Single Lens Reflections

Ely Shopmobility

2012-02-19T01:16:00.001-08:00

The other day we went to see Ely Cathedral. A blog post and photos will soon follow charting this, but I thought first I would put up what will hopefully be a useful resource for anyone thinking of using Ely Shopmobility.

I'd never used the Shopmobility service before. For anyone who doesn't know, Shopmobility are a charity who give disabled people access to mobility equipment (wheelchairs/scooters) in town centres throughout the UK free of charge. You do have to register with them to use this service, and so on my first visit I had to take with me a piece of ID confirming my address (in case I decided to, you know, ram-raid a bank or some such).

The staff (who were actually staff members working in the local museum) were extremely kind and helpful and are a credit to the museum and Shopmobility both.

Be warned - Ely Shopmobility is only available on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays (top tip - Thursday is market day, so for a quiet day out, aim to go on a Friday) 10.30 - 13.00 and 14.00 - 16.00 and you must pre-book a slot.

Link to Shopmobility Ely site.

The most difficult thing about it, though, was working out where to park. Shopmobility are, as I said, based in the local museum. The museum, however, has been built in the old Bishop's Gaol and sadly, when building the gaol in the 13th century, they didn't think much about where to park the odd hatchback or two (hunchbacks, however, they were totally comfortable with).

So Shopmobility parking is based in the East Cambridgeshire District Council carpark off Nutholt Lane. We had a bit of difficulty finding this, driving past it at least twice. So, here is a Google Maps Street View link to the entrance to the car park.

View Larger Map

The only other problem is then getting to the Museum, but what we didn't originally realise was that they've got a button set up to summon a staff-member! I'll put an image below highlighting the post and button (no.1) and the designated Shopmobility parking spaces (no.2).

So there you go - hopefully this will encourage you to try out the service. It worked extremely well - the machines were in good condition and were to be serviced soon regardless.

And if you need a reason to try Ely Shopmobility out, check back soon for some photos of Ely Cathedral.

Love & Ukuleles

2012-02-14T03:41:00.000-08:00

Love's a funny thing. It can drive you to do all manner of strange things.
I think the thing about true love, though, is that once you've done that thing (even if it's taken weeks) and you've had time to look back at it and understand the mind-boggling oddness of it all, you still feel proud. It still warms your heart and gives you a sense of completeness.

That said, if you haven't yet made your peace with the infinite, then I suggest you think twice before pressing play.

So, I hope that whoever you are, and whatever it is that you love (a special person, pet, food-stuff, view, group of people, artwork etc), that you spend the day cuddled up with a comfortable...comforting...sense of the oddness of all things and the truly humanising effect of affection.

As Deborah's also posting the video, we thought it good to combine our two posts. So here's what she had to say;

I wanted to write a blog post about ukuleles, so Stephen and I spoke about what photographs we could take to accompany the post - ukuleles being very beautiful instruments. This conversation evolved into a great deal of messing about and all of a sudden (many weeks later) we had produced a music video. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm still going to publish the ukulele post, but for your information, the first ukulele is a concert uke, the second is a soprano we made ourselves in the summer of 2010 from a kit like this and the third is a tenor.

The great picture of the rock-hopper penguins is by Liam Quinn.

Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits (2011)

2011-12-14T01:27:00.000-08:00

My fingers were, indeed, crossed. After TheNational Anthem I was dreading what might come. Deliberately, I’d kept clear of thetelevision guide, for fear that once more the plot of Black Mirror would come down to a single idea; inescapable as aACME ton weight.

Within the first five minutes, my fingers unclenched andstraightened. Within the first thirtyminutes my jaw had dropped a little.

But this time there was no disgust. No horror. And certainly no anger. Black Mirror: Fifteen Million Merits was,it’s fair to say, the best piece of dystopian science fiction I have everseen. What made it so good?

Well, like The National Anthem, it had an appreciationand understanding of technology. Whereit departed from TNA, though, was its prescience. Good SF takes concepts and grows them assurely as if they were genetically modified apples in laboratory trays ofbio-gel solution. Great SF does that andinjects a metric ton of emotion. FMM didthat...with extra emoticons.

Characterisation was superb. Every figure was deftly drawn and stronglyacted. We understood motivations, dreamsand fears. We empathised. The key tragic plot points, therefore, weredevastatingly effective.

The narrative had light and shade, not to mention genuinehumour. The whole thing felt organic andtrue, especially when placed against the blindly single-minded concept of TNA. Its conclusion may not have been the one I’dhave chosen, but it certainly felt like a genuine, worthwhile tragedy –something that released emotion and stimulated thought.

In my review of TNA I suggested that it wouldn’t havebeen made if the main character had been female. I felt that her resultant rape would not havebeen broadcast. FMM disproved that tosome extent. I should perhaps now fillyou in on the general story just in case you don’t intend to watch it. But really...why wouldn’t you?

--- spoiler ---

In the world of FMM you pedal on an exercise bike to earn‘merits’ through generation of electricity. Everything you use in a day costs merits (so, for example, we see ourmain character ‘pay’ for toothpaste, lunch etc). All the time you’re bombarded with televisionon huge screens (your abode is a seamlessly covered box of screens, you pedalin front of a screen, and even the urinal has a banner screen running along athead height).

Our main character is a pedalling chappy (played by anactor I’ll always think of as Tealeaf, Daniel Kaluuya) who falls in love with agirl (Jessica Brown-Findlay)...a girl who has a heartbreakingly beautifulvoice. Something fragile and trueamongst the ‘black mirrors’ of the omnipresent screens.

The tragedy begins, however, when boy gives girl thefunds to allow her to enter the not at all veiled SF version of theX-Factor. Thrust into this particularlysoulless section of a soulless world, girl is taken under the wing of thejudges –not to become a famous singer (that’s so last season), but to join thebiggest pornography network there is.

Alone in his room, the boy is haunted by the advertswhich now feature the girl he loves become headline act for a porn channel. He no longer has the merits to skipthem. If he looks away he’s bombarded withnoise until he looks again.

So he pedals away, earning merits to allow him toconfront the judges (and, of course, the millions of viewers) and vent hisspleen, heart and assorted viscera. Their response?

“You’ve got something real. Something true. I like you kid...here’swhere I am....”

And so he’s swallowed up by the world against which heraged. And that is as satisfying atragic outcome as you could ask for.

---

So, we see that FMM did effectively show the rape of afemale character. I still argue that TNAwas a very different story and much more problematic. Although effectively raped by her society en masse,the love interest of FMM is not shown on anything other than adverts after theaudition. We are not shown herfunctioning normally after her public rape. We see her die a little on screen, and know that there’s no turning backfrom this.

The use of advertising was also particularly clever. Not being able to escape it really struck achord with Deb, who is much more affected by advertising than I. I am able to let these things flow over me,and although I may end up whistling music from the catchier examples, ingeneral I’m not aware of what’s going on (as in most things, really...). It’s as if Deb has a particularly sensitive andaware brain that’s forced to swallow all of these images. Spotify, for example, is running an advert byGarmin which takes the beautiful Carol of the Bells and turns it into ‘Give agive a give a Garmin...give a give a give a Garmin...’. Every time it starts playing, she turns acertain shade of puce and looks ready to headbutt the nearest wall.

Of course, being show on channel 4 there was anotherlevel to this entirely, as suddenly they would cut to a real advertising break. Seeingyoung kids prancing around in front of an x-box, and to be force fed themessage ‘if you love someone, buy them this’ made us shiver.

As much as I didn’t like TNA, I’d still like to praisethe use in Black Mirror of the ‘one-offdrama’ format. Indeed, Charlie Brooker wroteabout it here and it is true that the thing that this format does so well is introducingsomething fresh and different. It is, ofcourse, not the cheapest or safest means of making television. You cannot reuse sets as easily, and you cannotcreate a hook by playing around with the long-running lives of characters(often in ways that make no narrative or human sense). But that is exactly why they are worthwhile.

So yes. Of course,I still can’t bring myself to admit that my love-rival did good. Instead, I shall put all the praise firmly inthe lap of Konnie Huq, Charlie Brooker’s wife and co-writer. She honestly seems to have taken Brooker’scaustic wit and razor-sharp-satire and mounted it in a beautifully wroughthandle. The resultant safety razor hasachieved its job of stripping the numbing fluff of ignorance and apathy fromthe chin of society whilst drawing as little blood as possible. Beautiful, powerful and entirelyappropriate. I loved it.

Inside the Petri Dish

2011-12-09T15:14:00.001-08:00

"You must be warned, sweetie," she said to me, flashing a look of care, "You might get some abuse if you write it, calling you 'gay' and so on."

So, I better point out from the start that I am both male and heterosexual. I like girls, cider and automotive technology. I know the difference between a mole grip and a half blood knot. I have enough chest hair to render an ECG impossible without the aid of a safety razor. I am straight man, hear me roar.

What subject might elicit such a stream of abuse? Well, Deborah was showing me an article about the language used by so called 'Lad's mags' and how it relates to that used by sex criminals. Two universities in the UK have worked together to find out what normal people (thus ruling me out as a test candidate) think about portions of text taken from the like of FHM et al, and some taken from the mouths of rapists. The results were surprising.

It seems that people expected the more extreme examples of sexually violent and degrading language to come from sex criminals. It'd be a comforting thought, really, if the mouths uttering such sentiments were locked up behind nice thick walls with little chance of parole. But no - this language is for sale on shelves across the nation for anyone, no matter their age.

Scary, isn't it? Take a look at these I've copied from the Jezebel article Can You Tell the Difference Between a Men's Magazine and a Rapist? (FYI I was wrong three times out of sixteen)

"Filthy talk can be such a turn on for a girl . . . no one wants to be shagged by a mouse . . . A few compliments won't do any harm either . . . ‘I bet you want it from behind you dirty whore' . . ."

"Escorts . . . they know exactly how to turn a man on. I've given up on girlfriends. They don't know how to satisfy me, but escorts do."

"Girls love being tied up . . . it gives them the chance to be the helpless victim."

Can you guess which of these was the voice of a rapist? None of them. They were all what I am in no doubt would be described as 'light hearted banter'.

I vaguely remember as a kid the launch of numerous Lad's Mags. They were billed as something a bit racy, a bit naughty, something to allow men to be men. It's the same, people would say, as the Sun and Page Three Girls.

I must admit here and now that, although I am a red blooded male, I'm not keen on Page Three. I have no objection to nudity, but there's something massively depressing about some young girl with no clothes on printed on poor quality news sheet. I vividly remember walking to school with another boy on a cold and rainy winter morning. Page Three of the sun was plastered onto the dirty tarmac of the road, portions of Suzi/Traci/Melinda's face washed away, her body become a palimpsest of the sodden layers of print. Like I say - depressing.

So the magazines were never going to be targeted at me. But, then, neither is Golfer Weekly or The Complete Basket Weaver. I respect both skills, but have no interest in subscribing, if you get what I mean. If, however, they wrote about the correct way to murder a vagrant with a nine iron, or how to weave the intestines of a recently gutted child into a handsome log basket, then I would have objections. And so I remain qualified to write about this subject.

I mentioned 'light hearted banter' before. I believe that these magazines have grown up in a petri dish shared with the likes of Top Gear and too many comics to mention. It's a dish both fed and protected by a sickly coloured gel formed from the notion that 'just having a laugh' forgives anything up to and including genocide. Any bacteria grown in this dish are safe from harm. No one can attack them with a suitable detergent, because anyone who tries 'just doesn't have a sense of humour'. And what's more, the disparate groups of mould within the dish gain mutual support by sharing with each other how put upon they are. In the case of the kind of stuff mentioned above, it's often painted as an attack against masculinity. We're just being men, right? If things carry on like this, we won't be able to fart during the queen's speech and headbutt random pensioners in the street.

Of course, this is an entirely faux fear created to sell whatever they're peddling. If you're a put upon group in the playground of life, you need your mates around you to keep you safe. This wouldn't be such a huge problem if the reality-challenged publication had a small output. Conspiracy theory stuff isn't much of a threat to society's sanity when it's just a couple of fan produced publications. But when something bills itself as the magazine for all young men and has the production values to pull that off? Well, that's suddenly a massive threat. And it's not just the magazines, of course. All the other groups - the Clarksonites and lovers of 'Northern Funny Men' all live their lives with the same 'you just don't have a sense of humour' shield against any kind of moral question.

I know very few jokes. I've taken one and honed it into a thirty-seven minute masterpiece of doom. Before that I knew a few...and one day told my wonderful Mad Cow Disease joke in a medical chat room.

Two cows in a field. First cow says to the second cow 'Aren't you worried about BSE?'. Second cow says 'Why would I be? I'm a helicopter.'

I'll just give you a second.

Recovered? Well, after I delivered that joke in the chat room there was deathly silence. Then someone wrote to inform me that they'd recently had a close relative die from CJD. If only the world could have swallowed me whole...

And there it is! There is that normal human reaction! I'd not said something terrible - certainly nothing on a par with the quotes above. But I'd hurt someone with a meaningless joke and that upset me. At no point did I feel I should say 'some people just don't have a sense of humour' and bimble on with my life, occasionally scratching some bodily crevice or other. I felt remorse and empathy for someone who, at the time, I didn't know at all. But that's the great thing about being a member of the human race - you don't have to buy a magazine at over £5 a time to be a member.

It's funny, really, that I find hope for British men in a programme whose key presenter hails from the Clarksonian stable - namely James May's Man Lab. Although not perfect, this programme focuses upon teaching practicality, appreciation and, I think, just a little enthusiasm and wonder. In this last run, they encouraged teenaged rock bands to reform as adults, created an Eden of their office toilet block, and sent the ashes of two beloved family pets into the heavens via a pair of balloons. Silly it may be, but there was no troublesome language. People were treated with respect. To be a man was not to limit ones' interaction with the world to the images sold by heartless caricatures of humanity. To be a man, says James May, is to interact with music, literature and history, to value the ideas and skills of others (even if they are female) and to be creative.

Deborah shared with me this wonderful blog post which makes a very good point. If we are to like something which is problematic to other people, we have to acknowledge that problem and be willing to discuss and learn from it. If we do not, then we are twits.

Talking of which - a good example of this can be seen in the recent Ricky Gervais debacle. If a human being had said 'mong', only to be met with upset folk asking him not to, the human reaction would have been to acknowledge the upset and open a dialogue as an opportunity for mutual growth and understanding. Instead, Gervais informed those people that the meaning of the word had changed. They'd just not kept up with the real world. Society had changed and they hadn't. In other words, not only had they not got a sense of humour, they were lost to reality.

