WashRinseRepeat

"I know the screams are part of the fragile lady role..."

2012-02-02T06:42:00.001-08:00

Er, what the actual fuck?

I'm hoping I'm just having a sense of humour failure about a really bad internet joke.

Because otherwise what we have here is a 1,000 word narrative of a date rape being used to sell condoms.

*brain explodes*

(sorry about the size of the image, I can't sort it out. The original is here )

Not even Sherlock Holmes has the answer.

2012-01-03T07:56:00.000-08:00

I didn't watch 'Sherlock' on TV over Christmas. But some people at work did. And they were talking today about how the (very few) female characters depicted in it were either sluts or mental. Not all that good really.

Then one of the other people at work who hadn't seen it told us about this thing called The Bechdel Test and asked it if would've passed it.

I'd never heard of the test before now, but it instantly reminded me about the blog post I wrote late last year about pointless female characters in films.

Essentially, The Bechdel Test is much cleverer and more succinct way of saying what I was trying to say in hundreds of rambling words:

1. Does a film have two or more female characters, with names?
2. Do they talk to each other?
3. If they talk to each other, is it a conversation about something other than a man or men?

If the answer is yes to all the above, then you have passed the Bechdel test! (And you are probably in the minority, because as you can see from the film, MOST movies are test fails.)

If the answer is no to all of the above, then you are abviously the script writer of 'Sherlock' and you have some serious work to do.

Let the sun go down on Twilight

2011-12-05T04:54:00.000-08:00

Hungover and in need of some mindless chewing gum for our barely functioning brains, a friend and I went to see the new Twilight movie yesterday.

What a load of rubbish. I mean, I expected it to be crap, I even kind of wanted it to be a bit crap, but not quite that crap. In fact it was so crap I nearly walked out. But the cinema was warm and comfy and dark, which was helping my headache. Plus I had a box of popcorn to finish.

So instead I stayed and endured a vaguely unsettling and disturbing two hours of WTF. And it wasn't the supernatural stuff that was freaking me out.

Oh, where to begin with what was wrong with that film? The unhealthy conflation of co-dependency with intimacy? The emotional manipulation? The slut shaming? The sexual mind games...? I genuinely worry for the next generation of women buying into this shit as teenagers. When I was a kid, the glass ceiling might still have been double glazed, but at least all that was vexing my nascent feminist principles was whether Sandy oughtn't to have just told Danny to shove it up his arse, and stuck with the bobby socks.

Anyway. Let me try and break down what pissed me off so much about this film...

1. Edward randomly appearing in Bella's bedroom whenever he feels like it. Jesus Christ can she not just get five minutes of goddamn privacy!? Poor girl can't even have a poo or change a tampon without Undead Ed teleporting into her face like, 'don't worry Bella, I'm here'. And the worst thing is, she thinks she needs him. Case in point: there's this bit in the film where she's asleep and obviously having a dream so he wakes her up to ask her what it was about! Mind rapey.

2. The night before their wedding Edward tells Bella he killed a whole bunch of people a while back. But it's okay, because they were murderers, so they deserved it. How Republican of him. And don't you think maybe he could have mentioned that earlier? It's not really the kind of thing you forget to tell someone while you're 'baring your soul' to them is it? Which is what Edward maintains he's only able to do with Bella. It's like, what else has slipped his mind during their heart to hearts? After the 'I dos' is he going to turn around and be all, 'oh yeah, I like to touch kids too. Sorry, should have told you earlier.'

3. The honeymoon sex. Okay, so this is where it gets really icky. Because Edward's a vampire, and vampires are all about sex and death, it's impossible for him to sleep with Bella as a mortal and not be violent, to the point where (it's pointed out earlier on in the film) he might kill her. Gross, right? So on their first night as a married couple he takes her virginity, breaking the bed in the process, and the next morning the audience is treated to the sight of Bella covered in bruises. Nifty plot device having her be a virgin when he's not, by the way. It buys into so much slut-shaming (which the Americans love) and notions of marriage as proprietorial over women's sexuality. Not to mention the fact that if Bella had had a bit of experience herself, she'd know that it is NOT FUCKING OKAY if someone beats you up while they're having sex with you. Sure, Edward's a supernatural character and 'can't help it', but how does that translate into real life for young girls who are starting to have semi-sexual relationships themselves? Shudder.

3b. So, the day after they've first slept together Edward sees the injuries he's inflicted on Bella and apologises profusely, asking her to forgive him (ummm, echoes of domestic violence, anyone?) As a result he refuses to have sex with her for the rest of the honeymoon. Which segueways into a really creepy montage of Bella posturing in ever-skimpier outfits, trying to seduce Edward. This culminates in a totally fucked up power play scenario whereby Bella, so starved of intimacy, ends up literally begging Edward to have sex with her. So it's like, he sleeps with her, injures her, withdraws all intimacy until she's begging him for affection, and then he relents and sleeps with her again; the inference being if he hurts her again, she's 'asked for it'. Nice.

4. When Bella finds out she's pregnant, Edward acts like it's a huge catastrophe (which I guess it kind of is when you consider she might be carrying a demon) (can't believe I just typed that sentence). But the general attitude towards Bella is 'this is all your fault you stupid, fertile, human. Now you're going to fuck things up for everyone by insisting on keeping this devil child. I'm going to call my dad and get him to sort it out.' Then Edward basically doesn't talk to Bella for the next third of the film. Except to say stuff like 'if having this baby kills you, then you've chosen to leave me. I haven't chosen that.' Woah, dude, newsflash - she can leave you whenever she wants. In fact, you're so clingy I can kind of understand why she's seriously considering death as her only way out.

5. This is a kind of an aside to the main point of the Bella/Edward relationship being totally messed up on just about every level. But early on in the film, Jacob's talking with other people in his pack (they're humans who can turn into wolves, okay?) about his longing to 'imprint' on someone. Then, for the audience's benefit and by way of illustration of what having imprinted on someone looks like, we're shown a whole bunch of couples (other pack members) snuggling on the beach like lovers. Cut to the birth of Edward and Bella's daughter (who's called Renesmee by the way. Say it. Is there any more ridiculous word? They kept saying it in the film until it was like, 'please stop saying Renesmee, it's so dumb') and Jacob, seeing the new baby girl 'imprints' on her. Isn't that weird? We'd all been lead to believe that 'imprinting' was wolf euphemism for mating for life. And now here's this guy in his late teens imprinting on a baby. Weirdddddd.

After having typed all that I feel like I've taken crazy pills. But there's a genuine concern here. Obviously vampires and demon babies and people who turn into wolves is fiction. But the Edward/Bella love story, has a universal resonance. Teenage girls are inevitably going to use it to inform their ideas about love and relationships, and they don't have the maturity or experience to know that this is actually a very subtly sado-masochistic fantasy, constructed to support a narrative about the occult. And not how 'real love' should be.

In fact research done by the NSPCC in 2010 suggested a quarter of girls aged 13 to 17 had experienced physical violence from a boyfriend and a third had been pressured into sexual acts they did not want. This is a demographic which is extremely vulnerable.

I've been a teenage girl. I've cried real, devastated tears upon finding out popstars and film stars I'd never meet were married or had girlfriends. The strength of a teenage girl's emotions and capacity for fantasy relationships and love affairs is not to be underestimated. So it's not outlandish to think there there'll be girls who'll read the Twilight books or see the films and think that if a guy wants to know your every move and thought, that's love. And if he rejects you because he 'doesn't want to hurt you', that's love. And if he makes you feel bad about you making autonomous decisions about your own body, it's because he really cares.

When in fact any of those behaviours needs to be filed under 'mind games' instantly before relegating the perpetrator to the annals of history as fast as possible.

I can feel you all rolling your eyes now like 'it's just a film, chill out'. And it's true. All this wouldn't be so bad if there was something else to balance it out. But there's not. This is the kind of insidious shit that's sold to the future women of the world. A helpless virgin who ends up having the life blood (literally) sucked out of her by some controlling guy in the name of true, eternal love.

And that is so depressing.

Time to turn the Twilight switch off I think.

Season's greetings.

2011-11-23T07:58:00.000-08:00

I wrote another thingamablog for The Writer about all these odd Christmas greetings I've been seeing everywhere.

It's up on their site now.

Now that the Coca Cola ad’s aired, the red cups are here, and the sponsored lights have been switched on, we can safely say the countdown has begun. But alongside these usual festive brand traditions, this year has seen the (immaculate?) birth of a new and strange trend in the shape of The Nonsensical Christmas Strapline.

Brands normally known for being good at writing seem to have been gripped by yuletide mind fever as soon as the fairy lights went up.

Take Gap’s greeting, ‘Joy It Up’. I know verbing nouns was pretty, like, street a few years ago, but is outdated festive yoof speak really what Gap’s all about? I feel like I need a little bit of context to frame this odd instruction apart from just the fact that it’s Christmas init?

There’s another bit of noun verbing here in Starbucks’ equally surreal incitement, ‘Let’s Merry’. Do you think maybe they were inspired by this traditional ballad from the time of Charles II? (Thanks Google.)

Now, since we’re met, let’s merry, merry be,
In spite of all our foes;
And he that will not merry be,
We’ll pull him by the nose.

Except that small but all important auxiliary ‘be’ is missing there at the end. Without which, it makes no sense. Who knows? Perhaps it’ll be clearer after another venti egg nog.

Sticking with coffee, and Costa’s comparatively boring effort, ‘Merry Costa’. Which is still nonsensical but at least we can see what they’re trying to do.

But am I being a bit bah humbug? How much does comprehension really matter when it comes to seasonal greetings? The season of goodwill is all about sentiment, not sense, right?

Now that we’re in full festive swing perhaps some other brands will take up the gobbledegook baton and it’ll start to get really weird. Let the silliness commence.

Merry Christmas.

Pointless female characters in films

2011-10-28T06:18:00.000-07:00

Every now and again I'll watch a film and notice a niggling feeling of irritation buzzing in the back of my brain, like a fly trapped in double glazing.

And the source of this irritation? The Pointless Female Character.

The PFC is a role shoehorned into a film for no other purpose than to give some substance to one of the other more prominent characters. Or to simply provide some sexy time. Usually completely unnecessarily.

Let's look at some of the worst offenders.

The wives in The Hangover(s)
Let's be honest. The only reason the male characters in The Hangover have wives and girlfriends is to to make sure everyone knows they're not gay, right?

The writers could just as easily have had all the guys celebrating a birthday or something. But then, they needed to construct a scenario where a group of men would be partying together, without women, yet with absolutely no ambiguity about their sexuality.

Does Bradley Cooper's character's wife even speak? Why does he need a wife? His marital status has no bearing on the plot whatsoever.

But in Hollywood it is NOT ON to leave a male lead's sexuality up for interpretation, even by simply omitting to give him a love interest.

So, The Hangover's writers wheeled out the trusty badges of heterosexuality that are the WAGs. Just to be on the safe side. Shame they don't say or do anything.

Tellingly, the only male of the group without a girlfriend is Zac Galifianakis' character, whom the writers have portrayed as a manchild with autism who lives with his parents. Way to be balanced.

Would you notice if they weren't in the film? The groom with the Mike Tyson face tattoo might just as well be marrying a Topshop mannequin. So, no.

What's the tenuous message? If you don't have a girlfriend you *might* be gay. And that is too dangerous a risk for the box office.

David Frost's girlfriend in Frost/Nixon
It's VERY IMPORTANT that you understand: David Frost was a playboy, okay?

Why is that important? I don't know, because the whole film is about him trying to get an interview with Richard Nixon and then actually interviewing Richard Nixon. How Frost's swordsmanship is relevant in any way to this story arc is presumably known only to the studio, who would have insisted on some bedroom action because ANY FILM WITHOUT SEX IS UNWATCHABLE. Even if it's a film about a journalist interviewing a president.

And what does Frost's love interest even do? Her character is so insignificant they haven't even bothered to give her a back story. One moment she's inexplicably sitting in first class on a flight to LA. The next, she's permanently shacked up with Frost in a hotel ordering him cheeseburgers. I wish my employers would be that understanding.

Would you notice if they weren't in the film? You barely even notice that she's IN the film.

What's the tenuous message? That the biggest political scoop of the 20th century is just one massive yawnsville unless someone's demonstrably getting laid.

Pretty much every Bond girl ever
I mean, for the most part you just have to look at the dated misogyny in the older Bond movies as an unfortunate side-effect of the era. Like flares, or moustaches. But it's especially disappointing to see the Pointless Female Character still appearing in the more recent films.

Take Gemma Arterton's Strawberry Fields in Quantum of Solace. She's literally only in it so that we can all see James getting a shag. You see, it's important to know that James can COMMAND poon the way Simon Cowell commands ratings otherwise how are we supposed to believe in his skill, cunning and heroics?

Bond undermines Fields for his own amusement and then draws the VIP-invite-to-despot's-mansion-party card and suddenly it's knickers to the floor.

Two acts later, she's dead.

Did we really need to see Bond coercing a colleague into sex after humiliating her just so he can accessorise his party tuxedo with a vagina?

I reckon the audience would've managed to follow the plot without that unpleasant diversion.

Would you notice if they weren't in the film? No

What's the tenuous message? Women = stupid and horny. Bond = minge whisperer.

Natalie Portman's mate in Thor
What is the point of her? Seriously. Is she just there so it's not weird that Portman's character has no mates and only hangs out with some older guy in that observatory?

Okay, I fell asleep during the middle so maybe she was significant in some way that I missed. But the parts I was awake for left me none the wiser as to what she was supposed to be doing there. Even Portman and that other guy's characters looked like they were all, 'seriously, who are you?'

Would you notice if they weren't in the film? No.

What's the tenuous message? If it was just Natalie Portman and her boss in that lab then the OBVIOUS inference would be that they were getting it on, even though it would be pushing the May to December envelope. Plus, old guy would be cuckolded by the mighty Thor and be rendered a sympathy figure for the audience, which would detract from the main point of the film - ie the otherworldy HOTNESS of the Thor/Portman pairing. An unthreateningly unattractive female sidekick is the perfect counterpoint to the dynamic.

So, to sum up. The Pointless Female Character does four things:

1. Proves that male leads aren't gay.
2. Sexualises non-sexy narrative.
3. Serves as a foil for the masculinity = misogyny trope.
4. De-sexualises an already non-romantic scenario in case there's any way it might be interpreted as romantic by stupid people.

The PFC - not that pointless after all? Or just a lazy device used by cowed writers at the behest of bullying studios?

Not sure. But if she disappeared for good, I wouldn't miss her.

Words endure

2011-10-17T03:29:00.001-07:00

Forgot to say, I wrote this thingamablog for The Writer the other week. It's about words and phrases still in use today, which have origins in Shakespeare's time.

Check it out

Over the last ten years our language has had to evolve more quickly than it’s ever had to before. As fast as people can invent those increasingly shiny and clever things everyone wants, we have to invent ever more bizarre words to describe them. Emails, iPods, blogs, tweets, instagrams, JPEGs, megapixels, Facebook. All nonsense. But all universally understood.

Blackberries and oranges are no longer just fruit. And an iPad is not something you wear after laser treatment for short-sightedness.

The English language is changing so quickly that even ‘new’ words and phrases are embarrassingly out of date within just a few years. Who even says ‘the World Wide Web’ anymore? Your gran, probably. And remember ‘minidiscs’? No? Me either.

So as I was ‘surfing’ the ‘information super highway’ I was heartened to stumble across this list of words and expressions, first published in 1699, from the Dictionary of the Canting Crew. They’ve survived the test of time and we still use them as much today as they did in Shakespeare’s time.

Oddly, the words that make up the definitions are so old fashioned that they themselves are almost obsolete. Although I think ‘underdrudge’ is surely due a resurrection.

Here are a few of my favourites.

(I especially like the random capitalisation and the definition for ‘Higgledy-piggledy’.)

Bacon, as he sav’d his Bacon – he has escaped with a whole Skin.
Bandy-legg’d – crooked.
Banter - a pleasant way of pratling which seems in earnest but is in jest, a sort of ridicule.
Bay windows – embowed, as of old, standing out from the rest of the Building.
Beside himself – distracted.
Birds of a feather – Rogues of the same gang, also those of the same Profession, Trade or Employment.
To kill two birds with one stone – to dispatch two Businesses at one Stroke.
Bite the biter – to Rob the Rogue or Cheat the Cheater.
Black and white – in writing.
Blind-mans-buff – a play us’d by Children blind-folded.
Blow hot and cold – play fast and loose.
Bode-ill – to presage or betoken ill.
Brow-beat – to Cow, to Daunt, to awe with Big looks, or snub.
Busy-bodies – Pryers into other Folks Concerns, such as thrust their Sickle in another’s Harvest.
He knows which side his Bread is butter’d – in his own interest.
Carrots – Red Haired people.
A Man of character – of Mark or Note.
Chare-woman – Underdrudges or Taskers, assistants to Servantmaids.
How cheap you make yourself – how Contemptible you render your self or undervalue your self.
Cheer up – be of good courage, keep up the spirits.
Chip off the old block – a Son that is his Father’s likeness, more particularly the Son of a Cooper.
Close-confident – a trusty Bosom friend.
Coals to Newcastle – when the Drawer carries away any Wine in the Pot or Bottle.
In cold blood – when the heat of war or Passion is over.
Cross-patch – a Peevish forward Person.
Not cut out for it – not turned for it.
Every dog will have his day – none so wretched as has his good Planet.
Egg one on – to prick him on, or to provoke or stir him up.
Eves-dropper – one that skulks, lurks or lies under his Neighbor’s Window or Door.
Gad up and down – to Fidle and Fisk, to run a gossiping.
A gust of wind – a short sudden furious blast.
Higgledy-piggledy – all together, as Hoggs and Piggs lie Nose in Arse.
Hold his nose to the grindstone – to keep him Under.
To nip in the bud – to crush anything at the beginning.
Out-at-heels – in a declining condition.
Pay through the nose – Excessively or with Extortion.
From pillar to post – from Constable to Constable.
To smell a rat – to suspect a Trick.
Give him enough rope and he’ll Hang himself – he’ll Decoy himself within his own Destiny.
Troll-about – saunter, loiter, wander about.
Wet your whistle – to Liquor your Throat.

(From shakespearesengland.com)

Bestival 2011, baby!

2011-09-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

So I went to Bestival to cover it for Don't Panic. No big deal*.

Read about it all here

Bestival

Or below...

xx

*It was totally an awesome big deal.

Pics by Elliot Bland.

Saving the best for last, Don’t Panic saw out the close of the festival season at Bestival. We got ourselves on that ferry, braved the wind and rain and lived it up with some of the best bands and musicians on tour this festival season. We stuck two fingers up to the rain and threw on some silly hats, to wrap the party up in style.

