to counter the national threat in all its forms, and to empower the community itself with the support of partner agencies to address these difficult challenges.

As we're wrapping up our two-hour meeting, we discover a shared interest in comics. Will favours Marvel (particularly Daredevil, the Man Without Fear), while I'm more firmly DC. Those who get such things may see what that might tell us about Will - and about how he and I could work together.

Follow Will's Twitter feed, @Leics_SafeSPACE: challenging religious and political extremism and providing the space for Leicester's communities to debate the issues online.

Follow Leicester SafeSpace on Facebook: An online forum to discuss and debate issues of political or religious extremism, share ideas on making our communities more resilient to extremist voices and publicise local and national events of interest.

Percy Jackson & the Lightning Thief

To Phoenix Square Digital Film and Media Centre this afternoon with Harry and Grace, to see "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief". It's a milestone for Harry; first time he'll have seen a movie based on a novel he's read (he's already up to the third book in the Percy Jackson series).

I remember the thrill of hearing and reading the Greek myths when I was a kid and of seeing dramatisations of the stories of Perseus, Hercules and their like. I remember with affection movies like Jason and the Argonauts (1963), featuring the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen. By the time of Clash of the Titans (1981) - the final film to which Harryhausen contributed his trademark animation - I'd rather outgrown this kind of thing (and I have no desire whatsoever to see the 2010 3D remake of Clash of the Titans, which features one of the worst straplines ever put on a movie poster: "Titans will clash!" Oh really? You don't say!)

It seems to me, however, that children discover and consume these stories in a different way now. Whereas in earlier years, children got these stories as something that had happened in a dim and almost-forgotten past, or in an alternate, mythologised world, today's children access them as part of an alternate reality that exists today. They see these gods and monsters of ancient Greece persist in our contemporary world - as if they've never been away, but have simply been biding their time before returning to assert their authority to rule - or wreck - our world.

In "Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief" we see Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Athena, not only in their divine or demonic forms, but also in hoodies, leather jackets and trainers. We identify with their children, demigods born though their matings with mere mortals. There are also significant appearances by minor figures such as Medusa, Persephone, the Minotoaur, the Hydra and assorted centaurs, satyrs and furies. We visit the Underworld, Mount Olympus and the land of the lotus eaters, all of which have their modern counterparts, bringing a nicely ironic touch to the story (the entrance to the Underworld is below the Hollywood sign, Mount Olympus is accessed through an elevator in the Empire State Building and the lotus eaters lure and hold heir victims in a hotel and casino in Las Vegas). There's no recognition (no mention even) of innovations in religion since those times, no engagement with Judaism, Christianity or Islam. Other religions may as well not exist in Percy Jackson's fictional world.

Now, it could be said that it's not a new phenomenon; that such outlets as Marvel and DC comics retooled the ancient gods, heroes, villains and monsters from the 1960s onwards (for instance, with a particular favourite of mine, "The Mighty Thor", which depended on the old Norse myths and legends). But the marketing is more intense, penetrates deeper and into more layers of young lives, the CGI animation leaves less to the imagination.

Mind you, this production and consumption of ancient archetypes isn't just for children. Adults are willing participants too. For example, Neil Gaiman's Hugo and Nebula-Award winning novel, American Gods (2001) and Steven Sherrill's debut novel, The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break (2003). Even Doctor Who's Weeping Angels (recently voted the scariest monsters in the show's 46-year history - based on only one appearance at the time the poll was taken, Stephen Moffat's "Blink", which also won a Hugo) draw heavily on the archetype of Medusa and the Gorgons.

Find out more about the Percy Jackson books (by Rick Riordan):
http://www.percyjackson.co.uk/site/pj_main.php

Find out more about Neil Gaiman:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/