I'd argue that it is the other way around. A reality has been created in the minds of all these people. This reality is covered by the 'sense of humour shield'. They can and will say anything they like, thriving on their mutual appreciation. In reality, of course, they are confined and alone in their petri dish and have no knowledge of normal human life and its joys. It is our responsibility to live our lives well and to monitor the size of the dish. It's gotten scarily large of late and I think it's time we did more to define what it is to be male and, more importantly, what it is to be a member of the human race.

Black Mirror: The National Anthem (2011)

2011-12-05T14:27:00.001-08:00

A few weeks back, the adverts for Black Mirror caught my eye. I’m a lover of anything a little different and clever. I’m one of those irritating people who enjoy David Lynch and (to a lesser extent) Lars Von Trier and am quick to bore any too incapacitated to flee about their use of allusion, symbolism and so on. Yes, I really should be shot.

I am not, however, a fan of Charlie Brooker. This is down to pure jealousy – Deb enjoys his work and many’s the time when I’ve been talking to her about genuinely riveting subjects (like the benefits of AC over DC motors) only to realise she’s zoned out, eyes wide, pupils large, gazing into the glorious writings of her Charlie.

When asked what she particularly likes about the Brook-meister, Deb says that it is because he recognises the immensity of his subjects (television, for instance) whereas so much of what she normally reads deals with minutiae (albeit important ones). This appeals to me – so much of what I love about Greek Literature, not to mention science fiction, is the concept of meta-text. Brooker gets this. He is also able to write about his subjects with a visceral strength and bravery which is powerful to say the least.

I liked Dead Set, his Zombie meets Big Brother mini-series. He was able to take on board all the elements of reality tv and meld them beautifully with the best bits of Romero. I had problems with a few of the characters and, although there were comic elements, the entire thing felt a little flat*.

Even so, I was excited. I had no idea of the subject of the piece, but the advert looked bright and punchy and raw. Deborah and I decided to watch it. Then I read the review in the Radio Times.

Hmmm. It definitely was the first time I’ve read anything about bestiality in a TV guide before. And the shock was enough to put my back up. I couldn’t see how the narrative could possibly work, and I feared the inevitable messages and their depressing presentations. Even so, we gave it a chance.

I must point out here – I am not a prude in any way, shape or form. If I had been, I’d have not survived my degree. I’ve read and analysed literature involving paedophilia, rape, incest and more scatological references than we’re used to in our society. Bestiality isn’t exactly new to Greek myth either – Pasiphae’s story was only different because she really wanted to get jiggy with a farm yard animal. So I wasn’t upset because of the subject matter being presented. Whether I felt it was appropriate that it was being shown at 9pm is another matter, but one I won’t be going in to.

So what did I think? Frankly, I was angry.I didn’t expect to be so angry. I’m quite a calm person usually. But this really hit nerves. It was designed to hit nerves. Again, I don’t object to that – that’s the point of good narrative. Poliakoff’s Shooting the Past hit nerves and that’s one of my favourite pieces of television. Why, then, was I angry?

When you set about hitting nerves, you have a responsibility. I would classify The National Anthem as a tragedy. The Prime Minister is a tragic hero – fighting the great power of fate, blind to the conclusion we can all see coming as soon as we looked at page 62 of the Radio Times. And this is a good thing. Society needs tragedy. The drama festivals of Athens looked after the mental and spiritual health of its audience – draining them of badness through the emotional turmoil and release. A reduction in the quality of tragedy becomes part of the reason for a reduction in the status of Athens as a whole in Aristophanes’ Frogs. This means that tragedians have a huge responsibility to wield their pen responsibly.

Firstly, I have to say, I found the subject matter distasteful. This was a story about rape (not of the pig, I must clarify, although I did look at my bacon sandwich with more sympathy this afternoon, I can tell you) and I feel that because the subject of the rape was male and because he was not penetrated, the care that would otherwise have been taken, was not. If this had been a story about a female prime minister forced to commit a sex act on live television, then I don’t think it would have been filmed.

Proper tragedy follows rules. People make mistakes and pay for them. There was none of this. Although not particularly likeable, the PM character was not well developed. We were meant to fill in the back-story by viewing him as a parallel universe version of Dave. The Radio Times review even went so far as to describe the PM character as ‘reptilian’. Subtle.

Aristophanes did political satire. Some of the politicians even went so far as to sue him. His satires, though, were brave and open, very clearly pointing out the wrongs perpetrated. This was done in comedy genre, though, and although The National Anthem was described as a comedy/drama, I just could not find anything other than the thinnest dribbles of comedy. I’ve been horrified to see so many people saying how funny it was. Deb described it as an Emperor’s New Clothes deal – if you’re going to describe it as a comedy and make it shocking enough, people will see humour where it is not. And if they did see so much comedy, well, is that appropriate in a narrative about rape?

The ending, though, was what really did it. Tragedy is all about the release. It builds and then BLAM 10,000kw of pure emotion flows from every pore of your body. It should be almost audible. Then, emptied, you can be filled with comedy (the Athenian festivals were composed of three tragedies followed by a comedy). The nature of the ending, then, is vastly important. I am sure Brooker looked at the ending and wanted to try something different. The Radio Times called it a ‘logical’ conclusion – laughable though that statement is, it’s not comedy as needed in this situation. The ‘logical’ conclusion was one that dismissed the extreme damage caused by rape and replaced it with an increase in popularity and a bit of domestic disharmony. I believe if you take the story and switch genders it becomes clearer how absurd and damaging it becomes. Imagine a year on, the woman, forced to commit a sex act live on television, having a kick around at a school and waving to the media. This is where the wires of his meta-text have got crossed.

Brooker knows TV. He’ll have seen the parallels with Rebecca Loos on The Farm, not to mention all the identikit blonde reality show contestants indulging in sexual behaviour live on air. But this is where the difference between consenting behaviour and rape become so important.

A person tortured in such a way would not recover. An ‘artist’ who felt this was an appropriate act would not kill himself, thus avoiding any sort of appropriate punishment or, more importantly, investigation and understanding. The conclusion was as far as it could possibly be from logical, and so any chance of a healthy finale was lost.

It’s a shame that such a well paced and well acted piece of television should be lumbered with such a warped and sickly narrative. Going back to the Radio Times review (have you worked out yet how unimpressed I was with it?), I thought it telling that there was no mention made of the magnificent Lindsay Duncan, who outshone all the other actors and who was the only real warmth in the entire piece. I must say, however, that RT were right in one respect – The National Anthem was perhaps the first piece of on screen fiction (Catfish achieved the same thing, but was a documentary) in which technology sat absolutely comfortably with the narrative.

Will I watch the next episode of Black Mirror? Almost certainly. With my fingers very firmly crossed in the hope that all the strands of the great meta-text of television don’t inadvertently send Brooker down a problematic narrative pathway.

* Whenever I think about Brooker, I am drawn back to a particular day on the cold landscapes of Dartmoor, and a particularly sodden patch of ground which gave way; my be-wellied foot plunging into murky nothingness. Brooker’s philosophy has something of the feeling of a wet sock inside rubber footware. You know that it’s pretty miserable and it’s not going to get better any time soon.

The Oxford Greek Play 2011 - Clytemnestra

2011-11-20T15:06:00.001-08:00

On Thursday we braved the M25/40 trudge (complimented by beautifulsweeping views of late, low autumn honey-lit landscapes and at least tensquillion red kites) in order to get to the Oxford Playhouse. What had we gone to see? Well, the choice was either ‘Mother Goose’ (I’mnot sitting through a production described as an ‘eggs-travaganza’) or ‘Clytemnestra’. Thankfully, the booking staff were excellent(or should that be ‘egg-celent’?) over the phone and we were sorted with threeseats for the Oxford Greek Play.

The Oxford Greek play is performed in...well, Greek. I wish I could say that I had no need for thebig, clear subtitle screens on each side of the stage, but alas, my degree wasentirely in translation. Even withoutlanguage skills, I was really looking forward to hearing the tragedy in theoriginal language. There is somethingparticularly musical about ancient Greek which suits the long, rhythmicalspeeches so beloved of Aeschylus. Andthis ‘Clytemnestra’, despite the name, was an Aeschylus play – specifically theChoephoroi or Libation Bearers (thesecond play of the great tragic trilogy of the Oresteia).

So, a quick run-down of the plot – Agamemnon, high king ofthe Greeks, has been a busy bunny. Notonly has he killed his own daughter for a good breeze to get his ships to Troy,he’s also sacked the city (albeit after ten years siege), and has come home,slave girl in tow. His wife,Clytemnestra, however, was not impressed by this behaviour and, with her newbeau, set about planning his end. In thefirst play of the trilogy, she tangled him up in a net of fabric while he was inthe bath and set to him with a knife.

So far, so Essex.

And to make matters worse, there are more kidsinvolved. The surviving daughter,Electra, being a girl, hasn't got much sway, but she is not impressed with mummy’smurderous ways. Orestes (the son whosename graces the trilogy) had been exiled for fear he might interfere, but bythe time the Libation Bearers kicks off he’s back in town hungry for revenge. The great god Apollo had told him he must dosomething about the crime (the killing of his father, not his father’s massacreof a nation, the sacrifice of his own daughter or any of that stuff. Priorities, you know?) and by doing what he’stold, he’ll be safe from any sort of come back.

The play, then, is all about Orestes’ revenge, and this comesdown to murdering Clytemnestra’s new fella, and, eventually, killing his ownmother as well. Obviously, with such aheavy job to do, there’s a lot to talk about. And this is what Aeschylus does so well...

So, on to the play itself. Firstly, I object to the title. Call me fussy, but I love the chorus of mourning women (especially inthis cast – not a weak member) and as they not only start off the theme of theplay, but also take charge of the narrative and force the outcome (rare inancient Greek drama) it is appropriate that they influence the title. Clytemnestra is really pretty inconsequential– it’s all about a man’s worth, a man’s revenge, and a man’s eventual justice(albeit with the aid of a female goddess, but that’s another play entirely...)

My other major criticism was the lack of the line “Bring memy MAN KILLING AXE”. There has not beensuch an amazing line in drama before or since, and anyone who fails to use it also fails to appreciate the full weightof the drama. It is not just a fatalaxe. It’s a MAN KILLING AXE!

Aside from that, it was bliss. The actress who played Electra entered thestage with a fractured beauty, her voice suiting the language so well I couldhave wept. The stage design (a nod toboth the Greek and Oriental) worked perfectly, and there were balletic touches(the weaving of a ribbon simulating the pouring of a libation, for example)which complimented and raised the heavy verse.

My pain-killers had worn off by the end of the first halfand I was in a pretty bad way. The freshdose kicked in as the curtains rose for the second half. It was a rather magical moment as the lightcaught on metal. In one of the bestpieces of set design I have ever seen, they had constructed full size Doric columnsfrom multiple lengths of chain suspended between solid capital and base. Sadly, the Star Trek style door of the mainbuilding did not work (although I’d now like someone to set Medea in a hotelala The Shining), but aside from that, the rest of the stage craft, includingcostume, was great.

Oh, and not to go on about things that were wrong in myopinion, but there was this: I could seesomething I shouldn’t, and couldn’t something I should. No, it’s not the pills. You see, the ‘silent character’ is importantto all the plays of the trilogy. Agamemnon has the ‘silent’ figure of Clytemnestra (sits there for agesbefore screaming and leaping around) and the Libation Bearers has Pylades. But poor Pylades was only there in name, andas such his one line (which effectively amounts to ‘go on, kill your mum, youknow you have to’) becomes an uncomfortable aside. This was a mistake. Instead, plagued by his mothers curse, we seethe Furies assaulting him when Orestes clearly tells us ‘you lot can’t seethis, but...’. I understand why they’vedone this (you get to meet the Furies in the third play of the trilogy, andthey don’t want you to miss out on the ‘pleasure’ when you’re there just to seeplay number 2), but it somewhat misses the point of what’s so scary about thescene anyway. If, under the influence ofmy pain-killers, I’d got up and started screaming about the purple spiderseating my arm-pit hair, part of the fear the audience would felt would havecome from not seeing something that had so upset me.

Even so, this still remains the best tragedy I have everseen. Even better than the Hippolytuswhere Theseus tripped over his cloak when carrying his dead wife. Yeah, I know, I don’t have a great frame ofreference, but trust me, this was something special and I enjoyed it very much.

Finally, if I’d been the cast, I’d have set about theaudience with an axe (fatal...man-killing...it doesn’t matter which). I’ve never known so many people to laugh inappropriately,and how it didn’t put off the actors I’ll never know. It just makes me respect them all the more.

Britain in a Day: Deb in Bed

2011-11-12T16:06:00.001-08:00

As part of Britain in a Day, we shot this film today. Check out the paintbrush shot - I'm hoping for a job on Watercolour Challenge when it's relaunched.

Let the Right One In (Novel and Film) - Art and Editing

2011-10-17T07:17:00.000-07:00

Art is anythingyou can do well. Anything you can do with Quality.
- Robert M. Pirsig

You know how it is – in an awful display ofpreciousness, you are put off something which is linked in any way with a pieceof art you value greatly for fear of disappointment. It's that fear thatkeeps us away from revisiting childhood wonders in case they implode andcrumble like a tissue meeting a candle flame. This fear was part of thereason why it took me so long to get around to reading the novel which wasadapted into the best Vampire film of all time. Namely 'Let the Right OneIn'. Of course, this goes to showhow very silly I can be – surely the sire (to borrow the phrase so buffyfied inmy brain) to the amazing film couldn’t be anything other than special?

Sadly, being a man of my room (as opposed to a manof the world), my language skills are limited, so when writing about thisnovel, I feel I can't comment too much about the language. But restassured, anyone reading the English translation should be happy.

The general story, for those of you unfamiliar withbook or film, goes like this - A young boy lives a rather bleak life in whichhe is constantly bullied. He meets a pale child of his own age. The friendship which develops encourages theboy to value himself and fight back against the bullying. Of course,things are never that simple...

The Pirsig quote, although apt when looking at thestory and translation, was actually something which came to my mind when I waspondering the job of adaptation. In this case, the novel was adapted intothe screenplay by the original author, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Lindqvistseems to have a natural grasp of the best way to cut down a story to make asuccessful film narrative. I've not sat there with a stop watch checking,but I'm pretty certain the entire film falls neatly into the Syd Field plotparadigm.

Beyond this,however, Lindqvist has been able to revise his original story and polish acouple of flat points. The ending, for example. The film features alovely bit of ring structure, whereby the actions of Eli and Oskar earlier inthe film (namely communication through morse code) reoccur in the finalscene. It's a tiny thing (the setting of the scene is exactly the same asthat in the book, it's just the addition of an action) but it made for apleasing feeling of completion. And is also tremendously touching (and,for those of you familiar with morse code) a confirmation of feelings denied usby the medium of film (i.e. we can't be certain of the thoughts and feelingswhich are kept internal).