Tributes to Winehouse and Mercury, ready to party

And there were some fascinating interpretations of the word ‘style’ in evidence over the weekend. Apart from being Rob Da Bank’s baby, and boasting some of the most diverse and exciting line ups of any European festival, Bestival is most famous for being the biggest fancy dress party ever. Faithfully adhering to the Rockstars, Popstars and Divas theme, there were Lady Gagas and meat dresses a-plenty.

Freddy Mercury’s drag incarnation from ‘I Want To Break Free’ was also a popular costume choice, vacuum cleaner included; as were sartorial tributes to the peerless Amy Winehouse. Going slightly off brief (literally and figuratively) was a baffling abundance of Bubbles De Vere-esque naked suits, recalling nylon tights stuffed with the wood shavings from the bottom of hamster cages. Some things you just can’t un-see.

Dry The River

But on to the music! We were lucky to have Right Guard helping us to get up close and personal with the most exciting new acts at the festival. Not only by keeping us fragrant and pleasant to be around despite the mud and the grime, but also by hosting their exclusive Off Guard gigs out of the back of their camper van which has been the stage for some of the most intimate sets at this summer’s festivals up and down the country. Dry The River’s acoustic set, with their classically trained folk-rock punk grunginess, took us back to our student days and a time of roll ups and cups of tea. A time when your mates’ bedroom gigs were cheaper than going out. And often better.

Kelis on the Main Stage

Grime MC and rapper Wretch 32 showed his sensitive side with a heartfelt rendition of his hit 'Don’t Go'. The Best Line in a Song Ever has to go to his breakthrough tune, though: "My lifestyle’s terribly wild/ You’ll never catch me on the Jeremy Kyle show", had the 2am Bestival crowd singing along during his performance of ‘Traktor’, as they partied oblivious to the rain and wind battering the site.There was some heavyweight hip hop royalty present over the weekend too, with appearances from Grandmaster Flash and the incomparable Public Enemy. Member Chuck D had some old school lessons for those flash mavericks Kanye and Jay Z, reminding them to keep it real and suggesting they change the record once in a while. When you’re skint in a recession, maybe no one wants to hear about your Bentleys, boys (we’ve all got 99 problems and being rich ain’t one).

As Kelis was getting everybody hot under the collar over at the main stage –“I’m not here to entertain you, I’m here to pleasure myself” - the much more innocent Frankie and the Heartstrings were sweetly serenading those over at the Right Guard van with their acoustic version of their track ‘Hunger’.

Magnetic Man

Dubstep quartet Magnetic Man argued amongst themselves about whether Bestival is the best festival in Europe or just the UK, talked about taking over the airwaves and the world via their Radio One Hijack and lamented how their album could have been even bigger if it weren’t for that pesky Robbie Williams and Cliff Richard.

And popping their Isle of Wight cherries in the back of Right Guard’s van were Los Campesinos! who told how their latest album was inspired by the heartbreak of being dumped. What with the oversharing, the intimate sets, the necessary proximity in the confined space of the van, and the end of summer, it’s been emotional. Thanks Bestival, see you next year. We’re off to stuff some nylon tights…

Mr Motivator (don't ask)

If you want to see more of Right Guard’s Off Guard at Bestival gigs, go to their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.

New John B bio

2011-08-26T05:50:00.000-07:00

Woot! This was a fun job. Electro drum and bass superstarrrrr John B asked me to write him a new bio and I was delighted to oblige.

Check it out on his site here:

John-B.com

Relentless Energy Drink Boardmasters Festival

2011-08-22T11:56:00.001-07:00

My review of the recent Boardmasters event at Newquay is up on Don't Panic here's the link.

Or read it here now.

(Pics by the very gorgeous Elliot Bland)

At the end of a heavy week which saw most of the country’s biggest cities in flames, it was nice to see thousands of young people organise themselves in one place, not to do over a JD Sports, but to have fun. And there was lots of it to be had at Boardmasters. We found ourselves in the beautiful English countryside of Cornwall where the holiday town Newquay hosted the Relentless Energy Drink Boardmasters surf and skate festival, for a few days of riotous revelry of a different variety.

First up were the Stereo MCs on the main stage. They’d wisely ditched the double denim look that defined their 90s heyday and had likewise eschewed their old electronic dance sound for a rockier, soul infused set. They sounded brilliant, with Rob Birch suited and booted on lead guitar. The size and enthusiasm of the crowd was a testament to their enduring ability to connect with the audience (sorry, couldn’t resist).

Stereo MCs

Then it was over to the Relentless Energy Drink stage to check out the ethereal and complex German artist, I Am Harlequin. For someone who’s only been performing in public since February, she really owned the stage and gave a fantastic, prepossessed performance.

Also a producer, composer, lyricist, screenwriter, remixer, Anne Freier’s biggest project right now is her incarnation as I Am Harlequin. Post-show she said that she’d spent about a year and a half writing and developing what she called, with fierce German efficiency, ‘the product’, before tailoring her band around her songs, fitting perfectly with her creative vision. If ever there was someone who knows exactly what she wants and how to make it happen, it’s I Am Harlequin.

I am Harlequin - The King's Daughter

Another lovely surprise from the Relentless Energy Drink stage was the esoterically titled The Violet May. As a guitar band from Sheffield, it was tempting to just write them off as another Arctic Monkeys indie soundalike. But no. Their sound is like nothing else around at the moment. Being almost a bit punk with some Jeff Beck references thrown in there alongside a bit of The Clash, The The and any other dirty, Jack Daniels-for-breakfast rock band where you actually get proper guitar solos. Massive, noisy and very nice.

The Violet May

There’s always a good time to listen to dubstep and there was no better time or place than 7.30pm in a Cornish field as the sun was going down. Sub Focus took to the main stage and kicked everyone’s evening off with some bowel-trembling bass music, sprinkled with some of the biggest tracks from his most recent album. After his set he mentioned some ‘very exciting news’ that you’re not allowed to know about just yet. His rising star is about to become a sun. Or something. That metaphor sucks. Watch this space though.

Crowd enjoying Sub Focus

So onto the surf competition that provided the backdrop for all this revelry. By Saturday night the competition had already been won, with France’s Romaine Cloitre taking the Relentless Energy Drink Boardmasters title for surfing. Antoine Delpero continued France’s winning streak alongside California’s Jennifer Smith, with each of them taking the men’s and women’s ASP Tuaca Longboard Pro 2011 titles respectively.

Surfer dude

The campfire sing song was lead by the hugely energetic Lethal Bizzle, who gave up on the mic during ‘Police On My Back’ and let the hyped-up crowd take over the lyrics for a bit. A topical choice, I guess. And providing the heat with which to toast the marshmallows of everyone’s hearts and bring the festival to a close was an exemplary set from the mysterious Jaguar Skills. He brought the festival to the close, scratching, remixing, editing and chopping between Snoop Dogg, Kaiser Chiefs, Pendulum, House of Pain and Other Great Crowd Favourites.

Lethal Bizzle chillng out

Then it was back to the tent to invite the lapping tide of sleep to wash over us. Except sleep never came. Because we’d all had too much energy drink.

Thanks to Relentless Energy Drink at Boardmasters and Radiator PR for a great weekend in Newquay. See you all next year.

Smile and wave

2011-07-20T02:04:00.000-07:00

Very excited to be covering this festival in a couple of week's time for Don't Panic. Here's a 'lil preview I wrote about what you can look forward to. Or miss out on. Depending on whether you're going or not.

Here's the link to Don't Panic's site.

Oh we do all love to be beside the seaside don’t we? Fish and chips, ice creams, donkey rides… and The Biggest Surf, Skate and Music Festival in the UK.

Those hyperactive board bunnies over at Relentless Energy Drink have teamed up with Vans to bring you Relentless Energy Boardmasters - a four day long event of sun, sea, and surfing alongside a huge line up of artists that reads like a very naughty postcard indeed.

Newquay is where it will all be kicking off down in Cornwall this August. From the 10th to the 14th, Relentless Energy Drink is taking over gorgeous Fistral Beach and Watergate Bay and keeping everyone up all night. The legendary Fatboy Slim is headlining, and joining him will be the aptly named Jaguar Skills; everyone’s favourite connectors, the Stereo MCs; and the maybe infinitive-splitting but definitely excellent, DJ Yoda.

Once you’ve wrestled yourself out of your wetsuit, you might also want to head on over to the Relentless Energy Drink stage where you can shake the sand out of bits you didn’t even know you had to the cleverly stupid art punk outfit, Art Brut, and the super high-energy nine piece of Gentleman’s Dub Club; as well as others including The Violet May, Urban Knights, and The Skints.

Whether you’re into skating, surfing, and BMX, or even if you just like listening to nice tunes in skimpy swimwear; head on down, the surf’s up.

If you’re not into any of those things then you must be dead inside and not even a high sugar, caffeinated fizzy drink can help you.

See you on the beach.

We demand cake and fine wine!

2011-05-09T08:10:00.000-07:00

My interview with Richard E Grant is up on Don't Panic's site now:

Here's the link to the article on Don't Panic's site.

“We demand the finest wines available to humanity!” That must surely sound familiar, even to those with only the shallowest interest in cinema.

The excellent and seminal Withnail & I spawned not only the biggest quote-off amongst students up and down the country for the past two decades, but also the career of the sublime Richard E Grant, who this week will be announcing his involvement in a competition sponsored by British Airways to find the next rising star in British film-making. Ironically, he’s actually allergic to alcohol.

The winning entrant will develop their script under Grant’s tutelage and produce a short film, which will then be shown on board all BA long haul flights and, thrillingly, at the Olympic Games opening ceremony; offering a combined audience of, oh, only most of the world.

On the day of this interview Richard E Grant is in a serious mood, yet despite having spent all morning in a windowless meeting room on what will be the hottest day of the year so far, there is still a sense of mischief about him.

“There’s somebody whistling in the background, can you just ask them to shut up?” interrupts Grant. Someone is quickly despatched to find the offending whistler and put a cork in them.

“I hate whistling. Stop fucking whistling. Jesus Christ! Is there anything more naff than whistling? Winking and whistling are the two things I could take a machete to,” he says completely straight-faced but with twinkling blue eyes betraying an appetite for Withnail-ish maniacal absurdity.

“Anyway,” Grant resumes, “we’ve gone off piste.”

Over a quarter of a century ago Daniel Day Lewis turned down the part of Withnail to work on The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Richard E Grant was cast in his place. What followed that serendipitous turn of events has been a career spanning three decades during which time Grant has been actor, writer, director and producer.

“I’ve got enough experience and know what not to do as much as anything so hopefully I’ll be able to help somebody through that process. Writing and directing my own film and having gone through the 26 drafts I know that you’ve got to be open to other peoples’ input and accommodate work around that. Hopefully I’ll be able to help. That’s the theory.”

So apart from absence of whistling and winking, what will he be looking for in the potential winning script?

“Something that’s original and extraordinary and hopefully brilliant,” is his reply. “You usually know within 5 to 10 pages whether something’s going to hold your attention or not. The advantage of a short script is that you’ve got to be very clear and precise about what you’re doing. Whereas over 100 pages of script – 100 minutes of screen time – it’s a bigger opportunity for people to waffle on or get lost”.

Grant likens scripts to online dating, “I know people who have been on internet dates, they meet somebody and see them across the room and think ‘Oh God no’; it’s pretty similar with a script, you make a decision very, very fast. And it may be entirely inaccurate but you go on your instinct. I’m always struck by the fact that you make big decisions about where you’re going to live or if you fall in love with somebody, that may involve a whole lifetime or all the money that you’ve never had; you make those decisions much more quickly than you would decide what book you’re going to buy from Waterstone’s for example.”

Instinct and fortune are valuable ingredients in the recipe for success, equal to talent and good old hard graft. But the first knack to master is spotting the right opportunities in the first place.

“I know that in my case if Daniel Day Lewis had done Withnail & I 26 years ago I wouldn’t be sitting here now,” says Grant.

“But it’s given me almost every job I’ve had subsequently, as a result of that so I’m indebted to it.”

”Whether you’re successful or not has always been luck of the draw as much as perseverance and ambition. And everybody knows really talented people who just haven’t had the break. So I think that the opportunity to mentor somebody on this programme and give them a platform such as being shown on BA flights and at the Olympic ceremony is an unbelievable opportunity; that in the midst of the recession there’s something like this. There’s always an opportunity somewhere, it’s just finding what it is.”

“Hopefully the short film that somebody makes for this programme will be the one lucky break and lead them onto much bigger things. And hopefully employ me in the future. Yes! Mentor somebody and think ‘Now that I’ve helped you; reciprocate’. It’s the long game, the big picture! Why not?”

In the run up to the London 2012 Games, British Airways is offering career defining opportunities to three talented Brits in the fields of food, film and art, with mentoring from Heston Blumenthal, Richard E Grant and Tracey Emin. For entry details, visit ba.com/greatbritons

More Shoe Horn Nonsense

2011-05-06T05:08:00.000-07:00

Link here.

With Osama Bin Laden’s body still warm, and his media profile hotter than ever, a bidding war has broken out between OK! magazine and Wikileaks for the rights to publish the first exclusive pictures of his bullet mangled corpse.

Between them, the two media leviathans have been first to get in on exclusive snaps from the likes of Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ wedding, images from a bombing raid killing Iraqi civilians and children, and many of Jordan’s before and after surgery results.

In its desperation to nail the scoop of the year, seasoned rag, OK!, is using increasingly aggressive tactics to secure exclusive rights to the bearded weirdo’s posthumous pics to prevent ‘new kid on the block’, Wikileaks, getting there first.

Owner, Richard Desmond, has been courting Obama and White House officials, reportedly sending signed copies of Katie Price’s seventh volume of her autobiography as a sweetner.

OK! Magazine's Richard Desmond claims Osama has gone from the most wanted list to the A-list
“He was America’s most wanted man when he was alive, but now the whole world wants a piece of him,” said Desmond of Bin Laden’s surging popularity.

“To have an Osama cover would be a dream scoop for OK!. It would shift more copies than the Brangelina twins or Kerry Katona on a fun-run.”

Hot on OK!’s heels, however, is Wikileaks editor, Julian Assange:

“The biggest question that’s on everyone’s lips is: who was he wearing when he died? If it was Alexander McQueen, that is going to blow everyone’s minds…if you’ll pardon the pun.”

Author Andrew Morton, who penned the best-selling biography of Diana, Princess of Wales, is already said to be in talks with Desmond and Assange about a potential publishing deal for his unauthorised biography of the enigmatic aeronautical enthusiast. The hope being that it will hit shelves before Katie Price can find the body – now believed to be 150km out in the Arabian Sea – and marry it.

Assange Does A Marr?

2011-05-03T07:32:00.000-07:00

My debut piece of nonsense for The Shoe Horn here:

Link here.

A super injunction granted to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been reproduced in full on his own infamous website.

The court order – gagging press from reporting on a new allegation of sexual impropriety brought by former Big Brother contestant, Imogen Thomas – appeared on the site last night and quickly spread, trending on twitter within minutes of publication.

Sources close to the silver haired secret-pedaller say lawyers fighting Assange’s extradition to Sweden – to answer a separate case of impropriety – applied to the courts ahead of the bank holiday weekend to ask for the gagging order.

The busty, brunette reality-TV-contestant-turned-underwear-model claims she had sex with Assange under duress from PR guru, Max Clifford, who represents both Assange and Thomas.

Courts were minded to grant the super injunction after deciding that the defence of public interest did not apply, given that there has long since ceased to be any public interest in former Big Brother contestants.

Assange pauses briefly outside Belmarsh magistrates to do a freakishly good impersonation of Mr Humphries from popular BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?
It’s unclear whether the document was published by Assange himself or whether its appearance on the site is an act of malicious mischief by another source, but the timing of its surfacing is suspicious.

Fellow super injunctee, Andrew Marr, has seen his popularity and man points sky-rocket in recent days since he admitted he’d managed to pull someone slutty enough to want to sell a story on him.

“Journalists, especially political ones, are such a dull, ugly bunch,” said a friend of the lady-killer.

“What with the Guardian winning that press award for its Wikileaks scoop and the US being too busy violating Bradley Manning’s human rights to bother with fabricating any more rape charges, Julian was getting a little worried that the Assange brand was losing its sex appeal.”

Assange, whose name is a variation on the French word for ‘monkey’, could not be reached for comment at the time of writing as he is currently covering the royal honeymoon, the location of which is, unsurprisingly, a secret.

Thanks, Men's Health. Now you can be selfish AND rapey!

2011-05-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

Out of casual curiosity I was flicking through the May issue of Men's Health magazine recently; interested to see whether health magazines targeted at guys are full of the same kind of advocacy of self-loathing and insidious pressure to conform to 'sexy = slim' tropes as women's 'health' magazines are. (To wit, just a couple of the cover stories from two of May's women's health publications: Top Sante, 'Why eating fast could make you fat'; and Women's Health, 'Look hot from behind'.)

So, are they?

Well, no, Men's Health doesn't seem to actively advocate self-loathing, taking a more impartial, educational tack with instructions and practical advice for exercising without any value judgement attached to body shape or individual results.

But disappointingly, just like its female counterparts, yes, Men's Health does encourage and nurture the insidious pressure to conform to the slim = sexy trope. Except the targets of this pressure espoused by the content within are not the male readers, but their female partners.

The following feature written by Kamin Mohammadi uses the conceit of a survey layout, invoking dubious statistics and research findings to support suggestions as to how readers can get their girlfriends to acquiesce to all of their sexual peccadilloes by employing stealth coercion techniques and more overt tactics that will in all likelihood, if practised in real life, scare the shit out of her.

Men, Men’s Health is not your friend! They are the relationship advice equivalent of some guy in his thirties who still lives with his parents and whose main interaction with the opposite sex is online role player gaming.

Here’s why…

Men’s Health says:
‘Tip the scales for better sex.’

Interesting turn of phrase there, ‘tip the scales’, no? There’s definitely an undercurrent of ‘Show her who’s boss!’, throughout this piece. ‘Men, tilt the balance of power in the relationship dynamic in your favour, because women are nagging harridans and men are just pussy whipped pussies who are sick of her having everything her own way and…’, yawn…I’ve bored myself already with the predictability of the script.

Men’s Health says:
Whose libido dictates when you have sex?

Testosterone driven man = higher libido right? Not so. If anything the pace of modern life swings the balance in her favour: a Mumsnet poll found that when women have less time for sex they're more self-centred in bed.

