Zhang Xiaogang’s My Mother, 2012. © Zhang Xiaogang / Courtesy Pace Gallery. Photo by: Wang Xiang. — Zhang Xiaogang’s *My Mother*, 2012. © Zhang Xiaogang / Courtesy Pace Gallery. Photo by: Wang Xiang.

'The secret of the creative life is to feel at ease with your own embarrassment.’
Paul Schrader, Screenwriter and Film Director

I was allocated a desk towards the back of class. I sat behind Marco, who had charm and menace in equal measure, and had recently attacked my new geometry set with a G-clamp. Our inventive Maths Teacher had taken to communicating technical terms through pictographs. An empty birdcage, for example, suggested a polygon.

Squinting at the cryptic chalk marks on the distant blackboard, I decided now was the time.

I reached into my blazer pocket and pulled out my first pair of glasses - robust black, plastic-rimmed NHS spectacles that had recently been fitted by Uncle George the optician.

I gently settled them in place. A little uncomfortable perhaps, but at once the blackboard squiggles became magically clear. Excellent, I thought to myself. And surely no one will notice this modest adjustment to my appearance.

Unfortunately Marco, ever alert to distractions, turned in his desk and set about mocking my new geeky look.

I blushed.

With an excited scowl Marco licked his index finger and held it towards me, hissing, as if the heat of my embarrassment was causing it to steam. Soon the whole class had joined in - scoffing, scorning, taunting, teasing - hissing with hilarity.

I wanted the earth to swallow me up.

I could feel a hot sweat creeping across my whole body. My temperature went through the roof. And all of a sudden the lenses on my new glasses steamed up – like window panes on a cold winter’s day. I couldn’t see a thing.

Please, God, make it stop.

At length my classmates exhausted their mirth and the Maths Teacher restored order. Of course, I got over it. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

And the class sat in wait for the next scapegoat...

On reflection my whole childhood was characterised by a good deal of discomfort and embarrassment.

I was awkward in my home-knit sweater, in the black shiny shoes that Mrs Crossley gave me. I was awkward carrying my kit to school in a Sainsbury bag, in my slight lisp when I said the letter R. Awkward in my duffle coat when everyone else was wearing parkas, in my crew cut when everyone else had a shaggy mane. Awkward in my FA Cup ears.

Perhaps this is the lot of all children: to be shy and embarrassed, clumsy and graceless, bashful and blundering; to obsess about any absurdly insignificant differences that might set them apart; to pine for normality; to long to belong.

And of course a predisposition to embarrassment endures beyond childhood.

I arrived at College wearing white socks with Romford cut-downs and the sleeves of my tartan shirt torn off in the style of Big Country. At my first formal luncheon I put a spoon of salt in my coffee. In a conversation with Mikey G, who had scant knowledge of soul music, I confused the Four Tops with the Temptations - and he never let me forget it. At a literary dinner party I cited John Osborne’s famous play ‘Don’t Look Back in Anger.’ In the preliminary exchanges before a meeting I found myself kissing a male colleague.

I once mistook my most senior Client for a taxi driver and asked him to take me to the airport.

‘No, Jim, it’s Barry.’

I could go on…

Embarrassment is a curious thing. According to the American author Toni Bernhard, it is ‘an emotional response to an innocent mistake.’ It’s prompted by taking a step below the line of one’s own standards, or across the line of social conventions.

'The rate at which a person can mature is directly proportional to the embarrassment he can tolerate.’
Douglas Engelbart, Engineer and Inventor

Of course, an innocent mistake may make us feel uncomfortable and may indeed create an enduring impression. But it shouldn’t lead to guilt or shame. It’s really not that important. Some people claim, with age and wisdom, to have overcome embarrassment. I’m not sure that’s the right attitude.

Embarrassment is the lens through which we get to appreciate our own unrealistic expectations of ourselves. It is the prism through which we see the irrational assumptions of others. Embarrassment makes us conscious of conventions and codes, and aware of our own unique differences. It makes us more alert, more observant. It prevents us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Surely embarrassment should be cherished as an essentially human quality. It is the gateway to insight and humour. It is the creative’s friend.

The American theatre and opera director Anne Bogart made the following observation:

'Every creative act involves a leap into the void. The leap has to occur at the right moment and yet the time for the leap is never prescribed. In the midst of a leap, there are no guarantees. To leap can often cause acute embarrassment. Embarrassment is a partner in the creative act—a key collaborator.'

A couple of years after my glasses made their inauspicious debut, Elvis Costello arrived triumphant on the British music scene. Suddenly and incredibly NHS spectacles were hip. I realised, with hindsight, that I ought not to have been embarrassed at all. In fact I had been ahead of my time.

'Received a letter just the other day,
Don't seem they wanna know you no more,
They've laid it down, given you their score,
Within the first two lines it bluntly read.

You're not to come and see us no more,
Keep away from our door,
Don't come 'round here no more.
What on earth did you do that for?

No commitment, you're an embarrassment,
Yes, an embarrassment, a living endorsement.’

Madness ‘Embarrassment’ (Thompson, Barson)

No. 271