Content, whichin the novel gets a little extreme, is toned down into something moreappropriate for cinema viewing, whilst also retaining the possibility forreading between the lines. I don’t wantto spoil the biggest ‘cut’ to the novel narrative (*cough*) which was givenaway to me by the Great and Powerful Nick Lowe in his Mutant Popcorn filmreview of the American remake (which I am yet to see and of which I am,unsurprisingly, rather wary), but the editing does not spoil the narrative onebit. In some ways it was nice to readthe novel and have the screen narrative expanded. I am imagine that, had I come at it from theopposite direction, the removal of parts of the story would still have not feltintrusive, thanks to the ambiguity left on screen. Ambiguity as a narrative device should beused more often. It costs nothing otherthan a certain degree of faith in your viewers.

So, back toPirsig. Quality and art really do gohand in hand. It is the quality thatdefines the art rather than the item itself. I’d like to think that a few things I have created in my life qualify asart. But they are all constructed fromdifferent media – the words that fuel my writing, the wood I craft intoobjects, the light that I collect and form into a photograph. Lindqvist has managed to create two pieces ofartwork, separate to each other, crafted from words but becoming somethingmore. The revision of one does notlessen the other.

Disablism on Top Gear

2011-08-01T03:46:00.000-07:00

I like cars. In fact, I think it's fair to say that most people who know me have at least an inkling that there is a part of my heart devoted to all things with wheels that go brum.

I feed this love with websites, magazines (although only occasionally...have you seen how much they cost?) and television. As a non-sky subscriber, my choice of car related television is relatively small. I love the BTCC, and do watch F1, but my love of cars is not really about speed as such. I enjoy design, tech, culture and all the other little things that combine to create the deified concept of 'car' in my heart. Television programmes dealing with cars outside of motorsport are even fewer, though. In fact, it's fair to say there are only two - Fifth Gear and Top Gear.

Fifth Gear tried to become Top Gear minus the clever photography. That put me off and I stopped watching ('though I must say, things have improved from what I saw recently). Top Gear has always been less about 'cars' than I'd like. But this has got worse over the years, and increasingly they have courted controversy to gain ratings and the kind of rep sort by 13 year olds in a 'not as rough as they think it is' secondary school.

For my sins, I have drawn Deborah into this world of idiocy and she has borne it with grace and perseverance. She has even done her best not to roll her eyes and throw things at the television.

But last night things changed.

This series I've been increasingly fighting the draw to watch the programme but this has been made difficult. They featured the Eagle Speedster and re-engineered Jensen Interceptor (two of my favourite vehicles of all time) forcing me to watch at least two episodes. Last night featured a test of two electric vehicles (Nissan Leaf and Peugeot iOn). I am also a fan of these vehicles, but knew already the report would be flawed. It was. I'm tempted to list the flaws, but honestly my correct information will not change the damage done by Clarkson. He claims that no one pays attention to him because of his bufoonish ways. Rubbish. People take his word for gospel. I've already seen people quoting five year battery life etc. Damage is done and I can't change a thing.

But this is damage that can be defended by the huge car companies who supplied them the vehicles. It can be defended by the large number of people who actually drive electric. Indeed, there are already a lot of messages on twitter and the internet in general explaining how an attack on the electric car was shrouded by faux impartiality.

In comparison to this, however, I've only seen a couple of references to their use of two disabled parking bays in said piece about electric vehicles. Picture me lying down on the sofa, my feet in Deb's lap. I was quietly grumbling about the inaccuracies of their maths etc. And then boom. Jaws hit the carpet. They didn't? They did! How? Why??

Four disabled parking bays, prominently displaying the markings. I don't know if it's just my imagination (I can't check the programme at the moment as I'm away from a stable broadband connection) but I can even remember the angle of the shot emphasising the wheelchair logo.

Obviously this was a potentially illegal act. But even if this is the case, it's never 'just' that. It's an attack upon the vulnerable. And that's something which more and more has been a staple of their 'humour' (which the BBC has been so quick to defend).

In trying to get Deb to watch the programme, I explained that Top Gear, though insulting of many people, was actually quite pro disability. They'd featured a blind chap driving the reasonably priced car around the track. They'd talked to a disabled driver at the Nurburgring. I'm not sure I can think of any other examples...but you know, that's not bad, right?

But no. Not only do they use the disabled parking bays, in summing up with 'electric cars don't work', the camera tracks across to the mobility scooter driving along beside them.

Deborah recently wrote about the challenges of using mobility scooters whilst holding hands. In it she wrote that around here we have very little negative attention. After writing this, we had a 'humourous' comment or two aimed at us by a man with all the brains and charm of...well...Jeremy Clarkson. And this shot of the cars and the scooter was much the same thing. It was a snigger. These things just don't work. Rolling their eyes. And I'm sick of it.

After the segment finished, we turned off the television. Over the years I have watched every episode of the 'new' format Top Gear. I will not watch another episode ever again.

So this morning I decided to write this blog post. Deborah's writing one of her own at the same time. But when I went online to see what the response had been, what did I find had been the final segment of the programme?

BRAVE CRIPPLES!!!

Yes folks, they were featuring proper cripples. War heroes. Men who laugh in the face of access. And these heroes were going to undertake the Dakar Rally.

If you think I'm being silly here...that maybe this story offsets the harm done with their snide anti-disability messages in the electric car piece...then take a look at this message lifted from a random forum;

"The nature of their injuries is horrific and if you missed the programme tonight then make a point of watching a repeat of these astonishing, heroic men overcoming injuries that would render lesser men hopeless cripples."

The message of pathetic cripple vs heroic cripple has been solidified. If you're not attempting the Dakar Rally having been physically disabled in defence of your country, then you're a hopeless cripple. A parking bay is really just enabling decrepitude. If you want to access M&S to buy a new set of undies, try travelling across Argentina and Chile first, eh? Just as the misinformation about electric cars has been spread far and wide, so the misinformation about what it is to be a 'good' cripple has spread. And we don't have a huge car company to defend us.

Rocking Rockbox!

2011-07-06T13:45:00.000-07:00

When I make a mistake, I become one of the most irritating people on the planet. I will spend hours trying to sort it out, and only if I succeed will the black cloud of my upset lift. Until that point, I am lost in gloom, self hatred and other forms of silliness. It is far from attractive and I try my best not to fall into these holes. If anything, I should view these mistakes as a chance to demonstrate my genius.

Deborah decided she wanted an MP3 player. She has a huge (and, at times, somewhat dubious) library of music on iTunes. Not being a fan of the apple, I don't know a great deal about this exotic piece of software, but I was aware that files are sometimes encoded as AAC files rather than good old fashioned MP3. So I kept this in mind when Deb asked me to look at players for her. A long time ago I read about the original Sansa Clip and had fancied one myself. Cheaper than an iPod Shuffle and with twice the storage capacity, I thought this would be the perfect player for everything from Guns n Roses to Evanescence (see what I mean?*).

I did think about AAC files, but I must have phrased the internet search incorrectly, as I ended up convinced it would work happily with iTunes. Indeed, it does. But if you want it to be able to actually play the files once they're uploaded, then you're out of luck. Yep...no AAC support.

I was, it is fair to say, rather annoyed with myself. On the plus side, I didn't sink into despair (helped by the amazingly cheap price of the player) and looked around for sollutions. It was then that I remembered Rockbox.

I don't know how I would have heard about it in the past, but Rockbox is a custom built OS for quite a range of MP3 players including, thank goodness, the Sansa Clip+. Along with a host of benefits (it even comes with tiny version of Pong preloaded!) it will play AAC files. I could have wept with joy.

The process wasn't quite as straight forward as I'd hoped. The automatic installation didn't work, and I ended up having to dive into the command prompt to install it manually. So a little time later we had a brand new, blue Sansa Clip+, which had been deified. becoming an awesomely cool god amongst MP3 players. It plays the AAC files perfectly, sound is superb, and thanks to the open source software, it is geekily wonderful in a way we both find ever so pleasing.

So get your geek on - buy a Sansa Clip+ and rock it up with Rockbox!

* To be fair, these are the low points, and her general music taste is stellar.

Podcast - Terry Pratchett: Choosing to Die review

2011-06-17T04:29:00.000-07:00

Link to the MP3 for download

For the transcript, click here to visit Deborah's blog, Diary of a Goldfish

Painting the town...

2011-05-27T04:28:00.000-07:00

The day had gone well. Despite leaving late, assertive use of the accelerator and a relatively clear run meant that I was at the dentist in good time. The anaesthetic was administered with such care that not the slightest pain was felt. It may not have reached the depth of the tooth, meaning that I was very aware of the second pin-hole being drilled, my high pain tolerance meant this was not an issue. The job was a neat one and fixed a tooth that's been broken for nearly a month now.

But later that day, I crashed. I had been asleep, feeling as if the drugs had filtered deep into my brain. I dimly cursed myself, wishing I'd requested he not use an anaesthetic at all. And then the pain began to creep.

I knew something was wrong when I was no longer concerned with my face and head. The burning, stabbing, tearing sensation just below my rib cage started slowly...a tidal flood. And soon I was under water and drowning.

I vaguely remember vomiting, not from any need to remove something from my stomach - I'd not eaten for ten hours - but in reaction to the fire. I believe I lost consciousness for a few seconds only, curled up on the bathroom floor. The ambulance arrived in what felt like either seconds or hours.

All I remember after that was the journey and cursing whoever thought to invent speed bumps. If ever I am judged harshly, Hell will be that journey...forever.

And then we were there. "Mind your elbows, or else we'll have to take you to orthopaedics...and by this time of the day they'll all be drunk" he said as he wheeled the trolley through the narrow ambulance doors.

And we were there. The familiar brick and blue plastic structure. I went to school less than 200m away from the automatic doors they wheeled me through.

A nurse with a familiar face took my blood pressure. In the ambulance it had been way over normal. Lying still and focusing on my breathing, placing my mind away from the pain (which had began to ease) I managed to get it down below my normal rate. Power of positive thinking.

A black doctor with exquisite bone structure went to wheel me through and then remembered the wrist band. It had apparently been a long shift and he had a new child at home. I smiled at the richness of life around me as the clip snapped shut.

"Would you take off your shirt please? We need to do an ECG" she said. One look at me, and she left to retrieve a blue safety razor.

Patterns were shaved out of my chest hair. She apologised for the harsh blade which I did not feel. The cold sticky tabs were placed over my body.

It was 11am the following day that I remembered to take the remaining ones off my legs.

The pain faded slowly. By 9pm I was desperate to be home. It had been three hours, my blood tests had returned back normal. My sugar levels were "...better than mine!" said the black doctor, checking the luminous green watch on his tunic.

It took an hour for the other doctor to discharge me. A cannula was still in place in my arm. A nurse approached, saying she'd just 'whip that off'. I feebly offered the suggestion that 'whip it off' wasn't a phrase to inspire confidence. She smiled back and said she'd remove it lovingly and with great tenderness.

To be fair, she did, and there is minimal bruising from the needle. And you can see this clearly thanks to the complete lack of arm hair.

It was an interesting evening, but not one I plan to repeat any time soon.

Vlog - Classics - a summary in seven books

2011-05-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've not been around much on my blog and on flickr of late, and as the reasons for this have been quite important, I wanted to let you all in on what I've been up to. So here we are - my first Vlog. Scary, no?

P.S. I know. As thumbnails go...well, I wish I could say it's not typical. But most of the time I look that stunned, shocked and bewildered.

Podcast - Catfish Review

2011-05-24T03:33:00.000-07:00

Cross posted at Diary of a Goldfish

Link to the MP3 for download

Full Transcript:

D: Hello. We've decided to do an audio-review
of the film, Catfish, in order to test out Stephen's new microphone.
The film Catfish is one where there's no way to review it without
major spoilers, so if you want to watch the film and enjoy it in its
completeness, you need to stop listening now.

S: Quite right. And thank you very much for the microphone. It's very
beautiful, thank you.

D: You're welcome. Would you like to tell the listeners – I was about
to say “viewers” - would you like to tell the listeners what the film
is about?

S: I don't think the microphone is that good.

D: No.

S: The film is about – it's a documentary following a photographer,
who has an office in New York, who strikes up an on-line friendship
with “Abby” who is a seven year old girl from an American state
beginning with M.

D: Michigan.

S: Michigan. I keep on forgetting this. We've had a trial run and I
came up with Massachusetts and

D: Demure

S: Des Moines. Even I know that there isn't an American state called “Demure”

D: There isn't an American state called “Des Moines”.

S: Is there not? Is that a city?

D: I don't know but I know there aren't any

S: I so want to Google it and I can't really do an “Excuse me a minute
while I get out my phone”

Right so, Michigan.

D: It was Michigan.

S: Michigan. And he was in New York and apparently there is quite a
large space between those two places.

D: Cause it's in America.

S: Cause it's in America and America is big.

D: It's all spaced out.

S: Is it? News to me. Okay. So they strike up a friendship via
Facebook. She paints his photos that are published in various
magazines.

D: Makes paintings from his photos.

S: Yep, paintings of his photos. And he then becomes friendly with
her mother Angela and her sister Megan and in fact the relationship
with Megan becomes very romantically-inclined.

D: Yes, I think he thinks he's in love with her.

S: Yeah. And the thing is filmed by his two friends who both use his
office space. But the documentary starts out as really looking at his
relationship with this family. They call it the Facebook family
because he “friends” them all on Facebook. And we see all of these
lives meshed together. A brother who worries about how he's treating
Megan. And it's quite in depth and detailed. But the action takes a
bit of a tumble when he realises that a song that Megan claims to have
produced within about twenty minutes or something - he requests a song

D: Yeah, he requests a cover of a song and suddenly

S: Tennessee Stud, I believe it was.

D: Yes it was.

S: Yeah, see I can remember that. And Tennessee is somewhere in America.

D: And uh, yeah. No it wasn't, it's the name of a playright, Tennessee Williams.

S: Oh I see.

D: I think perhaps they named a place after Tennessee Williams.

S: It makes sense.

D: It's a bit like Denver and John Denver.

S: And Denzel Washington.

D: Yeah, I don't know, I think perhaps Washington was there before
Denzel Washington.

S: Okay. So, this song. He receives this song as an MP3 or whatever.
And I can't remember why but they go looking for other versions and
they actually find the song on Youtube.

D: I think it was a different song. They were getting lots of songs
and it was a different song that they searched for but they realised
that the recording sounded exactly the same as a cover on Youtube.