‘A Mumsnet poll’ is the only source evidence given for this spurious statement, so with equally scientific rigour I spent a couple of hours browsing the relationships forum on the Mumsnet website and found posts from women discussing their desire to have more sex as well as from women complaining that their partners wanted sex more often than they did. In all the threads I read I saw nothing to support the argument that the ‘pace of modern life swings in her favour’. In fact in nearly all the threads I read it seemed that when women have less time for sex it’s because they are busy raising children, often working too, and doing the lion’s share of the housework – favourable indeed, lucky them!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
All you need to do is grab a coffee. The same poll also revealed a shortfall in pillow time makes her more likely to experiment so, with a little persuasion, you can even out the kicks. Get her to try things your way by adding a little froth. A study carried out at the University of Queensland in Australia found that caffeine makes us much more open to persuasion. And it's been shown to increase female sex drive. Two lattes to go please.

“Get her to try things your way”? Really? “…caffeine makes us more open to persuasion…”? Gross. So is this what is meant by the ‘pace of modern life swinging in her favour’? The precious little time she has after having worked all day, done the ironing, and fed, washed and put kids to bed, is spent with her partner trying to shove coffee down her throat in an effort to make it even more about him?

Hang on, the phone’s ringing… It’s 1950 on the line *passes phone to Men’s Health*.

Men’s Health says:
Is foreplay focused mainly on her or you?

The most common complaint I hear is 'He doesn't engage in much foreplay' says Dr Diana Wiley from the Seattle Institute for Sex Therapy. Yet according to a new survey carried out by lovestruck.com, in 58% of couples it's the woman who receives more attention during foreplay.

Shut up Dr Diana Wiley! What do you and your formal qualifications and the Seattle Institute for Sex Therapy know about foreplay anyway? This dating website says you are wrong!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
To make sure some of that is coming back your way, press your whole body against hers; whole body contact intensifies excitement and will turn her on to paying attention to your body. According to Wiley, giving her 17 minutes of foreplay is optimum to ensure that you hit her gratitude levels.

You’ll probably want to warn her you’re intending to pin her to the bed with your whole body weight before you do it otherwise, as soon as she can breathe again, her gratitude will be immediately forthcoming in the form of her running towards the nearest exit. As for 17 minutes, can we not at least round it up to an even 20…?

Men’s Health says:
Whose media tastes influence her expectations?

Carrie Bradshaw has a lot to answer for. 'Women have learned through the media to demand good sex' says Pennant. A study by the university of Michigan found reading women's magazines makes her more ‘sexually assertive'. Translation: more work for you.

GOD FORBID men should ever have to work at seducing a woman. Damn Sex And The City for filling women’s heads with all sorts of nonsense about sexual assertion and female agency. (Although let’s not forget that in the movie, Carrie ends up marrying a man who jilted her at the altar – positive depiction? Possibly not.)

And what about those interfering women’s magazines, twisting ladies' minds with all sorts of feminist shit about how sex should be good…? Well worry not because May’s issue of Cosmopolitan magazine carries the cover story, ‘Men’s sex secrets: Can you handle the truth?’.

See! Silly men, scared that women were only thinking of themselves. As Cosmopolitan says, it’s what men are thinking that’s important!

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
Ask her to watch pornography with you, by heading to erikalust.com, which specialises in girl friendly titles. 'The imagery can free couples up to think about what they would like to do', says Pennant.

Never mind whether she’s into porn in the first place. Don’t even bother to check, it’s not important. What’s important is that you get her to do what you want by asking her to watch things you think she ought to watch.

After all, I’m sure it would never had occurred to her to watch porn at all if you hadn’t suggested it!

Men’s Health says:
When you share fantasies, whose get played out more often?
'Dopamine the brain's chemical responsible for arousal needs novelty', says Wiley. Our survey revealed when fantasies are played out, in 68% of cases they're hers not yours.

Ahh, ‘novelty’. Women: be wary of doing too much of what you like and are comfortable with in the bedroom lest this should ever wear off.

Men’s Health says:
RESTORE THE BALANCE
Load up your laptop. If she's unsure about acting out your fantasy explore it through online forums or pornography to bring her round to the idea. Research by psychologist Robert Cialdini found that when people are unsure how to act, they're more likely to follow what they see to be the accepted social norm. God bless the internet.

‘See darling, loads of people are into Hentai tentacle porn, they’re all doing it. What are you worried about, are you frigid or something?’.

God bless the internet? Or, God save men’s print media?

New Bones Magazine Issue out now! Here's my article...

2011-04-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

Link here.

There has always been an inherent tension between the law and artistic expression. One seeks to impose a mechanism of governing authority over society’s actions, i.e. make it do something; the other seeks, through the deliberate arrangement of symbolic elements, to provoke a visceral response, i.e. make it feel something. Historically, the way that art has always achieved this to best effect is by breaking with society’s conventions, overstepping the boundaries of decency or finding creative currency in the taboo.

But while art and crime have always been enthusiastic bedfellows – (if not outright shagging each another then definitely flirting inappropriately) - in this multi-media age, we find ourselves a long way from a time when the reddish pink earlobe of John Singer Sargent’s subject in Madame X; or even the more recent unmade Bed of Tracey Emin, was able to shock. Increasingly it seems to be more about the context than the content of a piece of art that determines whether it’s the wrong side of naughty.
Much more interesting than the fucking tired debate over whether graffiti is art or vandalism is the fact that it’s free; in both senses of the word; like, it costs nothing and is at liberty to go wherever it wants – usually illegal places like private property. Its meaning is as much to do with the illegal act of its creation as it is to do with its message. Most of the time if we want to see a movie for free, or get an album for free we have to commit a criminal act of piracy to do it. By committing criminal acts themselves, graffiti artists make it so that we can enjoy their art with impunity.

Would we have ever heard of Shelley or Byron were it not for the facilitating vices of opium and hookers? Would the Sex Pistols have simply turned out to be another Status Quo dad band if Sid hadn’t shanked Nancy? And it’s not just the artists that can be illegal either. Sometimes the art itself is the transgressor - Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a much better work of erotica when no one was allowed to read it – and sometimes art is the defence - from Izima Kaoru’s studies of rape and murder to the Chapman Brothers’ sexualisation of children. Art can provide a safe filter through which it’s possible to confront difficult subject matter.

The fact is, everything’s just more fun when it’s illicit, isn’t it? Food, sex, art, bootlegged tunes, shoplifted couture... When you’re breaking all the rules it’s worth remembering: when it comes to art, if it doesn’t feel wrong, you’re not doing it right.

New Issue of Bones Magazine...

2011-04-18T09:36:00.001-07:00

...will be out soon. Meantime, here's a little tease:

5 Male Love Interests From Movies, Who Are Supposedly Desirable But Would Make Shit Boyfriends In Real Life

2011-04-11T01:47:00.001-07:00

1. Big in Sex And The City
In case you're hazy on the whole 'standing you up on your wedding day and publicly humiliating you' thing; it's a deal breaker, FYI. Especially if his reason is that 'he didn't want to walk up the aisle in front of all those people'. What a fass. It's not as if, in the film, he didn't have, like, months and months to say to Carrie 'I'm not sure about this massive wedding actually'. Oh, but he didn't want to spoil her fun planning the big day, so he waited until she was at the altar and jilted her instead. Nice.

2. Michael Carrington in Grease 2
How creepy is this guy? He stalks Stephanie for months, finds out what she's into and then becomes all those things. Shudder. It's like, 'Hey, I wanted to know what kind of stuff you like so I went through your bins and saw that there were some pizza boxes in there so I've bought us some flights to Rome and I've changed my name by deed poll to Gianni da Vinci. Will you go out with me?'

3. Adrian Grenier's whiny, passive aggressive character in The Devil Wears Prada
Andy (Anne Hathaway), an aspiring writer, gets a shitty, entry level job at the biggest women's fashion magazine in the world. Her boyfriend, Nate, instead of being happy for her; instead of saying 'sure, your long hours suck but just get your head down, do it for a year by which time you'll have enough experience to leave and get a less shitty position on a proper newspaper'; instead of supporting her when she's so obviously being bullied by her boss, sulks passive aggressively throughout the movie, making digs about her clothes and appearance, and stone walling her.

The more glamorous she becomes, the more he dislikes her job because it means she's no longer the dowdy, geeky girl who's grateful to be going out with him. Jealous, spiteful, manipulative, yet he's considered her reward at the end of the film for doing what he wants by jacking in her passport to her career.

Luckily because it's the movies, she still manages to get the dream job at the end, but the dream man? Nope.

4. Nick Curran in Basic Instinct
In every sex scene, the time between first kiss to ejaculation is, on average, about 2 minutes. And Sharon Stone's character STILL falls in love with him? I guess psychopathic murdering women love premature ejaculators. The rest of us? Not so much.

5. Edward Cullen in Twilight
If you woke up in the middle of the night to find your boyfriend sitting in the corner of your bedroom watching you sleep, would you:

A. find it romantic?
B: shit yourself and apply for a restraining order?

The correct answer is B, by the way.

The A-Z of Corporate Wank

2011-02-12T09:06:00.000-08:00

A is for Action
To ram the turgid square peg of a noun into the dry and chafing round hole of a verb resulting in an awkward mouthful and everyone involved wishing it hadn’t happened.
See also: ASAP

B is for Blue Sky Thinking
Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:  The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows  
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.
Rather than words comes the thought of the last verse of Philip Larkin’s poem, with its description of space as being as vapid and meaningless as this phrase.
See also: Bottom out

C is for Cascading Information
Or you could, just, you know, tell people.
See also: Church (broad)

D is for Ducks in a Row
It’s as if the Mayor of WTF was visiting on the day corporate land said to itself, “What wouldn’t be obtuse or confusing at all is if we had a longer, more metaphorical way of saying ‘be ready’.”

E is for Envelope
Not the tangible paper ones that you stuff; no, I’m talking about the abstract conceptual ones that you ‘push’. Most people think this expression means to be at the vanguard of new and original ideas and practises, but they’re wrong. Actually the correct definition is: ‘To rehash the same tired shite that someone else did much better about five years ago’.
See also: End of play

F is for Fly it up the Flag Pole
I can think of another ‘F’ you can do to your flagpole. And you can ‘F’ off while you’re doing it too.
See also: Flesh out

G is for Going Forwards
Why use one word when you can use two? The word you’re looking for is ‘progress’ by the way, but your use of ‘going forwards’ demonstrates your distinct lack thereof. Back to 1986 with you!
See also: Granular

H is for Holistic
“You mean like knitting your own muesli, astrological homeopathy? It’s different, but I don’t NOT like it…”
“Oh, you meant doing TV AND online. Again.”

I is for Ideation
Let’s ideate with the lights off and then we can experientialise our cogitation in complete comfortability.
See also: Incentivise; Impactful

J is for Jargon
Jargon? Jog on.

K is for Keep Our Powder Dry
I get where this came from; like, if you were preparing to go into battle you wouldn’t want your gun powder all soggy, etc, etc. But bringing war analogies into the corporate world feels a little bit World of Warcraft-y. How paranoid are you anyway, Gandalf?
See also: KPIs

L is for Low Hanging Fruit
This expression always, always makes me think of men’s dangling ball bags; so I guess if you want people to think you’re talking bollocks, keep on using it.
See also: Leverage

M is for Myers Briggs
“Yah, I’m an INTJ type”
“Really? I would have said more like U-C-N-T”
See also: Managing expectations; Meeting room etiquette

N is for Niche
Exactly the same as mainstream but with a different logo and font.
See also: Net result

O is for Offline
‘Let’s take this offline’, or rather ‘Let’s talk about this in person rather than emailing each other from 3 feet away, because then I can say whatever negligent and offensive thing I like and no one can prove it’.
See also: Obfuscation

P is for Paradigm
When talking about the way things were then and the way things are now, using the word ‘paradigm’ makes those things sound important, even if they aren’t.
See also: Professionality

Q is for Qualitative
You can’t argue with Quantitative data – numbers are numbers. But calling something qualitative immediately lends legitimacy to whatever made up adducement you are trying to retro fit to your flimsy argument.

R is for Radar
A conceptual instrument used to measure the inverse relationship between an individual’s importance and the amount of time spent visible on it.

S is for Strategic
Invoked as a reason for doing something for no otherwise discernable reason.

T is for Touch Base
‘Base’ as in the lowest common denominator; sub-standard, below par, uncivilised? Because this is that. Besides, if I want you to touch my base, you’ll know.
See also: Topline

U is for Usage and Attitude
Otherwise asked daily by laymen of one another thusly; “Do you like it?”
See also: Understanding (gaining of)

V is for Video Conferencing
Also known as ‘pissing around with wires and ‘phone pods’ in a boardroom for 20 minutes while everyone stares at a frozen image of someone in an identical boardroom in another country before giving up and calling Phil the IT guy, who just patches you all onto a call and you’ll just have to send the powerpoint presentation over on email afterwards’.
See also: Verbalise

W is for Workflow
Or, to give it its proper name, ‘being busy’.

X is for X Communication
Ha, you sent me an email about that thing just as I was sending you an email about the same thing! I guess we should have a phrase for what just happened there to afford it more importance than it warrants huh?

Y is for Yes
What you should always say to everything, even if you mean no.
(NB: only applies to corporate wank, not sexual relations obvs)

Z is for Zero
Nothing. I got nothing for Z, but cut me some slack hey? I think I did pretty good with ‘X’, and what?

Thai Journalism Project

2011-01-12T01:56:00.000-08:00

I got interviewed for some local newspaper in Scotland(?) about my time as a volunteer in Thailand. The full Q&A is up on the NGO's website here: http://www.kayavolunteer.com/testimonials/id/3

- Tell us about your experiences with Kaya (sign up process, preparation, etc)
I found it very straightforward and simple. The staff at Kaya were in regular communication with me and were very knowledgeable about Thailand's customs and culture. I felt very reassured by Kaya and able to put my trust in the fact that the whole process would be well organised and I would be well supported while I was out there.

The process of signing up was easy, and I had the freedom to book my own flights and have some flexibility with my arrival and departure dates, which was fantastic for me because I was on a round the world trip at the time.

- Tell us what made you choose that particular project/country?
I chose the journalism project in Chiang Mai, Thailand, because I am a freelance writer in my spare time back here in the UK. However, I still consider myself very much an amateur and wanted to get some proper journalistic experience, working for a news agency in a real newsroom, dealing with weighty subjects like drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle and Burmese politics. The fact that the project was in Thailand was great as I love Thailand and had visited before, but for me it was about the journalistic experience and I would have chosen to do that project regardless of where in the world it was based.

- Tell us about your experience in your accommodation (homestay)
I was a little bit apprehensive about the homestay. On the one hand I was really keen to have as authentic an experience as possible, but I was also anxious about whether they would like me and whether I'd like them. I like to have my own space when I'm at home and I was worried I might feel obliged to stand on ceremony. I also wasn't sure what to expect in terms of living standards - would there be a western style toilet? Could I have a hot shower? Etc...

As it turned out, all my fears were completely unfounded. My host family were lovely and very relaxed and laid back; which is truly the Thai way! Their house was very modern with flushing toilet (yay!), internet, TV, all the usual mod cons. Sharing their family life was a really enjoyable part of the experience. Despite being in a country where the culture is very different to the West, I found that there were many more similarities in our day-to-day lives than there were differences. We'd all eat together in the evening, sometimes I helped the daughters with their English homework, and then we'd watch terrible Thai soap operas on TV or head out to the mall or each do our separate things in our rooms. I felt very welcome and well looked after. Plus, my host mother was an amazing cook!

- Tell us about your role in your project.
At first I acted as a support to the English editor. She was a trainee journalist from Shan State in Burma and already had excellent written and spoken English, but was a little unsure about how to structure a story so that it had the biggest impact. I'd correct any spelling and grammatical errors and suggest ways we could structure the article so that it flowed better and was written in a simple enough way that laymen in the international community - who made up a large proportion of the readership - would be able to understand the very complex and arcane issues of Burmese politics.

During my time there I also slipped into a kind of consultative role. My background is in advertising and although I'd been viewing the trip as a career break, I ended up putting my advertising skills to use at the news agency, suggesting ways they could refresh their brand and communicate it through different digital and social networking channels so that it could build its presence as a media brand in the far east and the wider global community. We even went so far as to look at redesigning their logo! It was a lot of fun to be able to be so involved in all aspects of the agency.

- What were you most worried about before you came?
Apart from the apprehension about the homestay, I was worried that I might not have enough to do on my work placement - which proved to be far from the case. I was also a little worried about how I'd fill my free time; what would I do with myself at the weekends for example? But the project support staff on the ground were fantastic at organising weekend trips and activities with other volunteers, so I got to spend time with other people who were going through a similar experience and I found that was very helpful.

- What have you been surprised by during your stay?
I suppose by how at home I felt, how I managed to rise to the challenge in ways I didn't expect that I would, how similar we all are really despite the surface cultural differences.

- What has been the highlight of your trip?
It feels obvious to say it but there were so many highlights: getting to know my host family, building friendships with my colleagues, being able to haggle with tuk tuk drivers in pidgin Thai, getting up at 5.30am to go and give alms to the monks outside the temple... One thing that definitely stands out for me though was swimming with elephants at the Thai elephant home. That was really special.

- What has been a volunteer mean to you (versus just visiting as a tourist)?
Thailand's biggest industry is tourism so as a tourist a lot of what you experience will have been contrived to impress and entertain you. You'll still have a fantastic time but it won't be a truly authentic experience of the country and its people. What I liked about volunteering was being able to go behind the scenes as it were and meet people from different backgrounds and put myself in situations where I could get a taste of what it was like to really live and work in Thailand. As part of research for articles, I attended lectures on Burmese politics at Chiang Mai university - something I would NEVER have been able to do if I were just there as a tourist.

All of my colleagues in the newsroom had come over the border from Shan State and were living under a beaurocratic kind of limbo which meant they couldn't move freely around the country and had to stay in Chiang Mai. It was fascinating to get an insight into their community and to learn about their lives in Burma and hear first hand about the struggles of the ethnic people there.

- How has this experience affected you?
On a personal level I'm really proud of myself for having done it because I was very, very nervous about it before I left and nearly chickened out loads of times. I'm also proud of the work I did at the news agency; the articles that were published and the branding and strategy document I produced for them. I've made some good friends whom I have remained in touch with and I feel now that Chiang Mai is a bit of a second home. Every now and again I'll think 'Oh I'll pop into that shop on the way home', or 'Maybe I'll go to that restaurant this weekend', and then I'll remember that I'm in the UK and that restaurant is about 8000 miles away! I feel like my homestay and the news agency are just up the road.

- Do you think this experience will influence you in your job back at home?
It's definitely helped improve my writing and I think the whole experience has been valuable in terms of my CV. I deliberately chose a project that was going have some application to my career. Tempting as it was to sign up to look after elephants, I felt like if I was going to go all that way and spend all that money and length of time staying there, I should get some useful practicable skills out of it.

Having said that, now that I've done the vocational thing, next time I am definitely signing up for the elephants!