S: So they'd recorded the audio stream from Youtube and then sent it
on to him. So initially he thinks, “Oh no, this love of my life is a
plagiarist.” But the story unravels more and he ends up with his
friends – because they're relatively near to where these people live –
going and dropping in on them and so the secret unravels.

Now we were, prior to this point, or certainly you were convinced that
this was a “Mockumentary”.

D: Not a Mockumentary! I thought it was a “Blair Witch” style fake

S: A spooky unsettling horror type thing.

D: Or “Spinal Tap”. I thought it was a drama pretending to be a
documentary. And it is beautifully done.

S: Yes it is beautifully done. The filming, some of the scenes

D: The use of technology, the use of Google Earth when they're moving about

S: And Street View to kind of focus in on these places

D: Really nice use of tech, which is still quite rare in films, to use
on-line technology that looks like the on-line technology that we all
use. But it just, it is real. It really was real. I think we
realise this, without a doubt, when we finally meet the character of
Angela.

S: Or the person who is really Angela.

D: The person is really Angela, who doesn't look anything like the
photographs we've seen. And turns out to be responsible for all these
identities.

S: Twelve separate accounts on Facebook.

D: Which include the daughter. She does have a daughter, but the
daughter doesn't resemble – well she physically resembles but she
isn't a painter, she isn't this bright spark that has been having this
e-mail correspondence with the photographer. And the older daughter,
who the photographer believes himself in love with, as well as a
brother, some cousins, some friends. And she's fabricated the whole
thing. And we were talking about the way that that's changed. You
know, having been on-line since the late 90s, I think we feel a lot
safer with the people we meet on-line now because we are so
interconnected.

S: Yeah, the evolution of social media has created a smaller degree of
separation. Just the other day on Twitter, someone I follow who is
involved in electric vehicles ended up retweeting from someone I am
aware of through disability activism so the reality of both people
becomes more solid as they're both linked together.

D: And the people, certainly the people I know. I mean, I don't use
Facebook but the people I know through blogging and Twitter and all of
that, there are sort of strange connections between people. But you're
not having to appraise one person who could be fooling you, if they're
fooling you, they're fooling a lot of people. Because they're
interconnected. But of course this woman had created an entire
network of people, all of which were backing up this narrative. I
mean, she was a frustrated novelist really, she didn't know that
that's what she should have been doing with her time. But she was
managing twelve Facebook accounts and presumably Twitter accounts and
things, as well as having two mobile phones so she could pick up the
phone as herself and she could pick up the phone as her imaginary
daughter. And the whole thing, all these characters and interactions
and everything they were doing amongst themselves were an entire
fabrication.

S: And she had been the person producing these paintings. Really out
of a love for this

D: She was very much in love with the photographer.

S: He was – I think with his interest in dance, which she shared and

D: They did have a lot in common.

S: They did have a lot in common and they seemed to get on very well.

D: Except for the fact that she had obviously deceived him in a
terrific way. She'd made him fall in love with someone who didn't
exist. And she was terrifically in love with him.

S: Whilst being a married housewife. But we begin to understand her
situation as we begin to her house in – what I would say was a very
isolated community?

D: It's difficult to judge.

S: It's difficult to judge, but. And looking after, it would appear
looking after full time, two young men who were both physically and
mentally disabled. And she seemed to have a very empty life? Is that
fair?

D: I think she had a very frustrated life. She obviously had a lot of
time on her hands. And I think, compared to the life of a photographer
working in New York, going to all kinds of Arts things, I think she
felt very frustrated. She didn't have the access to that kind of art.
She had a very frustrating life.

S: And this had driven her to trying to create something better,
something richer. Which I think is a symptom of society that reduces a
degree of social care which is necessary. People need the connections
she was creating. People need rich lives.

D: She was one of these characters that you do know – I think, when
she appeared, you knew straight away that there was no doubt that this
was a genuine documentary because she was not a character you normally
get in films. She was a compulsive liar really, but she wasn't a
crafty criminal mastermind type. She sort of – she was a very
sympathetic character, you felt quite sorry for her even though you
could tell that she was

S: And even the break down of her life on film was heart-breaking.

D: It was.

S: Because she's confronted very gently. They did do very well. They
weren't angry with her.

D: I think they were a bit angry but they were keeping it under control.

S: They weren't vindictive, sorry.

D: No, they weren't malicious or... They could have humiliated her or
just bamboozled her with what she'd done.

S: Yeah. But the truth is relatively gently brought to light. And
she's given the opportunity to almost come clean. She doesn't quite
get there, she does produce quite a few more lies.

D: One of the things that really shoke – was very familiar was um...
She had very long hair which she was very proud of. And she'd sent
them a photograph that was supposed to be her and the only similarity
between that and her was that the woman in the photograph had very
long hair. She was complimented on this and she said, “Well, I won't
have it for long because I'm on chemotherapy.” Which really kind of
struck a chord because, of all the sort of stories that you hear of
romances that turn out to be other than they are, on-line, cancer does
seem to be a recurring theme.

S: And it also does stop any further conversation because it is the
topic to end all topics.

D: Yeah. In the late 90s, the very first one I came across was a
friend, a sort-of friend who had this girlfriend who was supposedly in
hospital dying of cancer, although she had internet access, which
seems unlikely given the time. And she had a PO Box address which
seemed a bit suspect. And it seemed unbelievable then to everybody.
Most of us hadn't been on-line very long and we just couldn't see how
someone could get sucked in like that. But the guy felt himself in
love.

And then a couple of years later there was another friend who was
exactly the same – well not exactly the same thing happened. But again
there was this guy who had seemed to have had a very tragic life and
then he had cancer and there wasn't much time and so the whole
relationship was very intense. And of course people do have cancer
and people do have very intense relationships at the end of their
lives but it does sort of, it is a bit too familiar, isn't it?

S: So this was the film. It was quite shocking. We were both – we
chose it because it would be – we had a choice between this and Titus
Andronicus and I think we went with the lighter option.

D: I still think it was probably the lighter option than Titus Andronicus.

S: Well you say that. Yeah perhaps okay. But we were both quite shocked.

D: Could we do like a Facebook version of Titus Andronicus?

S: Um, well Livinia does have her hands cut off which would limit her
options for, anyway. So we were both quite shocked by the end of the
film and as well as wanting to test the microphone, we wanted to talk
a bit about it because it moved us.

D: Yes, it was very moving. And we talked about, I mean we've both
been on-line since our... I don't know, how old were you?

S: I was a teenager still.

D: Well, I was a teenager still. I was going to say late teens and I
thought perhaps it was your mid teens.

S: It may have well been mid-teens.

D: When you were young and naïve.

S: And I was called “The Very Cowardly Lion”.

D: That's really – the very cowardly lion?

S: The very cowardly lion. I know, it's really sad isn't it? But anyway.

D: [pause] Yes. Um.

S: That's a bit of a stopper, isn't it? Sorry.

D: That's a bit of a stopper.

S: I wasn't. I was just called Stephen. That was what my username was,
it wasn't the Very Cowardly Lion. And I didn't go onto very early
chatrooms and not say much apart from “Hello, I'm the Very Cowardly
Lion.”

D: Yeah. I can't remember an awful lot of my old usernames and things.

S: That's probably for the best, I now feel very embarrassed. In fact
I may cut this bit.

D: I don't think you should. Because people will want to Google it to
see if there's any evidence of you.

S: I bet there isn't. That was in the days of Netscape.

D: Wow. So were you ever tempted to be someone you weren't?

S: Well I almost signed up for Second Life, after a friend of mine
joined. But I think there's a desire often with, especially people
who are ill and could be – aren't very satisfied with there lives, to
try and create a new, more fulfilling existence. And the internet's a
wonderful tool for this, because you don't have to show you're
physical form. You can build a physical form that works with your
idea of what you want to be.

D: Amanda Baggs, who blogs at Ballastexistenz. She is non-verbal
autistic and she is a wheelchair-user and she's talked about using
(bless you) using Second Life and that experience being completely
different, because she is non-verbal, to be able to talk and interact
and not be a wheelchair-user and her whole experience of life is
completely different.

S: And it allows an extra dimension to life.

D: I don't think that is on any level pretending to be other than you
are. I mean, Second Life, it is to do with a version of yourself, I
don't think it's even an idealised version of yourself.

S: It depends on the person.

D: Yeah. It's a bit like in the Matrix when he incorrectly says, I
think he says, “It's a mental picture of your digital self” when he
really means – it's one of those many points in the Matrix when he
gets his words wrong.

S: I did have a Yahoo chat account with several different identities.
And I used them for times when I didn't want to be contacted.

D: I think organised crime is another issue altogether.

S: Yeah, back in the days of the Yahoo Mob, yeah. No, that was when I
wanted to. When I was unable to socialise and yet wanted to be around
some form of people.

D: Like in a petri dish.

S: Yeah, when I used to experiment on these poor tormented internet
souls. I used to a put on a disguise to just sit quietly. But I
didn't use that to become someone else. I just had one that was a
Latin term and one that was actually a couple of words from a
Portishead lyric, both of whom allowed me to sit quietly in a room and
not be bothered.

D: Was that “Machine Gun”?
S: Um, no. It was “slave to sensation”. Which, if you've ever been to
Yahoo chat, makes you sound like, um...

D: I think we know what that makes you sound like.

S: And so you never ever get bothered, which is wonderful.

D: I'm quite surprised you don't get bothered. I'm quite surprised
people weren't interested in what particular sensations you were slave
to.

S: Anyway, that was a long time ago. And uh, sorry, I have forgotten
where I was.

D: I've pretended to be a man on-line.

S: Have you?

D: Yes, I put on a deep voice like this. [convincing masculine voice]
Hello. Hello darling. [resumes feminine voice] That's my

S: It's very convincing! I can almost hear the chest hair.

D: But I've not actually

S: Just a warning to anyone who hasn't watched the film and yet is
still listening to this, in which case shame on you. You do see an
awful lot of chest hair. He has, he has got an awful lot and you
know, in this society where chest hair is banished from the front of
magazines, it is quite shocking.

D: Okay. I have pretended to be a man on-line but not actually, to be
honest I didn't really try hard. I just let people refer to me in the
masculine and call me mister and so on, and not challenge them.
Especially when I was younger, I think I very much felt that people –
especially on political matters – I felt people took me more seriously
if they thought I was a man. I wouldn't do that now.

S: I'm glad.

D: Because I think the sort – I mean it's an implicit bias, so it's
not actually people who are horrendously sexist, but at the same time
I think it's better that I might be taken a little less seriously but
that people see that my point of view is that of a woman.

S: Yes.

D: A lady. I think it's particularly interesting for people who

S: have some sort of internet existence.

D: Yeah and also know people who are – I have know people who are – I
mean we've obviously both been isolated at different times. But
people who are isolated who turn to online communities to resolve
isolation and there's nothing unhealthy about that in itself. But I
think it sort of demonstrates where it can go.

S: The power of honesty. The importance of honesty. And the
inevitability of lies.

D: Because you meet people and you don't believe who they are. I mean
you meet people in real life and you don't buy, you know, there are
lots of people who are full of...

S: Yeah.

D: We need a word that isn't a swearword to describe...

S: I do have that Bleep App on my phone. But I'd have to go and get my phone.

D: Yeah. Okay, how about you go “Beep” and I say it? There are people
who are full of b....

S: [silence]

D: You've got to beep! There are people who are full of b...

S: I think you're all very glad I didn't beep, aren't you? Because
that was far more funny as it was. I think they get the point.

D: There are people who are full of [beep]. Can we beep that afterwards?

S: There are indeed. There are people who lie, and we do have to be
careful. But we also have to be caring because often people lie for a
reason, a reason that is... well no, often don't, some of them are
just idiots.

D: But lots of people do tell lies for a reason. Unfortunately
though, they do tend to carry on lying, in experience. I think this is
the thing. I think they get found out and, because it's a defence
mechanism and as such it is very difficult to help people who tell
lots of fibs.

S: So I think that's just about it.

D: Yes, I think it is.

S: So thank you for listening.

D: Yes, thank you. I hope we haven't wasted too much of your day.

S: And if we have, tough luck.

D: Yeah, you should have spent it on Facebook. [phone noise] Oops! Sorry.

S: And with that beep of modern technology, we bid you Adieu.

D: Goodbye.

Oh Boris, where art thou?

2011-05-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

AKA Why I deserve a free Tesla Roadster

BADD 2011

I must warn you all, I am going to get a little car geeky during this post. Sadly there is no Blogging Against Boring Nerds day, so I will accept your yawns as best I can...but I have a point. And it starts with Mayor Boris Johnson.

Earlier in the year (13th of February to be exact), Mayor Johnson wrote a post entitled 'The blue badge of the disabled fails those who need it most'. Not the most catchy of titles, true. I must admit here and now that I am more than just a Boris fan. He is my secret love child. It happened on a quiet day in 1996 - a brief tryst between myself and a peroxide over-dosed Gena Davis. I've done my best to leave behind those heady, hormone addled days (I was only 14 after all), but through a series of events so simple and straightforward I cannot even begin to explain them, Boris overtook his father's age and became Mayor of London. I was very proud.

Proof, you ask? Well just look at this

[Image showing the rather lovely Gena Davis sporting blonde locks and a semi-automatic, myself with wayward locks and a look of extreme fatigue, and the Great Boris in all his glory]

Pretty conclusive, I think you'll agree. But more than the physical similarity, we both share a love of the classics. In almost every article he writes, he manages to bring in the wisdom of the Greeks. But not on the 13th February 2011. This was his first mistake.

Sadly the dear old fruit of my teenage loins made other, more serious errors. The piece is riddled with poorly constructed thought process. At one point he says;

There is talk of new independent medical tests, after auditors revealed a few years ago that about 16,000 blue-badge holders were shamelessly using the entitlements of dead relatives.

Independent medical tests? To do what? Confirm that the people using the badges aren't dead? The criminal act of abusing the system by using the badges of the deceased is transformed into an act of fraud by the claimant themselves (you know, the dead ones. Workshy corpses...when the zombie plague comes they won't have things so cushie...).

The ability to park on a single or double yellow line with the badge will, we are told, cause London to seize to a standstill. I think it's important here to note that it's only legal to do this if parking does not cause an obstruction. It says so in the rules. Honestly. I read them and everything. So how will London seize to a halt if people are parking on double yellow lines whilst not causing an obstruction?

What's more - why should there be a need to park on a double yellow line? Does this mean that there's a lack of legal parking? Well, it would seem so. I have travelled to London once whilst being ill, and because I wouldn't have coped with the act of trying to find roadside parking and then the journey through the crowded streets, we parked in a privately managed carpark. And it cost a flipping fortune. Blue badge didn't lower the cost at all. But what it did make sure that there was plenty of space around the car so that a wheelchair could be removed easily.

Then we get to the idea that there are only a very small number of 'genuinely severely disabled people who drive cars'. Oh where to start?

Genuinely severely disabled? What an horrific phrase. I say some stupid things some times, but if I were Frank Gardner, whom Boris is quoting, I'd be looking for a distant ski-lodge in which to hide my shame.

OK so ignoring the horrible phrasing and the horrible idea behind it - the blue badge can be used by a 'genuinely severely disabled person' WHO DOESN'T DRIVE! They could get a taxi to take them somewhere and get the driver to pop it in the window while they went to, say, visit the doctor. Or they could be driven by a partner. Or a friend. Or a family member. Just because no one wants to share a ride with Mr Gardner* does not mean that the only people who deserve the ability to park in an appropriate parking space are those who are driving themselves.

I think they're probably right, though. Not about severely disabled drivers, but a new system would help that catagorises disabled badge holders in such a way that appropriate parking is available for all, whether they are able to move on two legs for a limited distance or on wheels. This way all people are valued and looked after. And there are no loopholes in my thought or writing that can be exploited by ignorant, hateful monsters as has happened on the telegraph website. Just look at the comments. Honestly, I felt I had to report one that went on about Muslim doctors getting people onto benefits without any real health issues. There's still plenty to get angry about, including some that, if it were followed through, might see me assaulted or murdered, but I'll leave that for you to read.

That's why days like today are so important. Why we all need to be aware of disablist attitudes and guard against them and be careful in the things we say. Clearly Boris was having an off day and will make up for it by encouraging the building of plenty of well laid out and cheap to access carparks in London, as well as setting out a new and clear blue badge system giving the right help to all. He will decry the criminal acts of people using blue badges illegally, and make people see that when someone with a heart condition or MS or some other invisible disability uses a space, it should make the world proud that we're looking after our citizens, rather that inciting violence.

So where does the Tesla come in? Well, it occurred to me that as well as reforming the blue badge system, the government could make another change.

For those of you who actually have a life, the Tesla Roadster is an electric sportscar based on the Lotus Elise and converted in California to run on battery power. It can be charged on a normal power supply and will do 0-60 in 3.7 seconds. It maxes out at 125mph and has a range on a single charge of 245 miles.

It also costs £100k+ but don't worry about that, because the government should buy each and every member of the crippled masses one. And here's why;

1 - It's green. Heaven knows we consume a lot of resources being disabled. I mean, we've all been told recently that disability benefit fraud is why we can't afford, well, pretty much anything any more, right? So do we really want such a wasteful lot consuming any more of the precious go-juice that's left hidden in the crevices of this planet we call earth? No we don't! I say leave the petroleum products to the deserving abled. We'll make do with electric motors.

2 - We need the speed. Until Boris gets the parking situation sorted, we'll be left trawling the carparks and streets looking for spaces. And Boris even admits, in this world where fraud is everywhere;

At last, you see a haven, a blue-badge zone, and you start to make towards it; and just as you are about to indicate to begin the parking manoeuvre, a car shoots past you — blue badge in the window — and then, with all the insolent grace of a Las Vegas valet parker, the driver reverses into your spot and bounds out, whistling, remote-locking with a backwards squirt of electrons, and leaving you to get on with your search.

Aha! But this is where the Tesla comes into its own. 0-60mph in 3.7 seconds? Do you think anyone will ever pinch a parking space from us ever again?? No chance!

3 - It's only a two seater. As we've seen, it's hard enough for dear old Frank to get anyone to sit in the car with him. And we know that even the merest mention of disabled sex is enough to make even the most hard-working normal go all sickly and wan. So if you give us a two seater car, you need never worry about disabled procreation ever again! We simply won't be able to fit a baby in the car with us! Plus, with a car this beautiful, what need is there for the physical act of love?

4 - It's tech we're used to. I already own an American EV. It was produced by Pride. It is taxed and insured. And at the flip of a switch it goes from road speed down to a maximum limited 4mph. This makes it legal to use on the pavement and even in shops.

Now I must admit that the Tesla is a little lacking in boot space. If you've ever tried to get a wheelchair into the boot of a Lotus Elise (and who hasn't?) you'll know it's not a straight forward matter, and this applies still to the Tesla upon which it's based. But never fear! If Tesla will just put a little button on the dash (you know the kind of thing - turtle on one side, cheetah on the other), we'll be able to limit it to 4mph and go around M&S without ever getting out!

5 - We need to boost our street cred. It's been a tough year for the Disability PR people. In the popularity rankings we are somewhere between Bubonic Plague and Nick Clegg. We are the workshy. The fraudsters. We waste the money of the deserving and even dare to have a feeling of entitlement (fancy feeling entitled to a national insurance which covers every British citizen? We're just a bit inadequate like that). And I for one am fed up of it. I was never particularly popular, but this is silly! The disabled are a diverse bunch of people full of interest and spark and wonder, just like any bunch of people. But we've been painted in a way that makes us pathetic jobs to be pitied, or schemers who should be beaten and discarded.

The only way I can see to improve my street cred after all that rubbish is if David Cameron puts his hand in his pocket and buys me a Tesla Roadster Sport. I'll take mine in green.

*I have never met Frank Gardner. As a war hero and extreme sportie type, I am sure there are all manner of people queueing up to drive him places just to share in the glow of his amazingness. I'm simply being silly for comedic effect. Which is better for everyone than getting genuinely angry at a divisive and damaging statement. Possibly.

BADD 2011

2011-04-18T01:53:00.000-07:00

Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011 will be happening on Sunday 1st May. Don't miss it! I will be writing about a subject very close to my heart...

For more about this fantastic blogging festival, see;

http://tinyurl.com/BADD2011

'F' (2010)

2011-03-13T01:09:00.000-08:00

Exams approach apace. I've got my dates, so in only a couple of months I will be sat in a room lost in an equal mix of terror and concentration. I am a little behind - there is a seminar, which officially ends today, in which I have not yet contributed. So why am I writing here? What could possibly be so important that I take time away from study?

Well, yesterday, as I was resting, I watched a film. And I think it ranks as the worst film I have ever seen because it was both the least well constructed and potentially the most damaging. And so I wanted to warn the world.

Firstly, I must admit that I quite like 'bad' fiction. I've watched Neighbours for a very long time. I like soap opera narrative. In some ways it is the most life-like narrative in its sheer daftness. There's lots of scope for people to be silly, cowardly and to procrastinate about subjects they should just get on and deal with. So very much like our daily lives.

I also like horror. I believe that Zombie films (especially the work of George A Romero) are a very useful and uplifting thing to watch. Indeed, on the evening after my grandmother's funeral I chose to watch Dawn of the Dead (1978). In the Zombie world things are broken down a bit - responsibilities are quite clear. And what's more, Romero zombies are relatively benign - it is always human frailty, greed and selfishness which leads to destruction.

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) is a great film. It was partly inspired by Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968), but it's definitely not a zombie film. The forces bearing down on the beleaguered police station are anything but benign. It takes a concerted effort to fight off the violent Street Thunder gang members. But at the same time, they have to keep a unified front in their defending group of police officials and previously incarcerated criminals. The silenced weapons used by the Street Thunder gang and the blood oath they've sworn in vengeance, not to mention the creepy way they're shot moving outside the station, gives a slightly supernatural feeling. It is unsettling, exciting and, like Zombie films, to me at least, very uplifting.

So yesterday, in part because it uses a similar premise to AoP13, I watched the British film 'F' (2010).

The basic idea is that a teacher, traumatised by a brief but violent assault by a child, then has to deal with a mass assault of faceless 'hoodies' on a school whilst trying to keep his wayward daughter safe.

Part of me was wary - school violence is a tricky subject, especially in the UK where there have been far fewer acts of extreme violence than, say, the US. My father was an OFSTED inspector and worked in some problem schools, so I know a lot about the issue of student assaults on teachers. He would get injury lists with some of the rougher schools. So I remember distinctly reading about teachers being kneecapped etc.

But here's my first issue with the film - reasons and consequences. It is true that in life not everything that happens has an easily definable reason. People are assaulted in the street for no reason. It happens a lot around here.

They are *always* carried out by one or two people off their heads on something. They are always done to a single person on their own or a couple (hetero/homosexual). And there still is a reason to this - the reason being that the attacker is a bit of a psycho-loser.

In 'F' we see only two bits of violence with any kind of reason to them - one is the original assault on the teacher, triggered by an 'F' grade and accompanying sarcastic comment. In doing this, the teacher breaches official policy. This is made into a PC Health and Safety style rant. Why can't the teacher give an 'F'? And why can't he say these things? Well, these are very important questions - but they're not really addressed. All we see is a grumpy old man getting a head-but.

The other act of reasoned violence is the slapping of the wayward daughter by her alcoholic, teacher father. This is reasoned away as being appropriate because she was mouthing off in a disrespectful manner. More (much much much more) on this later.

The rest of the violence is reasonless. One review I read of this film (in the Guardian, no less) said that the gang assault on the school was led by the child who assaulted the teacher at the beginning of the film. This is never ever shown. We never see the faces of the 'hoodies'. They are deliberately blacked out. No one says anything. No 'this'll teach you for doing x'. No motive. Nothing. Now, as I said, this is fine if you're dealing with a few psycho-losers, as that psycho-loseriness is their motivation. But this group of hoodies is silently coordinated, acting with great grace, speed and purpose. To do this they'd need a lot of planning, equipment and communication.

The other option would have been to make them supernatural enemies. Indeed, I think they were trying to suggest this (a little like the subtle supernatural feel of the enemy in AoP13). It fails completely. Whenever they're on screen there is a truly annoying distorted playground 'lalala' music. You never see their deliberately blacked out faces. They are silent and graceful. And their violence is extreme and also apparently lacking a motive. In this way they'd make a great supernatural force. But in order for that to work you'd need to have some hint to solidify them as a supernatural force. Maybe some question as to their reality (a lack of reflection, say - or someone not being able to see them). Indeed, at one point I wondered whether the big reveal would be that the violence had all been carried out by the alchie teacher and the faceless force had all been in his head. But no. No subtlety, no explanation, no reason.

This is dangerous. The entire point of this kind of film filters back to the stuff I'm studying. Tragedy has a reason. People do the wrong thing. They exceed mortal bounds. They strike out at the gods. They transgress and are punished. All of the (sometimes just as extreme) violence is justified by, what can be an unfair, set of rules and regulations. By watching the tragedy unfold, we the audience learn a lesson. This is what makes great tragedy.

What AoP13 does which is so clever is that the violence is due to police action which has relatively nothing to do with those trapped inside. They are innocent parties caught up in the responsibilities of others. And they fight against it. This makes them heroes. Bringing in another classical reference - they are Hectors, fighting for Troy when the reason for the battle is Paris' abduction of Helen.

The story, lacking a reason, completely loses track of the audience. There is nothing to be fought against, nothing to be overcome. There can be no climactic boss battle between Alcoholic Teacher and Violent Pupil where the violence is reversed (indeed, he does kill a 'hoodie', but this is lacking any emotional content due to the eternally faceless nature of the enemy - he might as well have stabbed a hat stand). Likewise, as there is no link between teacher and hoodies, there can be no growth for the teacher - he cannot apologise for his actions or gain forgiveness.

Much more interesting would have been an attack on a teacher who had been abusive (possibly sexually) against a group of boys who then get together to get excessive revenge. Alternatively, the faceless assault on the school could have been shorter and led to them being tracked down and punished by the aggrieved teacher. But no luck. There is no resolution. The teacher leaves the school with his injured daughter, leaving his wife to die. Everyone else gets got. It is pointless.

But my biggest problem by far was its misogynistic nature. I've been made more aware of this kind of thing by doing my Women in Ancient History degree. But I have always been quite smug because no matter how silly Aristotle was, he's been dead for quite a while now and we've evolved.

Apparently not.

There are five female characters;

Librarian
Head Teacher
Gym Teacher?
Mother
Daughter

Oh, and I've just remembered - there was a male/female pairing of police officers. Guess what happened to them?

The librarian is a caring character who tries to look after the alcoholic teacher. I like her character and can't complain - but her death is anonymous and nameless and lost.

The Head Teacher seems to earn her death by not heeding the warning given to her by the alcoholic teacher about the downed telephone lines. She also pays for not supporting him after the initial assault and effectively 'siding' with the parents of the boy who want to sue. Confronted by the boys she's not even capable of calling the police - she just waves her phone at them.

Now, I am not 100% certain, but I guess that the character who hardly looked long out of college herself was a gym teacher. When I first saw her, I expected her to become a rape victim. Jogging on the treadmill? Sure sign that someone's going to rip some of your clothes off. But I hadn't realised that these characters would have no apparent motivation. So no rape, but the most extreme violence is still kept for her (a word was cut into her exposed stomach, more cuts are inflicted on her thighs, and the lower part of her face is removed) and left crawling away from the toilets in which she was attacked).

The Daughter,as well as being slapped by her father, is stabbed in the stomach whilst trying to save him.

The Mother is left alone in the school, presumably, we are left to believe, to be killed in an horrific way.

Women are nothing but victims. They have no chance. Admittedly three men are also killed (one burnt to death, but the other two we don't see dead, just on the way to it), but less screen time is taken over this. The violence against women is glorified in. There is no chance that any of them will be proactive. They don't get angry. They just crumble and weep.

What's more (much much much more) the slapping of the daughter is effectively explained away through her bad behaviour. She's then shown willing on a bruise so she can then use this against her father. But everything is forgiven when he comes to find her and she effectively gives up her life saving him from the knife attack. He then tries to save her, but in so doing, sacrifices his wife.

So violence against a child is ok if they're being really mouthy and you save them after. No repercussions for the teacher in any way. Other than the death of his ex who's already left him. No sign of guilt from him...but then as there's no apparent link to him, there wouldn't need to be.

So all the potential power of the plot is lost. The humanity of the hoodies being removed (and by the way, the exclusively white cast vs the blacked out faces of the hoodies? The racial element, though never actually said, was equally worrying). No supernatural basis to compensate for this. No responsibility, consequence or explanation. And no resolution. Just the teacher driving away with his wounded daughter. An over-long look into his eyes from the rear-view mirror. A scene which would work wonderfully well in a film respecting the psychological process of character and narrative. But here it just exposes everything that was weak and shallow. I.E. the entire thing.

No, that's unfair - some of the shots of the school and the people were beautifully done. The shallow depth of field was very nice and I liked some of the colour tones.

So really, do yourself a favour and don't ever watch it. Spend the 80 minutes. or whatever it was, contemplating the nature of responsibility and consequences in life. It'll be better for your soul.