- What would you say to to others thinking about taking part in a volunteer project?
Be prepared to work hard and choose a project that you think you will enjoy, not one you feel you 'ought' to do. Go into the experience with an open mind and remember that you're there to help so be proactive about getting involved. Do your research before you leave too. Understand the local customs, some aspects of your host country's cultural practises may be slightly at odds with your own norms and beliefs, so it's important you reconcile that before you go so that you aren't shocked or upset by anything while you're there. Be respectful.

- Do you think your work experience was useful to you on your project?
Do you mean was my work experience from my job in the UK useful to the project in Thailand? If so then, yes definitely. I'd written for different publications in the UK before, so I already had some knowledge about how to write a punchy headline and research a feature. I didn't expect that there would be any need for me to draw on my advertising background but in the end, that was the thing I ended up doing the most of!

- Any other comments

Hope my ramblings will be of some use :)

Drum and Bass cliches

2011-01-08T08:40:00.000-08:00

This appeared on my blog on www.kmag.co.uk/blogs/rinse_and_repeat in April last year...

While everyone knows clichés become clichés because they're true, each scene has its own set of signs and signifiers that have become a shorthand way to describe what it's all about.

Better drum & bass's overuse of the colon and scientific label names, than trance's stupid hippy drug references. Did I say stupid? I guess I meant 'stuck in the 90s'. Whatever, I digress. See if you agree with the following and feel free to post your own suggestions below...

The Colon
OK, Soul:r get a pass because they got in there kind of early with this, but from now on can everyone please try and exercise a modicum of restraint when it comes to redundant punctuation marks? Thank:you.
See also: Exclamation marks on flyers.

Tiny Labels With Grandiose Pretentions
Really? You're calling your label Synesthetic Systems? Are you a neuro surgeon? Some kind of cult? A division of Microsoft? No, you're in your bedroom at your parents' house, using their BT Broadband connection. Good for you for having big ambitions but it takes more than a fancy name, kids. Richard Branson called his start-up label Virgin – not exactly a great endorsement of his prowess but it worked.
See also: Starting your own label because no one will release your tunes because they're not actually that good.

Rewinds
I actually like rewinds. It's kind of the DJ equivalent of that thing you do where you listen to your latest favourite tune on repeat for about a week until you are sick of it. Which is why just the one rewind is enough thanks.
See also: Teasing 'The Nine' over anything

Anyone Just Getting Into Drum & Bass For The First Time Believing That It's Only Been Good Since They Started Listening To It And Has Never Been That Good Before Nor Will It Be As Good In The Future
That, basically.
See also: Everything since 1998 being shit

Inside The Ride
If by 'Inside' you mean 'bored of' and by 'The Ride' you mean 'the same tired metaphor used to describe a DJ's set', then I am that.
See also: 'Keep it locked'

'Crews'
All from roughly the same part of the country? Check. All got lighters? Check. Whistles? Check. Ever going to see each other again after tonight...? Not really a crew then are you?
See also: Post suggestions for the proper collective noun for a bunch of whistle blowing, lighter-waving ravers in the comments below...

Hyperbolic Press Releases
"The very first time I:U:D's latest tune, 'Attic Conversion' was played out, everyone on the dance floor literally started orgasming. The bassline is so heavy that coma victims in a nearby Shrewsbury hospital woke up and started raving in their intensive care beds. Intense indeed...!"
See also: Misspelled adjectives

Making content out of forum posts
Could you be a bit more meta, please? Why don't you just hit 'print screen' and then photocopy it, take a photograph of the photocopy, scan it in, put the jpeg on flickr and then make a blog post about it? Content that's just an aggregation of other people's content isn't really content is it? And is it even a cliché? You might think not, but I was recently working on this TV ad where they wanted to use The Prodigy's 'Firestarter' as the backing track. The publisher wanted £987,654,321 to use it because there are 40 samples in it. 40 samples, people. Just sayin'...

The A-Z of Break Ups

2011-01-08T08:35:00.000-08:00

I wrote this piece for Platform about a year ago but they never published it in the end, so I'm putting it here...

A is for Arguments.
Everyone has arguments, duh. Not every argument means your relationship is shitty as long as you make up afterwards and genuinely agree to put it behind you and never bring it up in anybody's face in the future. If you can't manage to do this then the argument is never really over.
Each time you fall out over something and then someone brings up something someone said during the previous fight, you are essentially having the same argument. Over and over again. It's good to clear the air, not pollute it with grudges. If you're breathing polluted air more than you're breathing clean air, then that is shitty.
See also: Anger issues, Anxiety

B is for Blame.
Everything your fault? Of course it is, you're in a shitty relationship.
See also: Beating you up, Blanking you

C is for Cheating.
I don't mean the obvious kind of cheating like sleeping with someone behind your back, which is indisputably shitty, but I mean cheating like breaking the rules. The rules, in case you're a bit hazy are: Not sleeping with other people; not continuing to sleep with someone if you don't want to go out with them any more; not leading people on and giving them false hope; not lying about your true feelings.
See also: Callousness, Crying, Cowardice

D is for Dignity.
A shitty relationship can rob you of yours so try and take as much with you when you leave. If you ever find yourself saying 'I'll do anything, just please don't go', then your relationship is already about 3 months past its sell-by date.
See also: Dumped

E is for Escalation.
Jesus Christ! Can you not just fold the plastic bag inside the cereal box over when you're done so that it doesn't go soggy? Can you not just make a perfectly reasonable request without it turning into a litany of every-fucking-thing that's wrong with you as a human being? No? Then welcome to shitty relationship-ville, population; you.
See also: Evasion, Eggshells (walking on).

F is for Fear.
If you are scared of your partner for any reason, whether it's that they're going to give you another black eye for getting home from work late, or that they're going to give you the silent treatment for three days if you put EastEnders on, it's time to get the hell out of dodge.
See also: Feigning interest, Fucking other people.

G is for Game Playing
I love you. I don't love you. I want to be with you. We'll never workout. I bought you a present. I care about you but don't want to see you. When can I see you? Don't ever speak to me again. How are you? I'm not seeing anyone else. I'm seeing someone else...
That is game playing, only in these games the players have NO balls.
See also: Grimacing when you hug them, Getting undressed in the dark.

H is for Hurt.
Physically hurting someone is dangerous and illegal. Unfortunately inflicting mental and emotional pain on another is not illegal and as a victim you have no redress other than to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, be strong and try and heal yourself as quickly as you can.
See also: Hating your friends.

I is for I Love You.
Haven't heard that in the past few months? It's probably because they don't any more.
See also: Intimacy (lack of), Irritability.

J is for Joking.
Joking is the ultimate defence mechanism. Humour, the perfect diversion tactic. Mirth the ideal mask. Of course things are ok as long as you two keep laughing, right? But wait... when was the last time either of you said anything meaningful? Does them pretending to do a poo in the kitchen drawer while you're on the phone to your dad count? Ummmm, no.
See also: Jealousy.

K is for Kissing.
They can swing you from the chandelier, grease you up, throw you round the bedroom six ways til Saturday but if they can't look you in the eye or kiss you, then you're not making love, you are getting screwed over.
See also: Kicking you out, Knocking your confidence.

L is for Lying.
Lying to you, lying to themselves, making you lie because you know that the truth, however innocuous, will spark a row... The truth is, there's no way back from a lie.
See also: Leaving you.

M is for Money.
In any relationship the issue of money is a ticking time bomb ready to go off. The only way to avoid any pecuniary rows is to split everything 50/50 or take turns paying for stuff. Unless you do that someone is always going to think they're getting shafted, even if they pay for all the dinners and you pay for all the holidays.
See also: Missing birthdays and anniversaries, Misery.

N is for Not Saying Sorry
If you never say sorry for anything, even if you know you are in the wrong, that is shitty. Witholding a 'sorry' is an attempt to hog power; it's like people who say 'this conversation is over' without explaining why. Saying sorry means that you are humble enough to acknowledge your fallibility and recognise when you're being an asshole. If you can't bring yourself to admit these universally human traits then what are you, a psychopath?
See also: Not caring, Neediness, Nicknames (demeaning or undermining)

O is for Other People
If you want to see other people, that's cool. Hey, it's a big sea out there with a lot of fish in it, just remember to finish your relationship first before you dive in. It's only polite.
See also: Orgasms (faking)

P is for Personal Attacks
Sure it's fine to ask someone to keep their mouth closed while they're eating or not fart or belch in front of you, but when you want them to change things about themselves that are out of their control, that's just cruel. So things like telling someone you don't like the size of their nose, or that you hate the way they laugh or how their teeth stick out a bit, is shitty. And you are a shitty person for saying those things and your relationship is shitty because of it.
See also: Promises (broken ones), Power games

Q is for Quoting Other People As Weaponry
It's never fair or constructive to tell people that other people have been saying bad things about them behind their back. Even if the criticism was justified, telling someone they're being talked about in a negative light won't correct their behaviour, it will just make them feel paranoid and insecure. Using other people's bitching as back-up during an argument is basically playground tactics, he said/she said bullying. Does your dad still give you pocket money too?
See also: Quiet on the phone

R is for Respect
You don't have to be in love with someone to show them respect. If you don't want to be in a relationship with somebody anymore that is not carte blanche to stop giving a shit about their feelings and only think about yourself.
See also: Reading your emails

S is for Sex
If you're not having any, you're pretty much done I reckon.
See also: Settling, Shitting on your doorstep (figuratively)

T is for Temper
There is no one more consistently, disappointingly predictable than a person with a short fuse. Seeing someone completely lose it is not a pretty sight. Calling people 'cunts', betraying latent racism while shouting at taxi drivers, and hanging up on call centre operators are all sure fire ways to undermine whatever point there might have been to your outburst and make you look totally insecure and out of control.
See also: Treating their friends like shit, Taking liberties

U is for Universe Revolving Around Them
When they talk about their plans for the future, do you feature at all? Do they even ask your opinion or what you want to do? Is it assumed that you'll either come along for their ride or fuck off out of the picture at some point? If so, you know what I'm going to say.
See also: Any positive adjective you can prefix with 'Un'.

V is for Verbal Abuse
Using language to belittle, humiliate, isolate, denegrate, undermine or threaten. That includes body snarking, setting impossibly unrealistic standards and enforcing unfair expectations. As well as outright shouting swear words.
See also: Victimisation, Villification

W is for Wasting time
By flogging a dead horse.
See also: Walking all over you.

X is for eX
If you've read this far and have been nodding your head all the way through then you need to make them this.
See also: XX, XY

Y is for Yesterday
Did all your troubles seem so far away? Are you hanging on because of that first year when everything was great, despite the fact that the intervening 6 years have been a catalogue of uncomfortable silences, strained conversations and platitudinous telephone calls in high pitched voices?
Stop living in the past. Today, your relationship is shitty.
See also: Yes meaning no.

Z is for Zero
What you're left with. When you add up all of the above.

The A-Z of Death

2011-01-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

This piece was published by www.dontpaniconline.com back in September 2007 but I can't find the link so you'll have to take my word for it...

A IS FOR ALCOHOLISM
This is what killed my mum; liver failure. She drank herself to death over a period of almost 20 years and there was nothing she, or anyone else could do to stop her. If you're one of those people that think alcoholics bring it on themselves, or deserve to die, or shouldn't waste NHS money, or whatever; then you are pretty ignorant. You might as well go shout at a schizophrenic to snap out of it and stop hallucinating. Alcoholism is a mental illness – as is most addiction – and no one knows how to cure it. It is also a really efficient way of ruining lives and families. All in all, it's a proper barrel of laughs.

B IS FOR BREATHING
When my mum stopped breathing on her own and had to rely on the ventilator, we all pretty much knew it was game over. But I'm not talking about her breathing, I'm talking about mine. Since she died I haven't been able to breathe properly, and I can't take a full breath or yawn. The muscles in my chest feel really tight, like I'm so bunched up with nerves I can't relax enough to let my lungs fill with enough air. My GP says it's to do with anxiety, which is understandable, but I hope it stops soon; it's really annoying.

C IS FOR CRYING
I've done a lot of this over the past few weeks. When you're riding the crazy roller coaster of emotions that is the grieving process, it helps to have a big cry every now and then. It's like puking and getting all the bad stuff out, and you always feel a little bit better afterwards. I don't mean any of that silent weeping while staring out to the horizon bullshit either. I'm talking about on your hands and knees on the bathroom floor, heaving dry sobs while your heart feels like it's going to come out of your mouth. You need to drink lots of water too, to keep it up for any length of time.

D IS FOR DENIAL
Not only is denial the thing that ultimately killed my mum, it is also the thing that will fuck with your head the most. In the few days after she died, we had to keep reminding ourselves that it had actually happened. Like, our brains had taken in the information, filed it away in a box labelled 'Later', and drip-fed it into our consciousness at a slow pace, so that the realisation dawned on us gradually at a rate we could handle. Nice of the brain to be so considerate, but it really weirds you out when you're in the middle of brushing your teeth and suddenly you're all 'Whoa. I'm never going to hear her voice again'. That stuff can really spoil your day.

E IS FOR EMOTION
As if I need to spell it out.

F IS FOR FUTURE
It's really hard in the first few days after the death to imagine ever being interested in anything ever again. But in your more lucid moments, it helps to think about the future and try to mentally fast forward to a years' time, when all of it won't be so raw and shitty and we'll all be coping with things better. It gives you hope.

G IS FOR GOODBYE
I didn't want to stand at the bedside and watch my mum die, so I told my family I would go in to see her on my own and say what I wanted to say and then go outside until it had happened. For some reason they all wanted to be there, which I thought was unnecessarily morbid, but whatever, that's up to them. Anyway, I went in to see her and she was lying there with a tube down her throat and wires all over the place. It felt like I was someone else, like a character on Casualty. Honestly, the whole thing was so surreal, when I look back on it, I still can't believe it was actually me pressing my forehead against hers and whispering 'I love you I love you I love you' over and over again.

H IS FOR HOSPITAL
Mum was in hospital on average of once a year for at least the past 7 years. I have spent way too much time in them and I can safely say that they properly suck. Ill people are gross. Do I really need to see an octogenarian vomiting on himself at 11am on a Saturday morning? And hey, woman in the bed in the next ward, stop rattling phlegm round your larynx like an espresso machine with cancer. We get it, you're ill. Fuck those places are depressing.

I IS FOR INTENSIVE CARE
This is where mum died. All the patients here are too sick to make noises, so they lie there in comas like those people in the Matrix in the pods with those things plugged into their backs. The only sounds are bleeping machines and nurses' whispers, and it smells like gravy and piss.

J IS FOR JOKE
Like I said earlier, mum's death didn't feel like it had really happened. I half believed that someone was going to call and say that it had been a mistake. The idea that she was permanently gone was so absurd it was laughable. The night she died, we came back home and I was sitting on the sofa thinking about her dying and I wanted to laugh. In fact I had to leave the room because I was worried my dad would notice and get upset. So I decamped to the bathroom and began to laugh like a maniac on heroin. You know like you see in films when people are in shock? The laughter quickly subsided into hysterical sobs though, and I was soon back on my hands and knees on the floor watching my snot drip onto the lino.

K IS FOR KETONES
When the liver and kidneys can't flush out your blood properly, the toxins build up and you can smell them on the patient's breath. These toxins on the breath are called ketones, and they're gross. People on the Atkins diet get them too, because all the protein they eat overloads the kidneys making them unable to do their job properly. Ketones smell kind of like TCP and shit, I still get whiffs of it now, all these weeks later. To me they smell like death.

L IS FOR LIFE
When no one's died, the old life and death clichés can seem, well, clichéd. When your mum has died, you hold onto those clichés like a man dangling over a precipice holds onto the edge. Life goes on, life goes on, life goes on. You need to believe this, otherwise in a year's time you will still be sitting in your pyjamas at 4pm with the curtains drawn, watching the repeat of Jeremy Kyle on ITV2 that you already saw that morning (I actually did this for about a week after mum died before I finally pulled my shit together).

M IS FOR MOURNING
The word 'mourning' conjures up images of Victorian widows in black, leering at the gardener through their veils. It's kind of an archaic word, but it best describes the state we're all in at the moment. Not just an immediate state either, but rather a state of mind that we'll probably remain in forever, to a greater or lesser extent.

N IS FOR NOTHING
Literally. I can't think of anything for 'N'.

O IS FOR OPERATION
We were all like, 'If her liver's fucked, surely you can operate and she can have some of mine or something?', and the doctors were all 'Sorry, it doesn't work that way'. In a situation like that, you truly put all the power of the world in the hands of those doctors. They might as well be God at that moment in time. In fact, I'm switching 'Operation' for 'Omnipotence'.

P IS FOR PAIN
There is a pain in my chest where my heart is. I don't think it will ever go away, and I kind of don't want it to.

Q IS FOR QUICK
Once she'd started to go, it all happened really quickly. Like, hours. It was the best way really. I think I'd have lost my mind if it had dragged on into the following day. Then that would have been a euthanasia situation. Seriously.

R IS FOR RELATIVES
I love my family, but I don't spend an inordinate amount of time with them. I'm close to my dad and my brother, but as far as the extended family goes; we all live quite disparate lives and normally only see each other at Christmas and weddings. OH MY GOD have I seen a lot of them over the past few weeks. As soon as it happened, they all arrived en masse, closed ranks, and set up camp in my dad's living room. Relatives rule.

S IS FOR SPOOKY
Check this out. My mum had a mobile phone that she never learned how to use properly and she was forever ringing me from her handbag and leaving answer phone messages that was all background noise and bag jangling. On the second night after she died, I was getting ready for bed and my phone started ringing. I was pissed off because it was 1 in the morning, and even though time held little relevance at that point, it was still too late for people to be ringing me. Snatching up my phone in anger I looked at the screen and saw 'Mum' flashing away above her number. I was scared to answer it in case she might actually be on the other end, so I shouted for my dad and my brother who came running in and were stopped in their tracks when they saw she was calling me. So they went upstairs to find her mobile and switch it off. They weren't sure where it was until they heard a ringing coming from the drawer in her bedside table. Her phone had started ringing too. That's pretty fucking weird, right?

T IS FOR TIME
Time flies, travels and heals. I'm hoping it will be really effective at doing the latter.

U IS FOR UNDERTAKER
How do those guys do it? Seriously. It's got to be one of the most miserable jobs in the world. If I were an undertaker, I'd probably kill myself. And then I'd have to be buried by undertakers, and that thought is just so depressing I might have to stop writing this, get out of bed and go downstairs for a cigarette.

V IS FOR VERBOSITY
Wow, I have talked the most shit I have ever talked in my entire life over the past few weeks. Life, death, why, how, where, etc. Take this A-Z for example. I have uncontrollable verbal diaorrhea at the moment. I feel sorry for anyone who has to talk to me.

W IS FOR WAITING
You can't hurry grief up. There's no point where you're like 'OK, that's over, I'm done with that now!'. You just have to wait.

X IS FOR X-RAY
My mum had one of these when she was in hospital. It was either that or 'xylophone', which would have been totally irrelevant.

Y IS FOR YESTERDAY
Each day I get through without my mum is progress towards a time when I won't feel so shit. Wow, maybe I'll go and film myself crying in front of a mirror and put it on youtube (another ‘Y’).

Z IS FOR ZOOLOGY
My mum studied zoology as part of her degree. She always said she wanted to go and do conservation work in Africa, but she never made it out there. When I think of her now I picture her in Africa, surrounded by zebras, and she's beautiful, and happy.

Noughties Nightlife

2011-01-03T03:43:00.000-08:00

Back in September I interviewed the curator of the Noughties Nightlife photography exhibition. Here's the piece the appeared on Don't Panic:

This September, Shoreditch’s Rich Mix plays host to an exhibition of images curated by photographer, DJ and London College of Fashion lecturer, Antony Price. Noughtie Nightlife is a retrospective look at how the styles and culture of the underground have shaped the first decade of this new century; its history described in images taken by photographers who were there.

The show – featuring work by prominent club, trend and fashion photographers including Billa Baldwin, Ellis Scott, Matthew Brindle and Thom Will – was inspired by Price’s own students.

“I noticed my students were becoming interested in what photos had been put up on different nightlife websites after the weekend, and seeing who was where and what they were wearing”, he explains.

As a former DJ with a lifelong interest in music and clubbing, Price was the ideal person to curate the show, described as ‘encapsulating the feelings and creativity of the Noughties London club scene’. Those who were at Cashpoint, Trash, Nag Nag Nag every week experienced firsthand the excitement and creative energy that was bubbling up through the underground.

However, on a macro scale, the Noughties will likely be remembered as a bit of a cultural wasteland. After the electronic dance music explosion of the early 90s, followed by Britpop and then the phenomenon of girl power, the WAGs and manufactured karaoke stars of the most recent decade pale in comparison. Unlike the 90s, whatever was going on in club land somehow failed to translate.

Price disagrees: “I think a lot of good music came out of this decade. Bands like Bloc Party were big in the underground scene for a while before crossing over and becoming well known for example. Any decade has its own culture of celebrity, though. If anything, the fact that clubbing culture has stayed underground and not become mainstream is a good thing.

If underground culture has failed to connect upwards, the advent of social networking media has meant that it has been able to reach infinitely outwards. There are now a million different ways to share and disseminate images, which have changed the photographic medium massively.

“The technology has been great for helping youth culture to retain its freedom and autonomy but unfortunately the quality of the images being presented does suffer because there’s no editing going on”, says Price.

Which just reinforces the point that club photography is not as easy as it might seem. The ‘point and shoot and hope for the best’ technique, as evidenced on millions of facebook pages all over the world, is rarely put to flattering effect. When dealing with so many variables working against you – sweaty hair, bad lighting, gurning – what’s the trick to taking a good photograph in a club?

“Most importantly you have to understand your camera so you can work with the lighting”, says Price. “It also depends on the photographer’s style. Some like to use the light in a harsh way to show the grittiness and realism of the scene, others prefer to create slicker and more polished looking images.”

“But you see the worst results when people don’t get involved in what’s going on and set out purposely just to take photos. The thing is to not try too hard, get in the middle of it all and then have your camera ready for when that right moment happens. If you’re at a night as one of the crowd and having a good time, then your subjects are more likely to open up to you.”

Price sifted through over 100,000 images during what he describes a labour of love and hate, to put the show together. Its main purpose is to showcase the achievements in fashion and culture of the six London Colleges of Universities of the Arts. “But the secondary point to it”, says Price, “is that a lot of these images are just out there in the ether and only exist on the net. It’s important to archive them and present them in a cultural context so they can be looked at. It’s a chance to capture these images for future students but also a chance to show these images to a wider audience.”

“I think the Noughties need a line drawing under them”, he says. “It was a decade that was very much about drawing influences from the decades before and mashing them up – a bit of 70s, a bit of 80s and some 90s. But I feel like we’ve run out of ideas and ways to rehash the past now. We need to look and appreciate at everything that’s happened during the past decade and then we need to move on.”

Noughtie Nightlife is showing at Rich Mix, London from the September 9 to October 2.

(URL to original article with pics: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/style/noughtie-nightlife)

Samuel Moaz - Director of 'Lebanon'

2011-01-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

In May last year I interviewed the ex-soldier-turned-film-director, Samuel Moaz about his debut award-winning feature film, 'Lebanon'. For some reason I didn't link to it here at the time, but here it is now:

Wounded as a young soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War, writer and director Samuel Maoz dedicated himself to depicting his experiences as a 20 year-old tank gunman in his latest film, Lebanon.

Awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Lebanon is a very personal film for Maoz. In 2007 he began to write the script, basing it solely on his personal experiences and featuring one of the four central characters, Shmulik, as his younger self. Never having been involved in any kind of violence before, Maoz and the three other young men with whom he operated the tank found themselves thrown together in the midst of the chaos of war and, against their consciences, were forced to kill or risk being killed.

Deeply traumatized by the events he witnessed, Maoz says that it took 25 years for him to be able to even write the screenplay.

“In a way we were brainwashed”, he says. “When we came back, with all our limbs intact and without any serious injuries, I felt like I couldn’t complain, even though inside I felt very bad. Our teachers and parents would say ‘There’s nothing wrong with you, what is there to complain about? You have your life and your health’, so I just said nothing.”

“Many of our parents and teachers had lived through World War 2”, says Maoz. “I remember a teacher at my school who had the tattooed number on her arm from having been in a concentration camp. Because of their experiences, they were very pro us fighting for our country when the war happened.”

When Maoz finally did put pen to paper, his motivation came not from wanting to achieve catharsis, but from wanting to protect other young men from a similar fate.

“I was watching the news of the war in 2006 it made me think to myself that over 25 years nothing has changed. My experience and suffering hadn’t changed anything, it was happening again. Luckily I have daughters, but my friend’s son died in the fighting. When it’s just your own pain you can let it pass, but when it affects your children, it’s something else. So I wrote the script not to complain about myself but to save lives.”

The release of Lebanon is a timely one. Tensions in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine are currently more heightened than they have been for some time; and Kathryn Bigelow’s film about the Iraq war, The Hurt Locker, won the Oscar for Best Film at this year’s Academy Awards - amongst whose previous years’ nominees in the Foreign Film category were Israeli war films Waltz With Bashir and Beaufort. War and the Middle East clearly have currency in contemporary cinema.

On mention that Bigelow was criticised for not being overtly anti-war in her Oscar acceptance speech, Maoz interjects to point out that her critics were more vocal about her not mentioning James Cameron than her omission to denounce the war. He is joking of course, but he is also right. However, one wonders if there is a responsibility on filmmakers when working with this type of subject matter to take a position on war?

“Are you asking me why I didn’t make a political film?” asks Maoz. “To do a political film you have to be politically correct”, he says. “I wasn’t thinking about winning awards, I was just thinking about my little country.”

“You won’t change anything by talking to the heads of countries. How you will change is by speaking to people whose lives are directly affected by war – to the mothers. If you speak to someone’s head it’s easier to ignore, but if you speak to their inside, to their heart, then you can achieve something.”

For Moaz, to change the opinions of those older generations who would advocate sending young boys to war is to save lives, and in that regard Lebanon is as influential a piece of cinema as you’ll see.

The feeling of claustrophobia, sense of chaos and looming threat of death are described perfectly. All the action is seen from the point of view of those inside the tank. Any action that takes place outside is viewed from within through the cross hair of the gun turret, accompanied by the eerie hydraulic whine of its movement. This device gives the feeling of at once being part of the action and being a studied and separate observer of it – heightening the feeling of detachment one supposes is necessary in order to be able to pull the trigger when it counts.

Looking cramped, dark, dirty, smelly and terrifying, one assumes the shoot was a difficult one.

“There was no tank at all”, says Maoz. “That is the magic of cinema, I give you only 20% and the rest is in your head.”

What else, then, isn’t real? Since the character of Shmulik is based on Moaz is the story told during the film by Shmulik (played by Yoav Donat) about a sexual experience with his 11th grade teacher true? Moaz grins, hesitates and then with a mischievous glint says, “Yeah, sure it’s true”. Maybe he just wants us to think that.

There is now some understandable interest in Moaz from Hollywood and the director is keen to work on new projects – “I think I’d like to do a black comedy next”, he says wryly.

Before anything else, though he’d like to go home.

“I’ve been travelling for 7 months all over the world promoting the film. I miss home. I live with my wife, daughters, sisters and nieces – 12 women! I’m not used to having to look after myself.”

But concerned again that he’s not seen to be complaining, he adds, “But this is the dream of every director. I didn’t set out to write the film to cleanse myself, but I earned that along the way. It was the best kind of treatment for me. This is the beginning of a new age and I am hungry and full of passion.”

URL to the original article on Don't Panic's site: Here.

Shooting Robert King

2011-01-02T09:02:00.001-08:00

I interviewed the celebrated war photographer, Robert King, ahead of the release of the documentary following his life's work.

Shooting Robert King is a film about the celebrated war photographer’s aim to become the youngest ever Pulitzer Prize winner. It is also a film about the fine line separating madness and dedication, the extraordinary sacrifices journalists make to document the stories of those affected by war, and most of all it is a tribute to those members of the press who have lost their lives in that pursuit.

The film begins with the meeting of King and filmmakers Vaughan Smith and Richard Parry in Sarajevo and goes on to span the following 15 years of their working relationship. The opening titles describe the journalists’ hunger to experience their first war and King’s inexperience is betrayed as he is shown being told by a more experienced journalist not to wear his cargo pants out of the hotel in case he’s mistaken for a rebel.

The naiveté and macho recklessness lends a sense of parody to the opening sequence and at first it seems almost comical – like The Thick Of It of war journalism. Until you see the images...

There’s a scene when you’re in the car with Richard and he’s asking who are the key political figures in the Bosnian war, and you don’t know. What made you want to go and cover a war you knew nothing about?
In the beginning I just didn’t care, I was determined and reckless. I’d been given a travel grant from university to go to the mountains in northern Iraq, but security issues meant I couldn’t go. I met a Time journalist called Chris Morrison, who invited me to go to Sarajevo and I knew I wanted to be in that kind of profession, I wanted to be like him. I hadn’t had any formal journalistic training but for me the photographic medium felt intuitive. I’d bought all the equipment, the camera, the film stock. I had this grant. I couldn’t come back with nothing.

How big a part has luck played in the fact that you’re still alive today despite your occasionally obvious lack of field knowledge?
It’s all luck. I could have studied military manuals my whole life but it’s all luck. The more you expose yourself to combat situations the more you risk physical injury and the more important logistics become. But in Afghanistan we drove over a pressure mine hidden in the middle of the road. We were at the front of the convoy and for some reason it didn’t detonate underneath us, but it got the Humvee behind. It’s just luck.

Apart from the physical risk, what’s the mental impact of seeing the kind of atrocities you must confront in a war zone?
On some level it’s just a job. What gets you through is how you perceive war; realising that everything in life is war, it’s just the fight is more civilised. It’s hard for what we do to become accepted by the wider journalistic community. I don’t think I’m such damaged goods but if you go to the editor of a newspaper or magazine in the corporate world there is a sense that they don’t want to know, like ‘we don’t want someone like him around’ because of the stigma.

The scene where there’s an elderly man lying in a Chechen street with both legs blown off is particularly harrowing. What are your thoughts of the responsibility of the photographer in a situation like that?
That picture won a lot of awards; editors lapped it up like dogs. The photographer is still haunted. Could he have applied a tourniquet? Probably. Would it have made any difference? I doubt it. All his arteries were severed, the only reason he stayed alive so long was because it was so cold it took him a long time to bleed out. All he could do was comfort the man in his final hours. Those events are going to happen whether photographers are there or not and Chechnya was a unique situation because there was no aid. In Sarajevo if we arrived on the scene of an attack we would end up taking people to hospital because there were facilities nearby, and yeah we felt good about being able to do that. But our job is to document, not to save lives. If we wanted to save lives we would join a medical organisation.

Why turn the camera on yourself and make yourself the subject?
Richard and Vaughan had been commissioned to make a short film about freelance journalists, so when I met them in Sarajevo I didn’t know anyone and I was just pleased that other journalists wanted to talk to me! We got to working on stories together, then when Richard was in Chechnya he called me up and told me to get out there. The film just evolved through us being together in these different situations. At the time I never knew it would get this far which is why in the film you see my guard is down and I’m not being serious all the time. That’s partly to do with the vision of the film maker but also because it’s not really a film about me or my career but about the seven colleagues who are mentioned at the end of the film who have all died on front lines.

What are your hopes for the film?
That Richard and Vaughan become filthy rich! It’s their film; I’m just their victim!
None of us can control how it’s received; we can only put the information out there. I am very grateful to Richard’s commitment to our industry and Vaughan’s commitment to his, and of the film that’s resulted. I hope their vision and commitment to this project are given their proper dues.

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/film/shooting-robert-king

First!

2010-09-13T03:56:00.001-07:00

A piece I wrote for the 4th issue of Bones Magazine: http://www.bonesmagazine.co.uk/?page_id=479

What came first, the chicken or the egg? This question has, over eras and centuries and epochs, scrambled the brains of many. How can one thing be without the other thing being first?

You could argue that the egg came first, because other animals, like dinosaurs, had been laying eggs long before chickens existed. There must have been one egg, laid way back in prehistory by some now extinct animal, which gestated the universe’s first ever chicken. Mummy bird/lizard hybrid was expecting to see baby bird/lizard hybrid staring back at her and instead she got a feathery surprise, like a genetic Nestle Kinder toy.

But if you’re a purist and insist on the egg being entirely chicken in its origin in the first instance, then the answer is that the chicken came first – it emerged from its hybrid Kinder surprise shell as the universe’s first ever chicken and in all the excitement squeezed out the universe’s first ever bona fide egg.

Either way, it’s pretty hard to fathom unless you see it for the red herring that it is. That is to say: the origin of their existence isn’t the question, their existence is the answer. Forget looking at it as a 3 dimensional question: the chicken, the egg, the winner. You need to throw a fourth dimension into the mix – Why either at all?

The most perfect designs, whether in art, engineering, nature, are those that solve a problem. Before the egg, before the chicken, there was the nascent need-state requiring that both should exist in the first place; from then it was only a matter of arriving at a solution by way of a piece of design so perfect that it has lasted thousands of years. Thanks, nature!

It is this process which has provided the template for inspired conceptions throughout the ages. Would we have had high heels without the insecurity of short monarchs? Would we have arrived at a point where Alvar Aalto designed his famous cantilevered chair without first the ancient problem of sore buttocks? Would we have had the Coca Cola bottle without a landscape of soft drink container mediocrity? Would we have had the ipod without first the irritation of fiddly buttons?

Problems are the genesis of all invention and with that, the point of inception for almost all great designs. No one thing ever exists purely in and of itself only. Even the most self-indulgent, ostensibly useless works of art are a response to their creators’ own internal needs for recognition and expression.

That’s why, when striving to find an answer, you have to first look beyond the question to the problem that gave birth to it. Only by continuing to find solutions do we keep evolving. Never stop asking questions and never stop seeking answers because the day all problems are solved will be the day that marks the death of creativity. Conundrums like the chicken and the egg are important because arguing over what came first will give rise to what comes next.

ASEAN

2010-08-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

The ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations), is a geo-political and economic organisation formed of 10 countries, one of which is Burma. Despite 8 of the 10 countries being what you might describe as regimes of varying degrees of fascism and therefore already of dubious credibility, Burma (a '10' on the fascism scale) was allowed to join because Indonesia and Malaysia felt it would 'boost their numbers'. Okayyyyy.

ASEAN has a charter that was drafted by the member countries in 2008 in which all member countries agreed to abide by the following guidleines, summarised thus - 'We won't act like horrible genocidal maniacs':

a) respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all ASEAN Member States; b) shared commitment and collective responsibility in enhancing regional peace, security and prosperity; c) renunciation of aggression and of the threat or use of force or other actions in any manner inconsistent with international law; d) reliance on peaceful settlement of disputes; e) non-interference in the internal affairs of ASEAN Member States; f) respect for the right of every Member State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion and coercion; g) enhanced consultations on matters seriously affecting the common interest of ASEAN; h) adherence to the rule of law, good governance, the principles of democracy and constitutional government; i) respect for fundamental freedoms, the promotion and protection of human rights, and the promotion of social justice; j) upholding the United Nations Charter and international law, including international humanitarian law, subscribed to by ASEAN Member States; k) abstention from participation in any policy or activity, including the use of its territory, pursued by and ASEAN Member State or non-ASEAN State or any non-State actor, which threatens the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political and economic stability of ASEAN Member States; l) respect for the different cultures, languages and religions of the peoples of ASEAN, while emphasising their common values in the spirit of unity in diversity; m) the centrality of ASEAN in external political, economic, social and cultural relations while remaining actively engaged, outward-looking, inclusive and non-discriminatory; and n) adherence to multilateral trade rules and ASEAN's rules-based regimes for effective implementation of economic commitments and progressive reduction towards elimination of all barriers to regional economic integration, in a market-driven economy".

Now, let's examine those guiding principles as they relate to the philosophy of Burma's peaceful endeavours. Or rather, don't. At least that's what a very bright, articulate and argumentative American lawyer tried to do in this morning's debate when she put it to the speaker that the charter is at best, flawed and at worst totally useless due to its failure to adequately deal with Burma's continued flagrant human rights abuses.

Ahhh, but you see it's not the fault or responsibility of the charter because it specifically says that no member countries are allowed to interfere with the running of other member countries, explained the guy on the panel. So hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil is actually the best policy. Also it doesn't matter anyway because nowhere in the charter does it deal with the issue of non-compliance - i.e: it's not considered a binding document!! So really, it's just for fun. I guess it makes them feel important or something.

Also, everything agreed on the ASEAN agenda must be done by consensus. If one member country doesn't want something to happen, it doesn't happen; even if the 9 other countries do. Yes, that's right, amongst this collective of governments with sketchy human rights track records, minority actually rules! What a brilliant system. So wide open to abuse that it just takes one malevolent faction with an ulterior agenda to squash policy before it's even got off the ground.

In summary, the ASEAN have written a charter that is not binding upon anybody; and have designed a decision making process that could only possibly be made more obstructive to decision making if it dictated that no one was allowed to make any decisions at all. Ever.

In the meantime, these busy fools with their feet under the UN General Assembly's table are happy to ignore the genocide and terrorisation of ethnic people that continues in Burma.