It's Love. No doubt.

2011-02-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

This Valentine's Day I have watched the end of season 4 of The Wire with Deborah. Not traditional romantic fare, perhaps, but compelling it is. And certainly not without love themes. Indeed, love is the driving force of several characters and, at times, the plot itself. So with less than half an hour left of the 14th, I thought I'd write a bit about the love I've seen. All that I write is without knowledge of what happens in the fifth and final season. So be kind if you know more than I!

I will start with the example which links most to my degree - the Spartan love we see in Omar. Omar; beloved of Obama and, well, anyone with any taste. He is quite clearly a Spartan warrior - intelligent and fearless in equal measure, his younger male lovers learn from him and grow in their own violent education. Their mutual love makes them more powerful than the gangsters on whom they prey and, indeed, means that any death is revenged. Love is his power.

We see a similar, if less powerful, version of this in the comradeship in both dealers and police. Gangs, when working properly (i.e. prior to season four and the extreme violence of Marlo's reign) show men working together and looking out for one another. Likewise, police look after their own. But most interestingly in this season you see police and gang members come together in their shared experience...almost a shared love of their city. So Bunny and Wee-Bey are able to communicate and understand each other. And this understanding allows them to act in a way that encourages the growth of Namond into a good man away from the violence of the corner.

Familial love, though, is not always positive. We see Brianna unknowingly force D'Angelo into a position that leads to his destruction. Bubble tries to create a family of sort with Sherrod, but, in the tradition of great classical tragedy, thanks to events outside of his control, kills him. These failures of love contrast with the positive family lives shown in Bunny, Beadie etc.

Talking of Beadie, she represents a redemptive love which is surprisingly rare in the narrative arch of The Wire. And I would not be surprised at all if it doesn't last. Even so, living with Beadie and moving away from the moral problems of detective work, McNulty is able to find redemption and happiness...even peace.

Finally, proper romantic love can be found. Daniels' romance with Rhonda is both touching and powerful. They complete each other and benefit from each other's qualities. It could be argued that this is as redemptive for Rhonda as McNulty's is for him. In this case, though, the relationship feels stronger. Neither character feels a need to change their lives in order to change themselves. They recognise the truth of each other and love each other for that.

This is in no way an end to the love shown in the programme. The love of chess, for example (that scene from the first season was so well formed I will never forget it), the love of traditional work shown by the stevedores, the love of power and respect, and the love of mumbling shown by Marlo and his crew. But it's now the 15th and I must sleep.

Here's hoping that wherever you are and whatever you have been doing, that your day has been filled with the very best kinds of love.

One Month Before Heartbreak: Judgement Day

2011-01-15T15:04:00.000-08:00

Cross-posted at Diary of a Goldfish

The musings of a pair of rather tired disability benefit claimants communicating via IM trying to raise awareness and support in light of the government consultation into DLA reform. Read if you dare...

-------

Goldfish: A few months ago, I mentioned to my new GP that my DLA was up for renewal. He warned me that if I got turned down, I shouldn't take it personally - he knew many people who were being refused now, despite having very severe impairments. I know not to take it personally, of course, and yet the current system, political rhetoric, media coverage and the tone of proposed reforms are such that anything we have to do with disability benefits feels very very personal.

Stephen: And indeed it is personal. As much as it'd be nice to live in a communists utopia, we need money to live and as such are reliant upon national insurance to pay out for our survival. But not only that, we, the disabled, are made to jump through hoops to determine whether or not we're capable of work. Which is especially galling when the hoop jumping can be as difficult or impossible as work.

Goldfish: "The disabled"? You're proposing to put this on my blog, honey.

Stephen: You know me - I call a spade a shovel. Dear reader, please forgive my horrendous grasp of correct terminology. I care about you all deeply, even though I'm insulting you at the same time.

Goldfish: Anyway.

Stephen: Anyway.

Goldfish: I think another thing which makes it so personal is the fact that politicians talk about the workshy and other variations on the undeserving poor, the media take that a step further and render most of us scroungers or cheats, but then people around us use the same language - worse language even than "the disabled". They talk about welfare cuts as a universally good thing because of the scroungers, because of the so-called disabled. And if they notice your discomfort, they insist that they don't mean people like you.

What they don't realise is that almost all claimants are people like you, and me. And we're not magically protected from the effect of cuts just because they happen to consider us worthy of protection.

Stephen: Okay okay not so subtle point taken. People who might not be quite so able but who are still dashingly handsome and/or ravishingly beautiful are, indeed, clumped together. I mean, the DLA form itself is only really relative just so long as you stick to a certain set of disabilities. If you're outside of those pre-defined multiple choice answers then you have to write a huge amount to try to explain why you don't fit in and yet why you still need this money.

Goldfish: And I imagine most people are outside those boxes; most disabled people aren't full-time wheelchair users, don't experience total blindness or deafness etc..

Stephen: Do you think that the forms mirror public perception? The good disabled person who's deserving of the money that they so generously donate from their children's piggy banks is the one who answers all those questions by ticking the top most box (and who, sadly, but also thankfully, might not live too long and so not be a long term financial drain)?

Goldfish: In fairness, I don't think the public feels very generous towards those who tick the top box of the mental health questions.

Stephen: True...as we saw recently in the aftermath of the Giffords shooting. The stance of Sheriff Dupnik was that the world was a safer place with the mentally ill locked up rather than integrated into the community. So our ideal disabled victim (because surely they are a victim - of a random virus, a terrible car accident [just so long as they didn't cause it] or, if possible, falling from a height whilst trying to save a poor little girl and her kitten from a tree house fire) is a full time wheelchair user, possibly also blind, very grateful and entirely sane. Is that even possible?

I'm not sure I'd be that sane after all that bad luck.

Goldfish: *rolls eyes

Stephen: What?

Goldfish: I will have to apologise to any heroic blind wheelchair-users who pass by my blog now.

In any case, we were talking about this issue of how difficult it is not to take this stuff personally. You've been trying to sort out your exam conditions for your final university exams.

(Do you like the subtlety there? - I should work on daytime TV.)

Stephen: Indeed. I'm studying for a BA in Classics via distance learning. Because of the setup, it's 100% exam graded. As you can imagine, that means that come exam time there's a considerable amount of pressure. Indeed, for the last few months I've been hell to live with, isn't that right, Darling?

Goldfish: Hades, sweetheart - I thought it was Hades?

Stephen: I've failed already. Anyway, because I'm a person who might not be quite so able but who is still dashingly handsome and/or ravishingly beautiful (or a PWmnbqsAbwisDH/RB to those in the know) I need some help when it comes to exam time. I get to take my exam locally, for example, rather than having to travel to London. And I am able to use a computer keyboard rather than handwrite. And in order to qualify for these I have to get a doctor's letter explaining that I'm a PWmnbqsAbwisDH/RB and so should be allowed these things. In my first year the system was so poorly set up that I wasn't aware as to whether I was going to get the special arrangements or not until two days before the exam.

So although I got the help I needed to make my chances as fair as the next wannabe classicist, I had a considerable amount of extra stress that none of the other candidates did.

Goldfish: (Incidentally, dear reader, he has not been at all difficult, only has occasional flashes of self doubt, such as "I've failed already." What this man doesn't know about the motivations of Ajax when he set upon his "wooly captives" is not worth knowing. )

(That's the lesser Ajax, by the way. Or is it the greater one?)

Stephen: (Greater)

Goldfish: (Okay)

Stephen: (You know when I said could you take the exam for me..?)

Goldfish: Anyway

You were trying to make sure the exam conditions were sorted for this May, love. And like any large institution, the wheels were turning very slowly...

Stephen: Yes. I had been told that there would be no need to reapply, but things have changed and now I have to get a new doctor's letter. Of course, getting an appointment with the GP isn't that easy and I've got that booked for just over a week away. The expectation was that I should be able to get a letter posted off to them instantly, so straight away I wasn't conforming with the idea of what I should be doing.

Then there was the issue of a local exam centre. If you're one of the idealised disabled, the process of getting to London *shouldn't* be a problem. But for me it's impossible.

But the problem is...the people in the special needs department haven't specifically questioned these things. They just mentioned them (in, I think it's fair to say, a rather clumsy way. Even more clumsy than my terminology. Yeah, I know, I didn't think it was possible either). The problem is that I feel under pressure to conform to ideas of what I should be capable of doing. I feel that I am being judged. And, well, I *am* being judged. Someone has to look at my medical evidence and say whether what I'm asking is appropriate. But that's a horrible position to be in. Especially when I am actually paying for the privilege of taking the degree!

By the way, dear reader, Deborah's just popped to the loo. So we're alone now. We can talk about whatever we want! Have you seen the new Mercedes SLK? What do you think of the front end redesign? I'm afraid it's a bit too clunky to me. that sort of front heaviness works on the SLS, but then that's an entirely different vehicle...

Goldfish: Sweetheart, I think you are getting distracted.

Stephen: Er...yes, maybe.

Goldfish: When you got that e-mail from the Special Needs people, you said that you felt that they were suspicious of you?

Stephen: Yes. Well, just the act of asking again. When you're living with something, especially a disability, it leaves you very sensitive to any mention of it. Or it does me. Being told that they would collect the information so that they could make the 'right decision' upset me. What is the right decision? Is it right for me? For the university? For the world in general?

And what's right got to do with it?

If the world were right I'd not have to be dealing with extra process to get to a point of equality.

Goldfish: And I tried to reassure you that they probably weren't suspicious of you, just clumsy and uncreative in the way big institutions often are. But this is how we're made to feel. Like every need, however simple, has to be justified.

And this is the case in many areas. Lilwatchgirl is going through this with Access to Work, you've got this with your exam conditions, but I think it all comes down to the way that we talk about disability in society.

And so much of that is to do with politics, and so long as disabled people are a political scapegoat, so long as money-saving measures are so often focussed on us and how expensive we are, then people are going to think that it is the natural order of things that we have to justify our existence in that society.

Review - Cibelle and Julia Nunes

2011-01-11T17:10:00.000-08:00

To follow my very out of date film review, I have a pair of albums which have caught my ear recently. In fact, while I’ve been working through Sophoclean tragedy, two ladies have been warbling on my speakers.

I’m a huge fan of antifolk and the New Weird America movement. It was through listening to Davendra Banhart that I came across a singer called Cibelle. The pair sang together on their track London, London which I found on youtube. From there I listened to tracks from her album The Shine of Dried Electric Leaves (yes, the title itself deserves attention). The first track, Green Grass, is very special indeed: a breathy dream of lost love, sinking into a plant-filled modern landscape. It is the closest thing I’ve found in modern music to a Sappho poem.

And she has a new album out! And what’s more, the title’s even better! Las Venus Resort Palace Hotel is both the name and the fictional location in which the songs take place. It is the last refuge of a world which has crumbled away

‘...a rock floating in space with a jungle on top and the ocean dripping into nowhere...’

She sings as Sonja Khalecallon in the voice of traditional Exotica. But, unlike the subversive voice of much antifolk, Cibelle ne Sonja shows huge respect for the genre and its messages. Well, she does come from Brazil, and she seems to be trying to share a bit of her native sunshine and love.

Of course, this isn’t 100% successful off the bat. Some of the songs are just too sugared for my taste. Even though I appreciate the idea of covering a song from a Bond film, Underneath the Mango Tree had me raising an eyebrow. Although I do think, having listened to it a few times now, that it does set up the rest of the album nicely. It is followed by Man from Mars, a song which perfectly balances a gentle steel drum track, multi-layered, soaring vocals (had me in mind of a sweet-voiced swarm of parrots) and sympathetic trip-hop beats and samples.

Lightworks (cover of Raymond Scott’s original) feels dangerous and slinky – far more Bond-ish than Mango Tree, while The Gun and the Knife sounds remarkably like something from a Tarantino film. Mr and Mrs Grey has a wonderful beat (and, later on, an angry twangy western six string) reminding me equal parts of Rasputina and Lilly Allen’s Not Fair.

I think, for me, the standout songs are half way through and are scarily diverse. Sad Piano is just as dreamy and beautiful as Green Grass but with a much darker tone. Heartbreaking is most definitely the word. But my main problem is that, as a connoisseur of bad jokes, I can’t help but hear her sing “I have a small piano” which does somewhat ruin it.

The main theme of Frankenstein makes me think of Ice Age or some other quest narrative animated film, but most important is the totally catchy rhythm and cyperpunk lyrics which cannot fail to lift the heart.

Love like science and alchemy

tonight the nightclubs are poetry

I need a lightning bolt to his heart

to kick-start my Frankenstein soul

Escute Bem sees Cibelle hit some notes that remind me of Beth Gibbons at her very best, coupled with great electronic noises and an exotic feel. It really is like doing the tango with a triple breasted prostitute on the surface of mars. And yes, I have been drinking.

You don’t need to have drunk anything, though, to find her cover of It’s Not Easy Being Green anything less than charming. What a way to end the album! It’s relatively low key, but with added sparkle. Kermit in a tutu, perhaps.

So what can you say? As a concept album it works absolutely perfectly, painting an image of the last chance saloon of exotica slowly crumbling into a void. As much as some songs are completely uplifting and transformative, I am left worrying about the relatively drab surroundings just outside my window. Perhaps it’s time to search ebay for a feather headdress...

Spotify link for the album.

-----

My next warbler was also happened upon on youtube, although in this case it was entirely by accident. Julia Nunes is one of those sickeningly talented young people that make you want to take up drinking whiskey just so you can complain about them in a suitably gnarled voice. She started at the age of 13 and more recently has been writing albums and compiling rather splendid music videos on youtube which demonstrate not just great talent and an ear for a good cover, but also show her great sense of humour and zest for life.

The first video I came across was her cover of Why Do You Build Me Up, Buttercup and on that occasion, I believe I played it through five times. Yes, I know, I’m boring like that. Seriously, take a look through her video stream – you won’t be disappointed.

Today, though, I’ve been listening to her album I Wrote These...which is made of songs that I believe she wrote. Now, I have a bit of a problem here, as I’m abnormally attracted to a cover. So I was a little worried to see how she’d go about constructing an album.

My first impressions were not bad, however. I’ve heard criticism of Cibelle’s voice, saying that it’s not really up to anything more than the fun twiddly bits but gets lost when you chuck a strong tune at it (a rather harsh and unfair criticism in my opinion), but Julia Nunes’ voice is, well, not the antithesis, as she can twiddle as good as the next person, but she has an extremely strong voice which holds a tune (and attention) with ease.

My only criticism was that one of two of the songs felt a little too strong...almost overpowering, in fact. But this is probably just a youth thing, with my poor elderly earlobes unable to keep up. I personally think, though, that she really shines with some of the gentler tracks: especially those which are ukulele-centric.