Hesng Keoh Fah, English editor for the Burmese news agency based in Chiang Mai, says, "The more I hear about the politics of it all, the more I just want to run away". "The international community doesn't seem to care that the biggest problem in Burma is the displacement of the ethnic people. That needs to be sorted out first. The people wouldn't even mind even if the junta just stole their land, but they hurt them too; that's why they're scared and that's why they run to Thailand. Because even if they give up their land to the junta without a fight, they still get raped and murdered."

Then she told me how she'd read a report the other day that told how a 6 year old girl from one of the ethnic regions in Shan State had been raped by one of Burma's military. And I wondered where in the charter it said that that was ok.

Photos Inspired By Whisky

2010-04-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

I read on the Independent's website today that the photographer, Rankin, has shot a photographic essay for Macallan single malt comprised of shots 'inspired by whisky'.

If 'whisky inspired' photographs were what Macallan was after, they could have spared themselves the cash and simply gone on facebook.

The single malt is a generous muse. Have a look at some of my own whisky inspired pics here. In your face, Rankin, you wanky bastard...

Whisky. Rank(in)

Steve McQueen

2010-04-11T10:37:00.001-07:00

I wrote this piece for a site a couple of weeks ago and it got killed, so I thought I'd put it up here where at least someone might read it!

Official war artist and Turner Prize winner Steve McQueen was commissioned by the Imperial War museum to create what would turn out to be his polemical piece, Queen and Country. Together with the families of those who have been lost to the Iraq war, McQueen has created a cabinet containing a series of sheets of postage stamps, each depicting an image of a dead soldier which has been donated by their family. Queen and Country has been exhibited all over the UK, however until the images are turned into real stamps, the work remains incomplete.

McQueen gave an interview to the Guardian’s art critic, Adrian Searle, at the National Portrait Gallery where Queen and Country is currently being exhibited. Searle began by asking about the Royal Mail’s reluctance to agree to make the images into actual postage stamps.

“No one is more deserving of being on a stamp than people who have died for Queen and country”, says McQueen. “If you really think I’m wrong in thinking that then convince me and I’ll step back. I don’t know why Royal Mail are so resistant to the idea, they could do with the good PR and the money.”

Apparently the Royal Mail’s objection is based on their assertion that the stamps would be defaced by the post mark and that that would somehow undermine the subjects of the portraits, but as McQueen points out, “The queen gets defaced thousands of times a day”.

Could it be more to do with the fact that they’re just a bit squeamish about war and death? Perhaps, but the public response to McQueen’s work has been overwhelmingly positive, making the Royal Mail’s reluctance seem even more unnecessary. Queen and Country manages to bypass all the usual media sensationalism and politicking associated with images of war and present an intimate and moving commemoration of the individuals who have died fighting for Britain. It sounds jingoistic but in fact the work is far from it; Searle describes Queen and Country as anti-monumental and McQueen agrees.

“Stamps have a certain value because they’re so small and you have to handle them carefully, it makes them all the more precious. Also the small portrait requires extra attention and therefore makes it more poignant.”

That’s why it’s so important to McQueen that the images are made into real, postable stamps, “because then they would be in circulation among the population so anyone can access and participate in the art.”

Presumably contributions from the revenue from special edition commemorative stamps bearing a Turner Prize winning artist’s work would be welcomed by veteran’s charities all over the country. Seems like Royal Mail are missing a trick. Whatever. But their loss is still our loss, and especially the families’ losses.

“When I first started out with this I didn’t expect to get any response from the families and feared I’d failed before I had begun”, says McQueen.

“But slowly the images started to trickle in accompanied by hand written letters thanking me. To hold those images in my hands and sense that you could almost smell the houses that they had come from, I could empathise and get an inkling of what that loss must have been like for them. I tell you, had to have a couple of drinks after that.”

Whether you agree with the war or not is not the point. Regardless, thousands of young men and women have died fighting it and Queen and Country is an individual, intimate tribute to them that, in the words of the National Portrait Gallery’s Director, Sandy Nairn, “forces us to contemplate in a different way”. Work such as McQueen’s, that can contribute in an empirical way to the wider conversation without an agenda, is about as honest an example of public art as you can get.

Queen and Country is exhibiting at the National Portrait Gallery until the 18th July. Go see it, and while you’re there buy the book because some of the proceeds are donated to veteran’s charities.

Old Jamaica TV Shoot

2010-04-07T03:04:00.001-07:00

I went to Jamaica to shoot a TV commercial for Old Jamaica Ginger Beer. I know, jammy right? Here are some pics, the good ones are courtesy of our fantastic producer, Amyra Bunyard; the crap ones are mine.

Social Responsibility Poster Campaign Fail

2010-01-21T03:45:00.000-08:00

Personally I prefer to wake up to a cup of coffee and maybe some breakfast radio, but to each their own...

Non-sequitur

2009-11-27T04:38:00.000-08:00

UK peeps, seen this ad on telly recently? I hate it. HATE IT.

Putting to one side the awful green-tinted drabness and unimaginative script ("Harrison!") for a moment, the main problem I have with this advert is that I have no clue what it is about.

I mean, obviously the advertiser is Specsavers; the ad works at least insofar as it's a creative device for shoehorning as much branding into 30 seconds as possible. But why? Why is the shouty man so determined that 'Harrison!' get rid of Specsavers' advertising? What is this nameless corporation he's heading up? I would get it if they looked like a rival opticians - visual cues such as eye charts or white lab coats, while not that imaginitive, would at least give some context - but they look like a bunch of tax accountants in Next suits.

Maybe the green-tinted drabness, the catalogue office furniture, the dough-faced complexions and Next suits are all supposed to lead us obliquely to infer that this is a corporation that hates eyes. Certainly when watching it the question, 'what have my eyes done to deserve this?' crossed my mind. Perhaps that's the deeper meaning within this total non-sequitur of an ad.

Another question: oughtn't the client who signed this off go to Specsavers themselves...?

The Kennel Club is like the KKK. Really, PETA?

2009-11-16T07:52:00.000-08:00

Okayyyyy, so now the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, better known as PETA, are comparing the American Kennel Club to the KKK because ‘they both believe that pure bloodlines are superior’.

This shows that not only are they an organisation who actively seek out and embrace controversy, (i.e. approach with massive doses of salt) but also that they have no problem exploiting women to push their agenda, which by their own logic makes them what? Pimps? And now they’ve co-opted eugenics as a platform for their message. Just because they come down on the ‘eugenics is bad’ side of the debate, that doesn’t mean it’s not sick of them to leverage it. That’s like saying you hate rape because it leads to more abortions, or something.

With each word I devote to writing about PETAs shameful tactics of self-promotion, a little bit more of me dies. Before I expire completely let’s reassure ourselves that we’re not taking crazy pills, and take a look at how ridiculous their assertions that dog breeding is as bad as the racial purity ideologies of the KKK really are:

1. Dogs are not people. This one is obvious but I feel that it bears repeating because this is where PETA keep missing the point, in my opinion. Dogs are not people; animals are not people, they don’t have the same problems as people so stop anthropomorphising them like they cry themselves to sleep at night because Bambi’s mum got shot. Harpooning endangered species is not cool, but if I want to eat a steak then I can without remorse. A lion can have a steak whenever it wants; are Lions assholes? No, they are animals (with great haircuts I might add).

2. The purer the bloodline, the more stupid the breed. I know that that is kind of PETA’s point but dogs don’t know they’re stupid, neither do stupid people - that’s why they’re stupid. You know who’s stupid? The KKK. You know why? Because they are inbred. The KKK want to control racial propagation but they are too stupid to recognise that you can’t mess with nature. The very fact that the KKK exists at all is a great example of natural selection at work. In a couple more generations they’ll be dribbling in trailer parks on the outskirts of towns, with too many fingers and heads that are too big for their silly hats.

3. Dog breeders want to control the genetics of a breed. Not because they believe in the supremacy of that breed, or because they believe that only pure breed dogs should have executive power and civil rights, but because they want to show off their pretty dogs to each other.

4. The KKK lynches black people, the AKC doesn’t.

URL to article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/politics/kennel-club-the-next-kkk

The Essential Metalheadz

2009-11-09T02:58:00.000-08:00

Quite possibly the best drum and bass label there has ever been. Founded in 1993 by Goldie, Doc Scott, Storm and the much-missed Kemistry, Metalheadz has come to be known as the most pioneering label in drum and bass.

The seminal Metalheadz Sunday Sessions at London's Blue Note have become the stuff of scene legend and their Platinum Breaks compilations helped to win over those who assumed all drum and bass sounded like lorries reversing by showcasing a side of the music that was not only sophisticated and intricate but also representative of the creativity and innovation found amongst the UK's most talented producers.

The mighty imprint is 15 years old this month and is celebrating by releasing a compilation of some of the label's finest moments on 15 Years of Metalheadz. Kmag is in turn celebrating by picking our own finest moments from Metalheadz and inviting you lot to do the same in the comments section below. Here we go...

1. Adam F – Metropolis
This came out in 1996, people, 1996! Can you imagine, knowing what you know now, what it would have been like to hear this for the first time back then?? The drums are executed with a kind of psychopathic precision and just like Fritz Lang's film, Adam F's Metropolis is foreboding, futuristic and spooky.

2. Alex Reece – Pulp Fiction
I have two words: Bass Line. Understated and simple, laid-back, grown-up, and a bit dark... This is the little black dress, the Tom Ford, the Audi of drum and bass tunes. Its minimalist arrangement makes it timeless, I can't imagine this ever sounding dated. A true classic.

3. Doc Scott – Swarm
Pure dark side drum and bass. How did such a big tune manage to evade any mention on Google other than links to mp3s? And why has it got only just over a thousand views on YouTube? Talk about being underground. If someone asked me what the difference between jungle and drum and bass was, I wouldn't be able to tell them but I'd probably play them this.

4. D Kay and Lee – Wax'd
Wax'd shows the more mellow, slightly warmer and melodic side to Metalheadz. This smoother sound of drum and bass has become a signature style in Headz ambassador, DJ Lee's sets, and tempers the moody intensity of some of the stable's other releases.

5. Optical – To Shape The Future
Glitchy and minimalist, To Shape The Future delivered on its name by becoming pretty much the catalyst for the whole neurofunk movement, and should be given massive credit for being so directional. Not only that but I heard that because of complaining neighbours when Optical was writing it he had to judge the level of the bass by feeling the vibration of the speakers while they were turned down low. That must have been HARD. Big skill.

6. Rufige Cru – Terminator
'Whistle crew make some noise!!' Oh my god, this was before even my time but it is so, so sick. Reminds me of being 13 and listening to tape packs in my bedroom. Seminal and pioneering, Terminator was among the first new wave of jungle tunes to come out of hardcore and paved the way for the Metalheadz legacy.

7. Dillinja – Angels Fell
Harks back to a time before the genre became ever more fragmented, when it was okay to do stripped back drums instead of the 2-step template that limits so much of dnb output today; a time when forums didn't erupt in acne-popping apoplexy if someone so much as removed a snare. The good news is that we're seeing a shift in trend back towards this kind of fluid production; not sure anyone will ever be able to do bass quite like Dillinja though.

8. Ed Rush – The Raven
Dirty as a dustbin full of torn bum holes. The paranoid and tense The Raven was arguably the genesis of the idea for the fantastic Locust - which came a couple of years later - with its grumbly Reece bass line providing the hook and its idiosyncratic hi-hats. As dark and sinister as any Edgar Allen Poe story. Not so much 'nevermore', as 'more!'

9. Noisia – The Bells
Right, back to the future now with one of the most recent releases. In The Bells we see a return to the label's experimental form with Noisia's interesting precise, minimal sound. This tune makes the list for having balls and for being a very positive statement of intent for Metalheadz as it enters its 16th year.

10. John B – Up All Night
This tune was probably the first time we were ever introduced to the term 'trance and bass'. Some people weren't sure at first but the foresight of Metalheadz A&R has long since been vindicated by the fact that seven years on it is hailed as one of the hugest dance floor dnb tunes from that era and John B is now one of drum and bass's most commercially successful artists. The atmospherics, pitched-up vocals and piano riffs referenced early nineties rave, while the dirty Reece bass line kept the tune rooted in the contemporary. Big and brilliant.

URL to original article on Knowledge's site here: http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/features/848

Blu Mar Ten - Natural History

2009-11-03T03:17:00.000-08:00

Blu Mar Ten's album, Natural History, was released yesterday. It's very good, I suggest you go buy yourself a copy. You might also want to read the interview I did with the guys here:

None of the usual fluffy rehearsed interview rubbish for the Blu Mar Ten guys. Five minutes after sitting down with them, we're debating the existence of art for art's sake and the role of audience in giving it validity. Not your usual, 'how did you guys get into drum and bass' conversation.

But Blu Mar Ten are not the usual. Keeping up with them is tricky, the trio have a way of finishing each other's sentences and pre-empting each others' points, which betrays not only the amount of time they've been together but the amount of time they spend together.

Each has carved out their own defined role to create a group dynamic that, judging by longevity and consistent quality of output, obviously works. I'll be honest, it's weird. I know married couples who don't get on as well as these three do. And I'm actually a bit jealous; I wanna be in their gang.

We kick off the interview by talking about their wildly differing collective and individual motivations to keep making music together – a subject apparently no nearer being understood or reconciled despite being under their constant scrutiny.

"If you ask us the question 'why do we do it?', for me it's about showing off. Whereas he just enjoys the process," says Chris, nodding in Michael's direction.

Does he mind being answered for?

"Well, I'll see what he says and whether I disagree with it," says Michael.

"If we never released another record Michael wouldn't care," Chris goes on, "but for me [music] doesn't exist until there's an audience for it."

"I guess somehow it's enough for me to just write music and have it there," agrees Michael.

"Chris always has the bigger picture," adds Leo. "He's the strategist, he's the leader."

So what role does Leo play then?

"He's somewhere between me and Michael," says Chris. "He enjoys the process and all of that but he does like seeing his record in the shops as well."

"I'd agree with that", says Leo. "I went to the cinema last night and I heard one of our tracks being played in the lobby. That's a nice sort of validation, but even if there was no such validation, the idea of just playing around with sounds is endlessly attractive."

The idea that these three just 'play around with sounds' is as inaccurate as it is attractive. Probably closer to the truth is they agonise over every aspect of the production process; as Chris puts it, this album has cost him one girlfriend, a social life and lost sleep. But the time dedicated to this perfectionism is just what has made their latest album, Natural History, so bloody excellent.

That's not to say that they are rigid in their approach to writing; completely the opposite in fact. For them the key seems to be to surrender control over the music just as they seem to have surrendered themselves to it.

"We were talking about The Grid, the production forum on Dogsonacid.com, and I was complaining about how there's so much of a desire to control and master every aspect of the music they're trying to write on there", says Chris.

"And we were talking about the way we write music which is very... not exactly zen like but you have to allow yourself to surrender enough control to let interesting things happen, recognise when you need to grab it and guide it, and then stop and let it do its thing. Probably very much like raising kids I imagine."

"That's something a lot of people would agree with though, that good tunes write themselves," adds Leo.

"Yes, but you've got this whole subculture of people who are desperately trying to control it."

"But if you look at the greatest songs," continues Leo, "the essence of them came about by opening up to a kind of random behaviour."

Working in this way must require a great balance of intuition and experience in order to know when to put the brakes on. At those points I wondered, do they have their audience in mind and does that steer the direction in which they guide the track?

"There's a degree of that," says Chris. "We've genre hopped a hell of a lot, but recently everything we've written is drum and bass and Natural History is our first all drum and bass album. All the sketches we've been working on for the past two weeks don't sound like drum and bass, and we're finding ourselves having to crowbar ideas, which maybe three years ago we would have put in a down-tempo or house track, into this drum and bass template, it's really valuable to be able to take that template and stretch it."

"Drum and bass is nothing but a tempo, that's the only unifying thing," Chris says. "When you start talking about whether it's liquid or neuro, I switch off at that point. I think once you start acknowledging that level of difference, you're into this very obsessive, male, geek territory which is all about categorising. Does one club night every 12 months with 20 guys off the web really make a sub-genre? Instead we should just say 'drum and bass is that speed and beyond that the genre is completely elastic'."

Having to stretch non-drum and bass ideas to fit within a drum and bass framework can produce much more interesting stuff but in doing this, and by leaving the creative process open to serendipity as much as they do, are the three ever conscious of trends and whether they are referencing them enough to appear current?

"We are conscious of trends even if only insofar as we decide to buck them," says Chris.

"We talk about that a lot", adds Leo. "It can focus your attention on certain things. Like the whole abstract, less beats driven instrumental type trend versus the smacked out Pendulum sound of a couple of years ago. That's quite a fundamental trend difference in the last few years; there's definitely a movement that's dubstep-like and fairly ambient, almost drumless at times. And that makes you think about things differently because it's not like we're out to copy everyone all of the time."

"To some extent you could link that with the whole MP3 movement," says Michael. "Because there seems to have been some kind of shift away from being dictated to about what's going to sell. For a long time the dance floor oriented tracks were the ones that were successful so that what was everyone aped. But now people seem to have lost faith in the ability to sell music through the usual channels so they just get on with making what they want and it's somehow freed them up.

"The kind of music we make does require attention. You can't just flick it on and immediately get it. I think it's because drum and bass music is quite indirect anyway," continues Michael.

I remember talking to the director Ross Casswell on the set of the video for Believe Me about how he came up with the idea for the film. He said he found that drum and bass tunes never seemed to get anywhere, they were more like a journey that never reaches its destination, and that's what he wanted to reflect in the video – giving no explanation or payoff. Does removing drum and bass from the context of the club make it less coherent, and a bit aimless? Does that matter?

"This idea that it's dance music is a bit strange," says Chris. "I don't know what the statistics would be but I'd be willing to bet that 90% of drum and bass is listened to outside of a club – on computers, in cars, in bedrooms... What proportion does it have to work and be heard in a club to be classed as dance music?"

"There's no elevator pitch for drum and bass!" adds Leo.

"But one of the things I always liked about it was that there was a surrendering of the ego and there was this understanding that there was lots going on at the same time and what you were doing was making small, attenuated changes within something that was much bigger," Chris says.

"And each one of your attenuated changes didn't mean that much in isolation but taken as a whole, all those tiny changes to an idea, all marches forward in unison, so from track to track it all might sound the same but within a year or five years' time, that idea sounds very different because it's grown organically."

True to type, as Chris describes the bigger picture Leo adds his mediator's levelling diplomacy: "Morally I find that a very attractive idea because it's inclusive".

URL to orginal article on Kowledge's site here: http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/features/764

Harking back to the days when it was OK to do eyes AND lips

2009-10-30T05:03:00.001-07:00

Guy Bourdin...

http://www.bonesmagazine.co.uk/?p=389

No Worms

2009-10-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Book Club had their launch party lastweek at what used to be the Home Bar - a gorgeous, two storey Victorian warehouse in the heart of Shoreditch. Coco Sumner and Matthew Stone christened the decks, breaking them in for the procession of special guest DJs lined up to appear at the new venue over the next month as part of its programme of workshops, talks, cultural showcases, and parties.