There’s been a bit of a resurgence in the ukulele business recently (probably because Deborah and I made one. What can I say? We’re trend setters.). But the humble uke has lost a little of its cheeky ‘jumping flea’ character, gaining a more off-key half-drunk weepiness (which I blame entirely on ER and the death scene of Mark Greene). Julia gets rid of this with a big smile and some cracking lyrics. And this is where I feel that Cibelle and Julia Nunes are so linked – they both feel related to a scene that’s too cool for a lot of the genuine sentiment from which their genres originate, and yet they bring a lot of that original light and joy back with the benefit of genre evolution.

I must also quickly point out that her lyrics are very important. I’m not usually too bothered by lyrics – in fact, I often never hear them, just listen to the sounds and enjoy them as such. But there’s something about the crispness of Julia’s voice and the emotion that she puts into things that really brings out the quirky poetry of her words. So I’ll be quoting a few for you.

Binoculars is my favourite of her guitar tracks. It gives voice to the humble neighbourhood peeping tom. No, really. ‘Please don’t be creeped out by me / you’re my miniature TV’ is perhaps my favourite line. It demonstrates perfectly her sense of humour. In fact, it reminds me very much of some Ben Folds work. And again, you must check the video.

Keeping with the guitar theme, Pen to Paper is an interesting one. There’s a very strong beat, and I like how the song is divided up into sections. But again, I’m drawn to her narrative! I can’t help it, really. It has got one of the best relationship-type lyrics since Emmy the Great sang;

I thought romance was pretty, then you went and spoiled it

Every time that I think of you, have to go to the toilet

Can’t tell if this is love or a stomach disorder

Or a massive grade-a typhoon inside my aorta

Julia’s romance is slightly less definite but certainly less icky;

I saw you ‘cross the room

we never really spoke but still I knew that

you and me were meant to be

close if not romantically

The Debt is a wonderful ukulele piece where the bouncy rhythm is helped along with various layered vocal effects and trills and is, perhaps, other than the harsher songs, one of the only ones where I’ve paid less attention to the lyrics. But I must confess - I actually bobbed. Yep, I almost dislocated something.

But the best song of the album without a doubt is Stairwell. It has the absolute perfect mix of wit, rhythm and tune. I’ll be whistling it for weeks to come at least. And what’s more, during those weeks it will never get annoying! Well, not to me, at least. I can’t speak for those who have to live nearby. Anyway, strangely enough, it’s perhaps the least cheery of all the songs. I mean, the opening lines are;

I’m lying here on the floor just like the man on the yellow cone

I guess the floor was wet, so I'm cold and all alone

It turns out that the protagonist has been finding it hard to live and so decided that throwing themselves down the stairs might be a good idea. But I tell you, I’ve never heard someone that depressed carry a tune so well.

Spotify link for the album.

So there you are. Listen to them both. And thank me by showering me with gifts.

Crash (Bang Wallop)

2011-01-11T02:59:00.000-08:00

It often takes me a while to see films. I can't get to cinemas and, anyway, I object to paying for things I might not enjoy. When it came to Crash, created by Paul Haggis (who also did Due South - one of my personal favourites) and winner of three Oscars (including Best Picture), I had very few excuses. It had been available on dvd and shown at least twice on television. Still, I'd heard some raves and some rumbles and this is often enough to put me off. Indeed Deborah told me that she thought it was utterly disappointing.

But you know what men are like, so I watched it with every hope that Deb was wrong. How silly I was.

I believe that one of the things that most impressed people was that Crash speaks of racism in new ways. Well, that's great. But then, there's not been a film about cars which talks about the chemical properties of the magnetorheological fluid used in the dampers of some posh cars. There's a very good reason *why* a film has been made about cars which speaks in this voice. It's because the voice is one of those nasal ones that says 'actually' a lot. And yes, I've been known to slip into that voice at times.

Racism is a massive issue. It's possibly hard having grown up in Surrey to entirely relate to the America of this film. At my primary school there were perhaps one or two black pupils and only one Asian girl that I can remember. And yet this didn't seem to breed any 'racism' as such. In many ways they seemed to be quite popular having these differences.

But I'm not entirely removed from racism in this mainly white corner of Britain. I live near Slough which is famed for its racial tension. There are schools in which the pupils were said to cheer when 9/11 took place. There are also instances of gang violence between different races. And yes, there is also a strong distinction between the poor areas of immigration and the extremely rich areas of privilege. No doubt there is prejudice on both sides.

But I do not believe that there is universal racism. I don't believe that every single person in that area of the UK has racist views. And I don't believe that to be the case in the US either.

I think the idea of the film is fundamentally flawed. I get the impression that someone said 'ok, we're going to make one of those films where everything is interconnected. Now all we need is a theme...'. Racism was picked. And so every character and event has to relate to the theme of racism. But that's not how the world works.

The world has so many motives and ideas and thoughts and feelings that to limit them creates an artificial world. And to try to explore an issue as important as racism in a realistic environment in this way just does not work. I'm reminded of Seuss and the Sneetches. It's ok to simplify the world into Sneetches with stars and those without because it's not a real world. It makes the matter clear without denying the complexities of the real world.

Deborah has informed me that she blogged about Crash a long time ago, and in her blog she says;

It would have made for a better film had it included some suggestion as to how this human misery could be resolved; instead it actually suggested that whilst racism is not the exclusive domain of monsters, there’s not a lot that can be done about it.

This is very important. Seuss teaches by showing us a world where racism is institutional and unavoidable. It's only through their mutual swindling that they learn that racism is silly. The audience, though, aren't expected to tackle racism in the real world by inventing some race-on race-off machine. They are shown an error in a fictional world and so can relate the message to the real world.

Crash, as Deborah says, has no idea of resolution. "It's a bad thing", the film says...but that's it. That's only the first few lines of the Sneetches story!

I also object to the abusive cop. His molestation of a woman is explained away as being the result of having to look after a disabled father. Excuse me? It seems that there's no real explanation of racism, but it's ok to explain a sexual assault? Yes, it's difficult to live with someone who's ill, especially when you're not recieving the proper help and support. People can snap. But snap by sexually assaulting someone?

And so many of these scenes were exploitative. I felt like I'd perpetrated all these horrendous acts. I felt dirty. And although I get that that may have been the point of the film, it lacks any sort of catharsis. And I'm too much of a classicist to let that go.

Food Glorious Food

2010-12-01T16:42:00.000-08:00

Deborah recently wrote a wonderful blog post about weight-loss. In it she mentioned my love of (frugal) cookery, so I thought I might write a little about it here.

Long before I fell ill, I developed a series of food allergies and intolerances. My symptoms are in no way life threatening, but some (notably some food colourings and dairy products) can be very nasty indeed. To this day I am very nervous of things that make me dizzy because, having had a great many Easter eggs under doctors orders, I had a rather nasty fit at the age of 7 or so during which the entire world seemed to be spinning at a rate of knots.

I am also somewhat allergic to the wanton spending of cash. Especially when it's my own. I've tried to explain it away...but it's true. I'm tight. Clearance, Bargain and Value feature highly in my yearly account sheet. If I can save a few quid, even if it requires a bit of work, then I will do. While away from home recently to see a production of the Lysistrata (more on that in a later post), I ended up logged on to the internet, saving £2 on a dvd boxset. And it wasn't even for me.

This extends to my taste for food. It's not that I don't enjoy expensive food. I once had some extremely expensive champagne which was truly lovely. Smoked salmon is one of my favourites. And there's a date and walnut 'loaf' made by Pastilla Nash which is unbelievably nice.

My problem is that whilst consuming these delicacies, I can hear the pound coins rattle down my gullet and it can get in the way of the enjoyment. Something akin to going to Glyndebourne whilst listening to Gogol Bordello on your iPod *. If I can enjoy something and also have the warm feeling of frugality burning away in my heart, everything feels golden. Even if it is only 9ct plated.

So here are the cheap cooking tips I will share for free. Further information will be available in the forthcoming cook book 'Frugal Food'.

Get a slow cooker - cheap on fuel as well as being easy to use with cheap cuts of meat. Try slow cooked liver with a spicy tomato sauce. Plenty of onions and peppers.

Don't be afraid of the Value range - sometimes value means plain awful or unethically produced. There is no point saving money if you're trampling on your ethics or making food that's just not good. But often value food is just graded products. Mushrooms that are funny shapes and sizes, for example, are sold in nice big trays at tesco for a pittance. Sliced and diced these babies are just as lovely as their expensive brethren. Remember - never judge a book by it's cover.

Cook BIG - it's often cheaper to cook in bulk and then freeze. When it comes to things like chili and curries, this can actually help the flavour. This also gets you into a mind-set where you're not ever going to waste any food - you're making as much as possible and then dividing it out into portions rather than making a little too much, popping the left over in the fridge and never getting around to finishing it.

Be excited by food - it's easy to think that the only time that food is exciting is when visiting an expensive restaurant. Food is such a gift! There are so many exciting flavours. Those flavours can be combined. Textures then can be bought into the mix. And temperatures. And it's all in your power to explore it!

So lets get some examples of my own personal favourites;

Rye Bread Bacon sandwich with onions, tomatoes and gherkin

The rye bread is made of 100% rye flour in a Panasonic bread maker. Smoked bacon is fried in a pan with no oil at all. Half a small red onion is sliced very finely indeed and added to the pan. A small tomato is also sliced and added at the point the onion is almost cooked. The rye bread is toasted and spread with a little mustard (english or wholegrain...preference would by the english for this dish) and then a single small gherkin (crunchier the better) is sliced and added on top of the bacon and onion/tomato relish type mix.

REMEMBER - for a sandwich to be good there should be no possible way of eating it without making a complete mess. If you have clean fingers at the end you're not trying hard enough.

Smoked Salmon Omelette

Two eggs and two tablespoons of milk are whisked until frothy. Frothy eggs give a light omelette. In a small frying pan, fry off half a small red onion (the half you had left having done the sandwich the day before) with some oil from a jar of sun dried tomatoes. There are all manner of things you can add at this point. But I'd say the only essentials are a couple of sundried tomatoes chopped up and a mushroom sliced if you have it. Once they're cooked up, put in some tesco smoked salmon trimmings. Honestly, this is such a good idea - using up the scraps from the factory is doing everyone a favour, especially your wallet. Uncooked the trimmings can sometimes be not quite as enjoyable as the proper slices, but with this kind of thing they're perfect. Pour the eggs on top and jiggle everything about to get the eggs to the bottom of the pan. Add some cheese on top and wack under the grill. Serve with green salad.

Fried River Cobbler / Basa Fish

River Cobbler (also known as Basa Fish) is farmed mainly in Vietnam and looking at a photo might put you off trying it. I have a few problems with the food miles involved, but at the same time, the farming of this fish is giving villages an industry and I approve of that. I also approve of the fish which has a firm flesh which is very hard to ruin. I enjoy frying fish which I've cut down to small fish finger sized portions, marinated in the juice of a lemon with a generous teaspoon of cayenne pepper and then coated with some seasoned cornflour. Again, I make more than I could possibly use and then freeze what's left. It can then be popped under the grill. Trust me - a fish finger sandwich done with this is absolutely out of this world. And a note on fish finger sandwiches - they may be expensive, but if you want to treat yourself, buy some capers. Just six or seven in a fish finger sandwich add such a little lift.

Bon apetit!

*Not that I have an iPod. I have a Sony MP3 player which I bought partly because it was much better value.

Dreams to Dream

2010-11-15T22:49:00.000-08:00

I am a prolific dreamer. It is, simply, one of my best and one of my worst traits.

It reflects my creativity, both narrative and imagery. It allows me to escape the worst bits of the world when I have to. And when I don't, I can sometimes use my dreamy nature to help lift some of the more boring parts of life and make them enjoyable.

But there's also a down side. It's easy to lose one's train of thought or, even worse, for that train of thought to be derailed without you realising and to spend what should be a time of serious and intense study when you should be applying yourself utterly to analysing the sexual nature of the god Dionysus (really...I was reading about it only the other week), studying with equal fervor the results of Strictly Come Dancing or weather trends. Not helpful to a Classics degree.

But worse still are the nightmares. There's nothing I can really say to make them funny. Well, maybe I can, but the jokes are hollow and cold. The first pain related nightmare I had involved a giant turtle biting off my leg. The image is ridiculous and should be laughed at....but I just can't raise the smile.

Tonight was one of the worst. It was a beautifully developed piece of terror with better narrative construction than most classic horror films. Pacing and build up were perfect. And the overlapping of supernatural and entirely natural psycho killer story arches built into a horrible climax. Although thankfully I didn't reach the end. I woke up, feeling like I'd been dreaming for days...holding my face, half of which had just been burnt off by the previously mentioned psycho killer.

And so I have been awake for well over an hour now. The quiet dark time feeling the flood of adrenalin fade away. My stomach begins to settle. And my pounding hot heart delights at the sinking coldness of the air. I can feel the frost outside and the cold light of dawn is replacing the distant orange light of street lamps.

Dreams to dream...thank you very much Linda Ronstadt.

The Essence of Good Design

2010-11-11T00:21:00.000-08:00

I have written previously about how comfortable I find sitting outside hospital buildings. The architecture is not the source of nightmares that it can be for some people. This does not extend to all things medical, however. In fact, I have a dislike verging on the phobic when it comes to doctors. Nurses I'm happy with - in general they have a sense of humour and a detached attitude which I find almost relaxing. But doctors...eurgh...they're up there with spiders in my opinion.

So when I decide I need to see a doctor (which, you can imagine, does not happen often) it is with a sense of trepidation tinged with terror. And this happened just the other day. It was my first visit to this particular surgery, having only recently moved to the area (recently! It's nearly been a year...but that's far too early to have to consult a demon of the MD rank) which seemed to make things doubly difficult.

Although not relaxing, the GP waiting room proved a rather wonderful distraction. First there's the people watching. Highlight of this trip was a rather lovely Asian woman and her baby who had just discovered all the sounds he was capable of making. Most of them resembling the gurgles of a human digestive tract in distress. Well, I say this. I was in a GP's waiting room. It could very easily have been a human digestive tract in distress and I just didn't correctly identify the culprit.

Anyway, my main point for writing then grabbed my attention. Although I never would, I'd love to be able to take my camera everywhere I go. And I have never felt that quite so much as now. On the wall, amongst the posters for stroke information (FAST - Face, Arm, Speech, Test) and Flu Jab schedule was a lovingly crafted piece of design.

You know when you see a poster and almost feel like you have a glimpse into the psyche of the graphic designer? Never have I felt this so strongly. The raven-black background. The stark white font. Text perfectly balanced against the brilliant red blood drop taking up two thirds of the space.