Bringing together wit, wisdom and enough food and drink to see you through from breakfast to last orders at the bar, The Book Club presents an eclectic mix of events and social activities in art, philosophy, film, fashion, music, science, and even the odd spot of DIY, and fuses them with the tried-and-trusted formula of 7 days-a-week late-night drinking.

Just like your house, The Book Club is as conducive to chilling with your lover over coffee and Sunday morning papers as it is to setting the world to rights with friends over a bottle of wine, or swinging from the chandelier on your birthday. There are newspapers and second hand books lying around for reading as well as a menu of cocktails and comfort food. Dining is informal and communal and the kitchen has a counter service so you have to take your plate up to the front and ask for more, like Oliver Twist.

Over the next couple of weeks Jocks and Nerds magazine will be hosting a night of Philadelphia soul and the like, with a competition for ‘Best Haircut’ and ‘Best Poseur’; the Drinking and Thinking workshops will feature guest speaker Richard Osbourne discussing philosophy; and kitsch collective, Girl Core will be celebrating their favourite B movies. There’s also a workshop on uber fashion with uber fashion label, PPQ; a Carousel Cabaret; a short film night; a death drawing workshop; and a science fair on the third Monday of every month. See you there but I shotgun the big sofa.

For full programme listings, check www.wearetbc.com.
100 Leonard St, London, EC2A 4RH

Trying to join the BNP

2009-10-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

The guys over at Don't Panic have teamed up with Ctl.Alt.Shift to make this film about the BNP. On the day that the BNP became legally obliged to allow people of all ethinic origins to join their party, the film crew turned up to an open-invite BNP meeting in East London with 10 British, 'non-white' friends and were refused entry on the basis that they were non-white, basically. The non-British, but white Swedish immigrant was allowed to stay, though and they even offered her some 'BNP cock'. See, they are friendly to immigrants.

Check it out here:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/social/joining-the-bnp

Are the MOBOs still relevant?

2009-10-01T06:47:00.001-07:00

Last night the MOBO awards were held at the SECC in Glasgow, rewarding producers and performers for their achievements in Music Of Black Origin. According to the Guardian today, the event was 'dogged by claims that top British and US performers were unwilling to appear because the awards were in Glasgow. Music industry figures said performers were put off by the location, the cost and the view that Glasgow is "too white".'

Is there a place in British culture any more for an event which fuels a debate around whether people in Glasgow are too white to host an awards ceremony appreciating 'black music'? Is it possible that there would be no such debate if the MOBOs stopped using self-limiting differentiators like, 'black music'? And what qualifies as 'black music' these days anyway?

When you look at the winners, you have to wonder whether this issue of provenance is becoming a bit outdated, and even irrelevant. The X Factor finalists, four piece boy band JLS, won the MOBO for best song last night for their single 'Beat Again'. Listen to it yourselves if you must, or save yourself the agony and just take my word for it when I tell you that it sounds like a male vocal version of ANY Lady Gaga track written ever. Is Lady Gaga's output black in origin, or were JLS simply being rewarded for (brace yourself for controversial opinion) being successful and black?

Likewise N Dubz, who won Best UK Act and Best Album - was there ever a more vanilla iteration of urban pop? They're like East 17 except one of them has a vagina.

Take drum and bass for example, a genre so fragmented it's no longer really true to claim that every extension of it is black in origin. A band like Pendulum, or an artist like Subfocus, have a sound which has evolved from drum and bass to incorporate elements of hair rock, euro electro and even chart pop - arguably NOT styles of music which are black in origin according to the MOBOs schema.

Conversely you could argue that every musician over the past 25 years has been inspired by a black artist even if they didn't know it - Michael Jackson.

Cultural signifiers and memes belonging to one niche genre of music are now so frequently co-opted, traded, adopted, and disseminated by cousins of that same genre, we're now in a place where the idea of 'ownership' of any one particular style is a slightly old fashioned one. Audiences are as likely to enjoy dubstep as they are Calvin Harris, who isn't sounding so very different from Dizzee Rascal these days.

At what point does music stop being derivative and just become really great music? How far can you credibly stretch the provenance issue before it becomes so wide it's no longer exclusive enough to self-identify as 'other'?

Wherever that point is, the MOBOs have reached it and have gone beyond it, which is actually an indication of huge progress in terms of the variety of breakthrough artists, the innovation in new music and more broadly, issues of racial identification amongst generation Y-ers. The MOBO brand needs to continue to recognise this while reflecting the fact that it doesn't matter where you're from, it's what you do that counts.

URL to original article onKnowledge's site here: http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/blogs/rinse_and_repeat/are-the-mobos-relevant

Hotel, Motel, Holiday Inn-trusive

2009-09-29T05:52:00.000-07:00

Check out the email I got from lastminute.com this morning. The subject title was, 'Celebrity hotels: who will you run into at breakfast?'. Seriously. What. The...? Lastminute are trying to sell hotel rooms based on the fact that famous people may or may not have stayed, or currently be, staying in them. They might as well have said, 'Scrape Bono's matted hair from the bath plug', or, 'Sniff Cher's soiled sheets'.

A little creepy, no? Assuming your customers are so lacking in taste and dignity that watching a crumpled Will.I.Am from the Black Eyed Peas spoon porridge into his face at breakfast is a reason for them to want to part with their hard-earned money.

Lastminute.com, is your time up?

The future of Content Sharing

2009-09-19T19:10:00.000-07:00

So the government have once again proved they are about five years out of date with Peter Mandelson's recent proposal to disconnect the broadband of those who are found to be file sharing. Hey, Pete! The horse is already half way to China, I wouldn't bother bolting the stable door if I were you, but welcome to the 21st century anyway.

It's impossible to enforce a ban on file sharing, so we should stop trying. That's not to say that it's now legal. Making copies of music has changed a lot since the days when kids swapped cassettes and crappy recordings deteriorated with each replication, copying MP3s is super easy and while it may not be stealing in the sense that you are depriving an owner of a piece of his or her property, what's being stolen is that owner's right to copy and distribute their work.

To the music industry in general, and small labels and independent artists specifically, digital has long equalled 'bad' and 'to be avoided'. So far the response in the drum & bass scene has been to adopt a defensive stance of aggression and denial – to everyone's detriment. Instead of standing on the beach like Cnuts (yes, Cnuts – look it up), trying to hold back the tides, the music industry needs to adapt to the new market.

Speaking of China, over there Google has displayed impressive foresight, sadly lacking in our own Secretary of State for Business and 'Innovation', by purchasing a blanket license to distribute music in that territory for free. Their rationale? That the content sharing landscape is changing so rapidly it's impossible to police, so might as well at least control the access to it as a loss-leader and wait for a money-making business model to emerge once it all settles down.

As Google have accepted, the record label 'command and control' model is becoming rapidly outdated, now the culture is all about cooperation and cultivation. Sharing is the key driver for listeners and so attention has become the new currency. While content providers and hosts are still figuring out how to handle the transition from disconnected to connected consumers, the opportunities for identifying new revenue streams are abundant.

Access to a format which holds that content is the most obvious place to start charging – licensing, internet tax, micro payments – all rich territories for growth. The majority of internet usage will be mobile in next five years and so interface is key – something iPhone and Spotify have very smartly delivered. London Elektricity's own iPhone app. is another great example of hooking attention by trading in access and then banking that attention in revenue once the listener is further into the London Elektricity 'brand'.

That's what services like apps do so well and what labels like Hospital are so good at doing, which is to treat content as an experience first, a product second.

URL to orginal article on Knowledge's site here: http://www.kmag.co.uk/editorial/blogs/rinse_and_repeat/the-future-of-content-charing

Tracie Egan

2009-09-19T07:14:00.000-07:00

I interviewed one of my favourite bloggers and writers, Tracie Egan for Don't Panic. Read it here:

It’s kind of hard to define contemporary feminism. The bra-burning railing-against-the-patriarchy of old has been replaced by something subtler, more integrated. As well as the more traditionally serious, chin-strokey feminist issues such as planned parenthood, abortion, sex trafficking - the political issues, if you will - there is now as much of an appetite among feminists for discussion around more social issues, with sexuality, gender stereotyping and body image all requesting equal billing. Consequently the feminist movement has found itself fragmenting into sub-genres, and in response women’s websites such as Jezebel, Slated, Feministing and XX, have sprung up all over the web, each catering for a different ‘flavour’ of feminism.

By employing writers who are not afraid to show themselves as three-dimensional, clever women with personalities and senses of humor, these sites have helped to keep the debate relevant and give the movement bigger balls than ever. One such writer is New Yorker, Tracie Egan. An editor at Jezebel and former anonymous, since ‘outed’ blogger of One D At A Time, aka ‘Slut Machine’, Egan has written in disarmingly frank detail about her one-night stands, excessive drinking, fights with boyfriends, and sexually transmitted diseases.

“I was always more interested in celebrating the more fun aspects of liberation”, says Egan. “So that’s why I wanted to write about sex. I wanted to be as honest as I could. If people think that women who have sex are sluts then I guess that makes me one. Which isn’t a bad thing. It’s kind of like a Rorsach test for sexuality. Anyone who is uncomfortable with themselves and their own sexuality would get uncomfortable with any sort of honesty or reality about sex.”

For many, a lot of Egan’s contributions to the feminist conversation come from a challenging and uncomfortable place and this has won her as many fans as it has detractors. Speaking of the comments posted on One D At A Time, she says;

“I didn’t care when some stupid guys would say ‘you’re so disgusting, you’re such a pig’ or whatever, what bothered me was when women who are otherwise intelligent and would describe themselves as feminists got really pissed off at what I wrote. Not that they have to find someone else’s sex life endearing and funny, but I thought that they would at least be able to see the purpose in writing about something like sex and they could at least see the humour or entertainment in it. It doesn’t mean that someone who writes about their sex life isn’t as much of a feminist as they are. By being critical of another woman getting attention for speaking her mind they’re being critical of women speaking their minds full-stop.”

It would be easy to mistake, or even dismiss Egan’s online persona as that of provocateur, but to do that would be to miss the point. Egan managed to oxygenate the debate surrounding all such double standards and female sexual guilt in a piece she wrote a couple of years ago for Vice magazine titled ‘One rape please (to go)’ about her recruitment of a male escort to ‘rape’ her.

Understandably, the piece hit a few nerves and Egan drew criticism for being an irresponsible rape apologist. The obvious intellectual defence was to say that by orchestrating her own 'rape' she was making a statement about reversing the locus of power and control in a scenario that is almost always about a man wielding power and control over a woman. But the shouty caps lock brigade slightly overlooked the real point of the piece, which was that Egan was daring to admit to something that hundreds of thousands of women would falsely deny for fear of appearing un-feminist; that she fantasised about rape. What Egan asserted was that as an autonomous sexual person, she was entitled to take ownership of that fantasy and even act it out if she wanted - a freedom of choice and sexual expression perfectly in keeping with feminist principles. Unfortunately in the event, the escort didn’t quite manage to deliver and instead asked her out on a date. Egan declined.

What feminists like Egan do is to not only call out double standards between men and women, but also call out double standards within feminism. Despite identifying as feminists, women can still perceive falling for the wrong person, not using protection, drinking too much, having sex on a first date, and hating their bodies as signs of failure, as if somehow to be fallible is to be ‘un-feminist’.

“I don’t think that women should always have to strive to be altruistic, do-gooders, nurturing, peace loving vegetarians or whatever”, says Egan. “It’s not about being a better person than men, it’s about proving you’re a person, the same as everyone.”

Of her blog, Egan says;

“I wasn’t trying to be all ‘Look at me’, it was more about ‘Hey, does anyone else feel weird about putting a tampon in and then having to poop immediately afterwards?’ ‘Am I going to ‘deliver’ it if I push too much?’ I just wanted to be able to relate. I mean, that’s what the internet is for: porn and connecting. Like, I would write about having herpes and a girl would email me and say ‘Thank you so much for writing about it because I felt so gross and disgusting and like no one was ever going to marry me’, and I was like ‘Wow you really thought no one was going to marry you?’ I mean herpes is just like a form of Chicken Pox on your vagina, if it happens, it’s going to be ok.”

For a movement whose discourse has always been about proving women’s strength and equal capability to the patriarchy, examining the flaws of our gender is bound to make some feel uncomfortable. But the danger then is that feminists are holding themselves to higher standards than they would impose on men.

“It’s like the thing with Sarah Palin”, Egan says. “I understand why she would be hated for her stance on abortion and rape kits, but I disliked that people were saying, ‘She’s only popular because she’s pretty, she’s so stupid’. We won’t have true equality until a woman as stupid as George Bush could be president. Why do women have to achieve so much more than men just to be equal to them?”

“I think overall if there’s one mission or goal for feminism across the board it’s about achieving equality through being people rather than superwomen. If I were the boss of feminism it would be about having choices and not about dictating what those choices should be or judging women for what the choices they make are.”

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/arts/is-tracie-egan-feminist

Reality Check

2009-08-04T05:28:00.000-07:00

I work in advertising, so I am allowed to slag it off. It's like with family. You can bitch and moan about them to all who will listen, but if anyone not related to you dare criticise your own flesh and blood...well, that's totally out of order. I can slag off advertising because it has had the best years of me, it has had some of my best ideas, it has had more waking hours of my life over the past few years than any of my friends or family have. Anyone who doesn't work in advertising yet slags it off is undermining those past 7 years of my life, reducing them to the subjection of disdainful regurgitated mis-quotes from Bill 'If you work in marketing you should kill yourself' Hicks, a man who incidentally was ultimately killed by a brand's marketing. Marlboro, anyone? And who's dead now? Not me! Cock.

Anywayyy, I digress. Not to put too fine a point on it, advertising is about selling things to people and [the ambition is that] creativity is the guile with which advertisers do this. It takes some skill to be creative, admittedly, but one should never ever kid oneself that advertising is anything other than making things look pretty and then putting them in the place where they will get noticed the most. Nineteen year olds in provincial towns have been trowelling on slap, Lynx, hitching up their skirts, unbuttoning shirts and standing in clubs and bars looking easy for decades. They don't need Oxbridge degrees to tell them that a person is more likely to take something (someone?) home with them if it looks good, and is readily available.

The problem with advertising is that it is its own victim. It believes its own lies, which I suppose is an endorsement, in a sick kind of way, of its genuine-ness. In order to create good advertising, it is necessary to become completely immersed in and obssessed with, the product you are selling. So convinced are those in the advertising industry that every brand and client (read: hand that feeds) they work with has been shat out of the anus of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, that by osmosis they come to believe it of themselves as well. I've worked at some of the best advertising agencies in the world and have not yet managed to cease being amazed at the delusions of grandeur, and what are nothing short of God complexes, demonstrated by those at the very zenith of the industry.

And it is just these such people who are selected weekly by industry magazine, Campaign, to deign to enlighten the lowlier reader with fascinating insights into their brilliant, brilliant, witty and brilliant minds, by answering Campaign's equivalent to The Guardian Q&A; The Hot Seat.

As a regular reader of this feature I began to notice some disturbing trends. 1. That nearly every single interviewee was a man and 2. That they nearly all had some weird perception of themselves as intrepid and pioneering and consistently identified with famous explorers or royalty.

Remembering that some among these men have been responsible for such cultural contributions as Barry Scott in the Cillit Bang ads and McDonalds' I'm Lovin It, just look at the following examples of real responses given to the question:

- Which historical figure do you most identify with and why?

(out of cowardice and self-preservation, names have not been given in case I ever happen to apply for a job with their agency in the future!)

Men:

"Ernest Shackleton on his polar expedition - particularly the ocean voyage in an open boat in winter to seek rescue. A resolute but flawed leader, but much-focused on keeping his men well fed. His insight in this regard I find evocative and compelling."

"Captain James Cook. We both left Whitby at a young age to explore the world. Well, he did. I ended up in Ilford, but I do travel a bit now."

"Attila the Hun."

"Hannibal. Not Lecter. The other one. Because he took on the impossible and did it in the Alps."

"Christopher Columbus. He too came back from America very excited about life."

"King Arthur."

"Captain Cook. Great seaman." [ho ho]

Tellingly, the most successful and highly lauded of all interviewees responded thus:

"My high school teacher, Con O'Haplin, who taught me history isn't about the past. It's all about the future."

Proving that humility is the best USP of all.

I could only find one woman interviewee on their archives. Hopefully that's because there are no more out there like her; she sounds like a right royal pain in the behind:

- Which historical figure do you identify with and why?

"Elizabeth I, because she was Queen and she kicked arse."

Money Shot

2009-06-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

No, the gaping, blank expression isn't her imitating a blow-up doll passively awaiting seven inches of hot meat in her mouth; she is in fact bored shitless and yawning at the tedious fucking sexism, stereotyping and god-awful sexual innuendo which has become an advertising horse as dead and flogged as the one inside that burger bun.

John 'Hoppy' Hopkins: Against Tyranny

2009-06-23T03:56:00.000-07:00

Check out my review of his retrospective exhibition:

Nuclear scientist, squatter, trans-Siberian hearse driver, raver, convict, photographer and founder of the first sub-culture newspaper (the International Times), John ‘Hoppy' Hopkins in all his varied incarnations is exhibited currently at the Idea Generation gallery with his retrospective collection Against Tyranny.

‘Hoppy's images pull no punches and show an empire in decline,' says the blurb from the gallery. The way most people speak of the 60s, it is painted as quite the opposite of a decline; it was a period of ascent out of the cultural stagnancy of post-war gloom towards a vibrant era of music, youth culture and copious drug use, wasn't it?

Not so, say Hopkins' pictures of the slums. In one photograph titled ‘Poverty', a woman sits in her one-room makeshift bedsit, eking out the rest of the time she has left before the bulldozers come to clear the path for what will become the Westway. Behind her on the wall, two painted dancing figures contrast with the impending devastation of not only a building but also her life possessions, in what seems a cruel mockery. It's a powerful reminder that London was actually pretty shit back then. Just watch Withnail & I (again) if you want to see evidence of a decade that was more about wrecking balls than good vibes.

CND, the Vietnam war, the US civil rights movement and the UK's first wave of immigration dominated the social agenda. As a documenter and activist of the protest movement, Hopkins brought a very 60's perspective to the cause; LSD. "The effect is to kick your frame of reference and give it a good shake," Hopkins said of the acid experience. "[Taking it] helps us recognise we're all part of the same tribe".

His candid documentary-style photographs of street protesters seem naive in retrospect. Back then whole movements were borne out of protest, in contrast to modern protests that look more like art festivals.