MALARIA
IT ONLY TAKES ONE DROP

Yes, here was a medical information poster created by someone who desperately, in the secret dark places of his soul, wanted to design book covers for Stephanie Meyer. Malaria by Twilight.

Coincidentally, I had blood taken and it was done with a level of skill and care I have never met before. You don't think that my local GP is actually a front for a coven of Vampires, do you...?

The Secret Garden (aka my mid-life crisis)

2010-10-23T23:52:00.000-07:00

Earlier in the year, the BBC News website had an article about the phenomenon of Mid-Life Crisis and how it appears to be happening earlier on in life - specifically between the ages of 35 and 44.

Well I am 28 years of age and it appears to have hit. And what have I done with this? Have I purchased a sports car, started chasing after 19 year old girls or slipped into a pair of embarrassingly tight jeans? No. I've been recapturing my youth in a slight different way...

When I was 6, my parents bought me a Magic Tree. Not the air freshener of the same name, but a cardboard tree that, when soaked in chemicals, sprouted crystal blossom. This was great...I have always been a sucker for the beauty and wonder of natural (and unnatural) science*. I try never to miss the Royal Institute Christmas Lectures on television, even though I'm well past the perceived demographic age range. So when I was 7 and my parents bought me an entire garden made of this magic card, you can imagine how excited I was!

It was diligently built and the liquid was carefully added. All that was left was time. You have to wait a good 24 hours before the crystals are really getting into their stride. Three days for them to be finished.

But after only 12 hours, V came to visit. I will refer to her as V so as to protect her against the inevitable reprisals that would follow when I explain what happened next.

V was a typically girly 7 year old girl, but very clumsy with it. And one excessively exuberant twirl later...the Magic Garden was no more.

I was devastated. At that moment I understood the fragility of life. The temporary nature of existence. And the true meaning of the phrase - Women: Can't Live With Them....

So how have I dealt with this emptiness, this certainty of eventual oblivion at the hands of a clumsy twirling blonde? I hit ebay and searched for Magic Garden. And what did I find?

Yes. They still make them! I felt the same sparkle of childhood magic when I found that the 1980s packaging was still exactly the same. Thank you Taiwan. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

So there follows the unpacking, construction and bringing to life of the Magic Garden. And what happened to it? Someone moved it and it was destroyed all over again. Still...better than driving a Hayabusa into a tree.

Click Here to view the flickr set.

*but not Weird Science. Can't stand Kelly Brook.

Hospital reflections

2010-10-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

Isn't it funny how we get used to certain surroundings, sometimes to such an extent that somewhere which might otherwise seem uncomfortable, ugly or even dangerous can create a sense of comfort and relaxation? I have been thinking about this recently; about our environments, whatever they may be, and how they fit themselves around our minds and selves, sinking in to the conscious like brandy into a christmas cake. The alcoholic vapours may evaporate somewhat, but deep down the richness remains.

In my case, my environments have been relatively few and somewhat enforced. My health limits me in my physical scope (as I have already written about in my post on macro photography), but it has also resulted in some experiences in which my environment has sunk particularly deeply into my cake-mix. Think about it in your own lives - those places where particularly traumatic or powerful experiences occurred and how they live on with you. The vast majority of my dreams take place in one of two places (and sometimes both at the same time) - My house or a hospital.

Thankfully I've not ever required much hospitalisation, but all apart from one year of my secondary education was spent in a hospital school - a room separate from but linked to the children's ward of my local hospital. My learning was conducted to the accompaniment of overly powerful heating, the distant beep of the alarm at the nurses' desk, and the moans and groans of wounded children (who, if you know anything about wounded children, were usually moaning and groaning about the stuff every single child moans and groans about rather than their wounds). Seriously, if you've not had to concentrate on quadratics whilst someone has an epileptic fit, then you've never experienced the joys of maths (not that I ever found maths particularly joyful...but you get my point). A poorly acted play really comes to life when the main character talks about running away from their adolescent ennui, whilst immobile with their leg in a fixator.

And I remember distinctly the presence of the hospital at lunch times. Sat outside in the harsh wind and cold, the building towering over me despite it being not particularly tall. Something about the construction...the lack of subtlety and design. And the light. Oh that hospital lighting. There's something about the colour of crisp white walls lit by yellowy fluorescents. It reeks of infection.

And yet I was comfortable there. Often sat with friends. Enjoying a break from work. There was never a fear of being judged...hospitals are the ultimate place of acceptance.

So last week I found myself back at a hospital, having driven my father to an appointment. And despite the anxiety over his health and the busy roads, I found myself surprisingly relaxed parked in the outpatients carpark. The walls of the building were white rather than the dark red brick of *my* hospital. There was no bench outside the heavy blue UPVC school doors. No school doors at all. But through the windows you could see the same white walls tinged puss yellow. There was the same air of acceptance. And although the car was warm, I still felt the cold winter winds blowing through me, cooling and smothering any fear and upset I felt about being in such a place.

Origins

2010-09-13T08:26:00.000-07:00

Influence. Inspiration. The muse of fire. I've spent the last week or so thinking about what events have influenced the person I have become. What inspires me to grow as a person. What muses guide me when writing, photographing or being generally creative. It's difficult to pull apart and analyse all the different threads that are tangled in each outcome. It's a bit like a dream. The secret is to pull out the major themes and biggest subjects. Track them back to their base state.

One of the biggest influences to my photography has been Zed Nelson. Specifically his book Gun Nation. I remember the first time I leafed through it. That palpable smack as I recognised his story in the images. You can read the lives of people through the way he photographs them. And you feel the crushing weight of an entire nation pressed against your eyeballs. His photography is very different to my own - in part through necessity as I am unable to get out to chronicle lives. But I hope that I am able to inject life and stories into the things I am able to photograph. The narrative of emotion.

Perhaps of an even bigger influence in terms of my final images has been the website flickr. I have been a member of the site twice. Especially during my most recent membership I have been able to pull together a contact list which has challenged and moved on my work. I am inspired, influenced and moved by a hundred different muses every day. And again, it is the story of their lives and the way that they write them down without words that really gets to the heart of me. It's the stories. Always the stories.

So tracking it back through another theme, there's my great love of The Classics. Deserving of both the capitals. Homer, Virgil, Propertius, Catullus, Sappho, Ovid - the list could go on. I discovered them years ago. Indeed, I recently rediscovered a children's poetry book which I grew up with. And hidden away in the McGough and Lear were poems by Catullus and Sappho. Catullus! In a book of children's poetry! And what poem had they chosen? 85.

odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

I hate and love. Why do I do this, you ask me?
I can't tell you. I just feel it happening and am wracked.

Definitely influential, that duality, and something I've tried to photograph time and again. Of course, I've failed. The day I get close to mirroring Catullus may well be the day my camera implodes. But still...something to aim for.

Moving forward from childhood experience of Catullus, but back from my degree, there's one man (apart from my father) who had a huge influence on the person I am today, although I don't imagine he'd realise this. When I think back to it, Nick introduced me to some of the foundation stones of my enthusiasm for and love of narrative. It was Nick who gave me my copy of Neuromancer. He told me about Twin Peaks and David Lynch. He lent me a copy of Jean de Florette. He gave me his copy of Lord of the Rings. It was down to him, in a rather indirect way, that I first watched Alien. He even copied all his Beatles albums onto cassette to give me as a Christmas present. He inspired me to branch out and be brave with films, music and literature. And to be proud and confident in that bredth of taste and appreciation.

Last night I found out that Nick co-writes a film blog. I can't tell you how happy I was to be able to read through it. I suggest you do too. You never know what inspiration you might find.

BADD - Flying the Red Flag of Understanding

2010-04-30T23:20:00.000-07:00

When trying to come up with an idea for what to write about to celebrate and explore BADD (Blogging Against Disablism Day), I was a little stuck. I am lucky not to have experienced too many open acts of disablism. Those few I have had to deal with are not especially interesting and would take a writing skill greater than my own to make readable. So rather than look to the reactions of others, I have to look to myself.

What is it about my disability that makes me feel uncomfortable? There are things of which I find very difficult to admit. Things that make me feel less of a person. Things that are out of my control and really not very important in the grand scheme of things. So what if I'm going to have to rest part way through writing this to save my fingers, shoulders and neck from even greater pain? I am at least writing this.

The thing that I find hardest, though, are the reactions of other people. Several years ago I was well enough to “walk” my dog (Bullitt, a staffordshire-bull terrier cross) to the park. I can walk, but not very far without increasing pain and fatigue exponentially, so I use a mobility scooter for any distance greater than the length of a rather small garden (and this is on a good day). So my dear Bullitt (who is no longer with us) would pull ahead of me, whilst I'd trundle along behind on my scooter.

On the particular day I'm writing about, the summer sun was bright and strong. A really beautiful day. And Bullitt was very much looking forward to her walk and the resulting madness at the park just down the road. She particularly favoured frisbees, though being a bit of a psycho, she would jump and catch them to the point her gums bled. Anyway, I got on the scooter, stowing my walking stick in the bag on the back of the seat, standing up proud like a flag mast. Bullitt was already pulling more than usual, but I had to take the first section of the journey slowly as the drive-way was full of washing; mainly stuff belonging to my sister whose machine was broken.

Through the slightly damp clothes, through the gate and down the road - we were making good time. Most people were, no doubt, preparing their lunch and watching the news. Students (we lived by a university) were off for summer holiday. Everything seemed very quiet. In fact, I'm sure we made record time and you could feel Bullitt's joy as we rounded the corner to the park. I let her off the lead straight away and tossed the frisbee as far as I could.

I treasure those moments. Bullitt had to be put down a couple of years ago and it was very hard. I'd never known a dog who really truly loved me like she did. Her name, for all of you who are wondering, was originally Bullet – she was a rescue dog and the staff thought Bullet suited her speed (and, no doubt, her somewhat violent nature). My sister changed her name, though, to Bullitt...after the king of cool. So please, when you imagine her, think of the roar of a mustang and bouncing chases through American streets rather than full metal jackets etc.

After we'd finished (Bullitt would always get to a point where she was too tired to continue, but didn't want to go home, so she'd lie down on her frisbee in protest) I hooked the dog onto her lead, noting the spots of bright red blood staining her white mouth. Silly dog...we experimented with several toys and eventually found a rope-based frisbee that didn't end with cuts. Not that she ever seemed to feel them...but it certainly didn't look very pleasant. Anyway, we left the park, Bullitt no longer pulling as she wanted to have a sniff along the way back.

It was these times I found hardest. For one thing I had to be careful not to run her over as she'd stop quite abruptly in front of me. But mainly it meant that I was under the scrutiny of any pedestrians for a longer period of time. And there were several people about. Most ignored me. Most. But one didn't. And who was it? You expect some hideous youth complete with football shirt and IQ with a negative symbol in front of it. But no...today it was a sweet little old lady.

She almost glared at me. Every single sensitive place was prodded within my brain and heart. She was obviously thinking what's a bloke in his early twenties doing on a mobility scooter? How weird he looks. What does he think is wrong with him? He should just get over it. Freak. Weirdo. Waste of space.

Now...I have been called most of those things before. I've had very similar questions asked of me. But I must specify that the little old lady said nothing. She just glared. Usually I shrink back into myself. I stare into nothingness and try to accept that people can think and act as they like and it's up to me not to rise to it. But there was something different about today. Maybe it was the summer sun. Maybe it was that Bullitt had enjoyed herself so much and I'd do anything to protect her right to a wonderful day at the park. Maybe I was just a bit grumpy. So instead of shrinking, I glared back.

Her eyes dropped and she didn't look at me again. Ha! Victory scored! I am here and I am proud. Yes, I have to use a scooter, but I am careful and conscientious. I am a good driver. And I have every right to use it. It's no business of anyone but mine why I might need to use it. And if she had a problem, she should have come and discussed it openly rather that throwing silly looks.

Even Bullitt seemed happier than usual as we returned home. She trotted through the gates and I turned around to close them after us.

I think I got as far as actually unhooking the gates before I noticed it. I don't know how it took me so long. The red was brighter, after all, than the crimson blood which stained Bullitt's black and white face. The lace almost glinted in the strong summer sun. And the light breeze made it flutter about like a flag.

I presume my sister's bra had hooked onto my walking stick as I left the house and as Bullitt was pulling so hard, I didn't notice the brief resistance. On the quiet and speedy walk to the park no one had seen us. But on the way back an innocent old lady was confronted by a blood-soaked bull terrier and a 6-foot unshaven man on a heavy duty four wheel scooter trailing a large bright red bra from the top of his walking stick like some kind of trophy. A man who then glared at her, daring her to say something about it.

I wish you all a happy Blogging Against Disablism Day and hope that this helps to teach you, as it did me, never to presume you know what someone's problem is. You never know when you might be inadvertently waving someone's underwear behind you.

Caged Muse

2010-04-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting message today on my photostream on Flickr from the highly talented WorldScope. One of the things I most admire about his work is the great flexibility he shows in subject, genre and even technique whilst still retaining a great sense of personal style and feeling. Honestly, you must check out his work. Personally I'm still trying to work out how to go about pinching his new camera...

Anyway, he suggested that I should post more work outside of the Macro genre in which I am comfortable. He has a very good point and I've been trawling through my archives for examples I could upload (and have done...take a look and see what you think)

I'm somewhat house-bound due to illness. I am able to get out, but the process is quite involved and doesn't happen often. When it does, it's usually for a necessary action rather than an enjoyable photoshoot. For that reason, Macro photography has been extremely important to me. I've been able to expand the relatively small space I inhabit by looking much more closely into it. A flower bed suddenly becomes a forest. An every day object can become a fully paid up (and extremely cooperative) model.

This doesn't mean that I am necessarily content with things as they are, though...and I do rather wish I had people around me to model and the chance to tramp through the countryside capturing some of the images I dream of. So this rather limited selection of photographs from holidays and rare days out are rather important to me. I don't know how much skill and art they demonstrate, but every single one has a story and were of great value to me.

2010-04-25T01:13:00.001-07:00

Yesterday an ice-cream van drove by my bedroom window. It's signage was bright in the strong spring light, though the engine was rough and clattered in the quiet Saturday morning air.

As it disappeared down the road, the engine fading, I heard the music start up. I didn't know the tune, and it danced through the air, spinning and twirling, dipping in and out, behind hedges and cars and houses. It was at once heart breakingly beautiful and infinitely fragile.

So what'll it be? A 99, perhaps? A flake, rocket or lemonade lolly? Or the frozen tears of victorian maidens caught in a void of crumbled lace and wasted dreams? They've got it all.