A sign of quality in art is when it can be enjoyed without knowledge of the meaning. Hopkins' studied portraits (of Malc X, MLK, Lennon and Burroughs to name a few) are strong even without the knowledge of the personal relationships he had with his subjects. Yet somehow, while knowing his history with Burroughs, Ginsberg et al doesn't detract, it doesn't add anything either as you may have thought it would. Possibly because Hopkins' own role as protagonist imposes to the point of being dominant.

His opportunistic snapshots (Smackhead, Prostitute) are much more visceral and allow his talent as a photographer to breathe without the dulling layer of explicit socio-political comment. Couple, 5am is a beautiful, working class evocation of Robert Doisneau's Kiss by the Hotel De Ville.

The Psychedelic posters are impressive artefacts of graphic design, but the style has been ripped off so many times that they look like pastiches. Thanks a lot Austin Powers.

The spectre of the future casts a shadow over the whole exhibition. CND didn't really achieve it's goal; Vietnam is Iraq; we can see live pictures of US journalists being beheaded by insurgents on Youtube. Black and white photographs of protest marches for immigrant equality inspire a nostalgic hope that you can't help feeling is a little false, knowing that we have just elected the BNP. Knowing what we know now about the modern world, Hopkins' images feel quaint. But on the other hand they capture a spirit and optimism, a rare determination to effect change. At a time when the sentiment of this exhibition should be more relevant than ever, it throws into sharp relief the modern apathy towards those same issues that remain today. Perhaps what the world needs is more LSD...

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/arts/john-hoppy-hopkins

The Bunker at the Centre of the Universe

2009-06-01T12:23:00.000-07:00

This week I went to look at some art underground...

n an inconspicuous car park entrance next to a shopping mall on Kingsland Road, an abandoned post-war bunker spreads out underneath Dalston, East London. You didn't know that did you?! This outwardly unidentified space has been empty for years, unusable due to lack of electricity or any other utilities. The Bunker is only yards away from a busy high street but once inside, it is another world altogether – cold, damp, dark and eerie.

Catherine Borra of the nomadic art space collective known as The Centre Of The Universe, has had designs on The Bunker for a while and with the support of the Embassy of Switzerland, has now managed to realise her vision in this venue.

Undeterred by the challenges of the environment, Borra has curated an exhibition that is a response to the space it inhabits, and to the arcane and troubled history it recalls. “I wanted to try to juxtapose something positive with this structure, which is so austere”, explains Borra. “It has this Second World War modernism which is very cold and formal, yet on the other hand its whole reason for existing was to protect people”.

Sheltering within The Bunker’s walls are works from three different artists – Justin Gainan, Jenny Moore-Koslowsky and Pim Conradi. “We chose these artists because of the way they relate their work to their environment," says Borra. “They go beyond simply creating artworks to something which is much more functional."

Moore-Koslowsky and Gainan are both completing MAs in Fine Arts at Goldsmiths, while Conradi is currently artist-in-residence at Area 10 in London. The Bunker is his first public appearance. The inexperience of all three is evident. Although in concept and execution they are very different, there is a common theme of uncertainty around how to position themselves.

Conradi is candid about the fact that what he calls his ‘visionstructures’ are constantly evolving as he analyses “the relationship between human life and the biosphere”. In what you could call the 'main room’ of the bunker, Conradi’s timber dome dominates. It looks geodesic but in fact none of the supporting struts are straight lines – every part of the dome is curved in a sort of rebellious two-fingers to the convention of construction and also to The Bunker itself with all its linear right angles.

This confrontational spirit is carried through into the rest of the exhibits. Gainan’s minimalist sculptures are sincere and without irony. They are almost accusatory – challenging the onlooker not to take them seriously. Moore-Koslowsky’s work echoes Russian socialist propaganda aesthetics in the register of Rodchenko, yet by removing any reference to political ideology she preserves only the pioneering energy of propagandism and proposes neutrality as a different type of activism.

It’s a brave effort from Borra to create a positive and progressive event in such an inhospitable space. However, ultimately it is the space itself that is the most engaging, eclipsing the artists’ work within. That’s not to say she has been unsuccessful, it is thanks to The Centre of the Universe that this fantastic space has been given the chance to be the centre of attention.

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/home/the-bunker

Fewwwwwwd

2009-05-27T12:35:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, The Guardian's Gaby Wood interviewed the USA's answer to Gillian McKeith - a similarly sinewy, hungry blonde named MeMe Roth. MeMe, or Meredith Clements to give her her full-fat title, has made a name for herself by calling people obese. Her victims are often celebrities, but are almost always women.

Roth is president of the National Action Against Obesity, but that doesn't hold an awful lot of weight (ho ho) because she is the only member. Her strategy is to attack high-profile fatties and hope that the shame spiral eddies downwards and drills into the consciousness of the heavy masses.

This is straight up body fascism by any other name, only the guile under which Roth executes it is philanthropic concern. To her credit, Wood gives little sympathy to Roth's cause, challenging her to explain her evasion of the issue surrounding fast food companies - whom Roth doesn't target as part of her campaign. Roth doesn't do corporate, she does personal.

"Two basic facts behind the rise of obesity are that high-calorie foods are cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, and that the food industry is big business", writes Wood. "Yet when I ask Roth who are the really bad guys in this situation, she replies: "High fructose corn syrup", as if these larger factors were not even part of the picture."

Wood also explicitly, and quite rightly, questions the sanity of some of Roth's formulations, especially the one where she likens unhealthy eating habits to rape.

"The defence has been made in the case of sex criminals that there is pleasure on the part of the victim. The same is true with what we're doing with food. We may abuse our bodies with food, but it's incredibly pleasurable. From a food marketer's point of view, when your quote unquote victim is so willing and enjoying of the process, who's fighting back?", babbles Roth, her brain obviously lacking nourishment.

The argument is so ridiculous and offensive it warrants a whole separate article of its own, yet on the other hand you feel it doesn't deserve crediting with a dedicated response - perhaps Wood felt the same way and that's why she decided to let the remark go almost unchallenged in her piece. It's a long enough bit of rope for Roth to hang herself with without Wood tying the noose. And that is true of the rest of the interview too. Roth's true colours are revealed and her insecurities are thrown into sharp relief - she's an (arguable) anorexic who hates fat people because they scare her. There's a whole backstory of obese parent issues that are too dull to go into, suffice it to say that she's dedicated her entire life to not turning into her mother.

For me, where Wood disappoints is her failure to call Roth out on the glaringly obvious hypocrisy of her efforts.

"Love it or hate it, whatever socio-economic category you're in, we are a People-magazine society. So if you get it right with Angelina Jolie, the kids will listen and everything will change", says Roth.

Hang on. Isn't it exactly this kind of scrutiny - played out in the weekly gossip rags, whereby female celebrities' bodies are forensically commented on from every angle - which is contributing to the rise in anorexia, bulimia and general body issues and self-loathing amongst young girls? Is that not just Roth's lesser of two evils (the bigger being obesity) - make girls feel guilty and ashamed about being fat by holding up impossibly unattainable photoshopped images of female stars and propagate a body image that, while at the other end of the scales, is just as unhealthy?

Where's the benefit in that? There is none as far as I can see, not for individual health or the collective spiritual health of society.

After all, the best advocates of change are those who practice what they preach and in this area, Roth is plainly deficient.

"So how about lunch?", writes Wood

"She squirms visibly. "You're taking me where I don't want to go ... What works for me doesn't work for a lot of people."

Well, you've said that, I insist, so taking that into account: lunch? Roth hesitates. "I discovered when I was in college that I work best when I get a workout in and eat after that. Sometimes I'll delay when I eat until I get a workout in. But I don't let a whole day go by without running four miles."

OK, I go on, but supposing you couldn't work out until four o'clock in the afternoon - would you not eat until after that?

"I might."

I look at my watch. It's 3.30pm. Alarm bells start to ring in my head. How about today, I ask. Have you eaten at all today?

Roth is a little quiet.

""No," she says."

There is a pause.

"But I feel great!"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/may/24/meme-roth-obesity-nutrition.

http://jezebel.com/5269464/anti+obesity-activist-meme-roth-compares-eating-to-rape.

Pictures at an Exhibition

2009-05-22T05:58:00.001-07:00

Check out my review and interview with the choreographer of the Young Vic's latest production here:

his week The Young Vic and Sadler’s Wells team up to create an exciting dance theatre production called Pictures from an Exhibition based on the torrid and tragic life and works of the 19th century Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky and his piano suites which were inspired by the paintings of his dead lover, artist and architect Victor Hartmann. It’s an admirably ambitious project, crossing genres by combining dance, movement, live music, poetry and dramatic theatre.

Director Daniel Kramer has been very successful in creating an uncomfortable sense of claustrophobia. The resulting unease is felt throughout the piece - James Fenton’s minimal verse helps to heighten the feelings of isolation felt by Mussorgsky (played by Edward Hogg) as he sank further and further towards rock bottom. However, Fenton’s contributions are let down somewhat by the acting which veers dangerously towards melodrama at times and jars with the surrealism of the dance-only sections.

Frauke Requardt uses her dancers to great effect, mixing minimalist modern styles with twists on the classically infused with influences from traditional Russian folk. She tackles the sinister depiction of Mussorgsky’s abuse suffered as a boy at the hands of his piano teacher using the character of a demon clad in neon green and orange as narrator and provocateur of Mussorgsky’s buried memories.

For the scene, Hogg wears a flesh-coloured jock strap with a baby’s milk bottle attached in place of his genitals. Either side are ping pong balls, placed as testicles. In one grotesque sequence, a female dancer dressed as a nurse cradles him like an infant as the demon reaches under his night shirt and detaches a testicle, putting it in his mouth. It is then revealed to be an egg as the demon turns towards the audience and cracks it in his mouth before spitting the contents into a bucket placed below the stage. The effect is powerful, especially for those in the front row.

Requardt’s blackly humorous choreography inspires brilliant performances by the dancers and is arguably the most compelling reason to go and see Pictures from an Exhibition. I caught up with her to talk about her involvement in the project.

What was it about this project that inspired you to be involved?

I love cross-art productions. You just learn so much about what the different art-forms are made to express best.

Had you worked with either Daniel Kramer or James Fenton before? How did you enjoy it?

I have never worked with either of them before and yes I enjoyed working with them tremendously. I bow down to James' intellect and knowledge. His poetry is just beautiful.

Being able to draw on Mussorgsky's Russian heritage must have had an influence. Where else did you look to for reference? Did you look to Hartmann's work?

Yes, we did look at Hartmann's pictures since that's what the music was written about, but we found that actually some of them were lost. James did an incredible amount of research, reading through Mussorgsky's letters and informing us about the artistic and political climate at that time in Russia. He always brought more information - paintings, letters, biographies - and he talked about Mussorgsky's contemporaries and the zeitgeist of that period. We wanted the movement to be big at times and looked at Russian soldiers dancing, but we also wanted really contemporary intricate parts that would express his suffering in a more poetic way.

How long did it take to create this production?

Ten weeks, and a lot of talking before that.

What are your hopes for Pictures from an Exhibition? How would you like it to be received?

I hope we created a meaningful piece that deserves to be in the world. I have a feeling that people will either hate it or love it, which is fine by me. I would like it to be acknowledged as the ambitious and daring piece of work that it is to me.

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/arts/pictures-from-an-exhibition

Alternative Miss World

2009-04-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

Aside from simply supporting gay marriage (see today's furore over Miss California's ignorant display during the current Miss USA pageant) , what makes Andrew Logan's Miss Worlds alternative to the usual Barbie dolls is their poise, pose and personality. And the fact that they can be trannies, or even grannies...

Check out my interview with the organiser, sculptor and artist Andrew Logan up on Don't Panic now:

An Interview With Founder Of The Alternative Miss World Competition, Andrew Logan
(originally published online at dontpaniconline.com, April 2009)

In just under two weeks’ time, the next Alternative Miss World will be crowned at the Roundhouse in Camden and the collective dreams of frustrated pageant queens everywhere will be realised. For Alternative Miss World is a competition for everyman: housewife, teacher, taxman or indeed vicar; whether gay or straight; whether animal, vegetable, or mineral, each has a shot at the title. Previous winners have included a 75 year old Russian woman – (hobbies: smoking, drinking and dancing), and a robot.

The Pater Familias of the Alternative Miss World event, and general hostess with the most-ess, is the sculptor and artist Andrew Logan whose mission, he declares, is ‘to give enjoyment and pleasure to others through quirky, humorous and extravagant mementoes’. And boy, does he deliver on that mission. There is no memento bigger or more extravagant than the Alternative Miss World legacy. Since the first show in an old jigsaw factory in Hackney in 1972, it has grown into an event with an international reputation.

When asked why he started hosting the Alternative Miss World event Logan replies simply, “I love throwing parties”. He calls it a ‘surreal art event for all-round family entertainment’, which is fun and refreshing. While it may be accurate to describe the event as ‘alternative’, it is not niche or exclusive, nor does it have an agenda or mandate other than to show-off and have a bloody good time.

The inclusive spirit of Alternative Miss World means it attracts all types of contestants. “My sister has entered every one”, says Logan. “My brother’s done a few. I have a friend who entered the first one in 1972 and is doing it again for the second time this year. At the last one in 2004 we had Norman Rosenthal from the Royal Academy – he’d wanted to do it for years.”

In a recent piece in the Guardian, previous contestant Michele Hanson wrote of her experience as crowned runner-up, ‘Miss Ruislip’ in 1972: “In my horrid daywear overalls, knee bandage and grim giant swimming knickers, I felt fabulously confident and glamorous”, she writes. “I pulled my pink rubber gloves on and off, swirled my mop stylishly. There were no rules and no conventional standards of beauty, which meant that anyone, of any shape, could feel stunningly beautiful.”

The running order is loosely based on a beauty contest with the usual categories of daywear, swimwear and eveningwear with what Logan calls the ‘oh so important interview’ – “What I really want is world peace…”. But rather than measuring the contestants on their vital statistics and where they place on the fake-tan Richter scale of orange, the whole thing is judged on just three elements: poise, personality and originality.

Even without the liberal approach to scoring it’s hard to draw up any more detailed criteria for judging the contestants because until the curtain rises on the night, no one present – judge or audience member – knows what to expect.

“All I know about this year’s show is that Miss Donna Maria – the maypole queen of the UK – will be there with her troupe”, says Logan. “There will be a maypole there too and a performance based around the Mayday ritual and the rite of Spring.”

“That’s the joy”, he says of not knowing. “On the evening I’m as surprised as everybody else because there are no rehearsals. It’s important we don’t do any so they [the contestants] literally just arrive, the stage is already set, and they just walk on and do their thing.”

Consequently, it’s also a bit of a struggle to describe the qualities sought of a winning Alternative Miss World contestant beyond simply describing the previous victors and divining their key attributes – chief among which seems to be the fittingly ambiguous virtue of ‘individuality’.

“The reigning Alternative Miss World is a man who called himself ‘Miss Secret Sounds of Sunbird Rising”, says Logan. “For his eveningwear he had on this dress with a big cage with live birds in it and he sang falsetto – the most amazing song in this extraordinary voice. The night he won, there were a lot of very theatrical women on the judging panel; people like Pat Quinn and Amanda Barrie. So it can be thrown by who’s judging and what they’re looking for”.

The judges are all selected from a trusted circle of people who are involved in Logan’s life in various ways. “Sometimes I’ll get a phone call from an agent saying that a particular celebrity is interested in judging’, says Logan, “but I hate all that.”

“I prefer it to be people I know. So this year we have Richard O’Brien who has been a great supporter for many, many years; my great friend Zandra Rhodes and we also have Betty Mackintosh, who has been my bookkeeper and PA for almost 30 years. I just thought it would be nice to give her the chance to be involved, that’s what it’s all about. Julian Clary, who hosted the last event has agreed to come back this year as a judge, and my great friend from India is flying in as well.”

Despite the spirit of inclusiveness and frivolity, could it be I suggest, that things can, and do, get pretty competitive? Logan’s sister, Janet Slee (ex-Miss Handled), was quoted in Hanson’s piece saying that she had noticed that things had begun to get very serious backstage.

"We were told to stop giggling by another contestant”, Slee recalls. “We were spoiling his concentration. It changed then. It used to be all giggles and hoots. You used a bit of crepe paper, or whatever you had. Now some people spend huge amounts of money and time. The rivalry's quite intense, secretive, people don't speak to each other for weeks in advance. There are rifts in friendships. Andrew knows nothing of this."

“I’m sure it does get competitive”, says Logan. “But I stay well in the background.
I’m not really interested in winners or winning but I do like the ritual of the coronation.”

In his civilian incarnation as a sculptor, Logan takes great interest and care in creating all the Alternative Crown Jewels and winner’s thrones himself. Each event has a theme and the coronation baubles are created around it. The previous 5 events having been Water, Earth, Air, Fire and Void, this year combines them all under the umbrella of ‘Elements’. “I thought ‘well I’ve already made the Alternative Crown Jewels for each one, I can just use them all for ‘The Elements’ and I don’t have to do anything!’”, says Logan. “But then my friend Piers Atkinson who’s a contestant and organising the souvenir programme said ‘Oh no you can’t get away with that, you’ll have to do a whole new set’. So I did brand new ones for this year.”

What Logan and his team can achieve in a relatively short amount of time is staggering. Preparations for AMW 2009 only began in earnest in September and were halted for a 3-month winter hiatus in India. As we talk there are two assistants – fashion and textiles students – beavering away outside, sewing sequins and stitching fake fur trim onto the winner’s gown.

“Each time I do and Alternative Miss World, when it’s all over I say ‘never again!’”, laughs Logan. Presumably it was the same story after 2004’s event, so what changed his mind?

“The film”, he says.

Ahh yes, the film. During our interview I have been all too keenly aware of the camera lens trained on us. It follows Logan everywhere, throughout the preparations, documenting every detail down to the smallest rhinestone. What began as a much smaller project, with the intention of recording the 2004 Alternative Miss World party, has become a five-year investigation into the history of AMW as it relates to Logan’s work as an artist. It will begin with the 2004 Alternative Miss World event and follow Logan over the 5 intervening years, culminating in the AMW 2009. “I had to put on another one”, explains Logan, “otherwise there would have been no ending for the film!”.

The finished movie is slated for release in September this year and will do the rounds at the festivals. If you want a spoiler for the ending before that then get down to the Roundhouse on the 2nd May and find out who the next Alternative Miss World will be.

Alternative Miss World at The Roundhouse, Camden, Chalk Farm, NW1 8EH, 7pm, May 2nd.

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/democracy/andrew-logan---alternative-miss-world

Monsters Inked

2009-04-15T02:05:00.000-07:00

My latest piece for Don't Panic is online now. This week I went to the preview night of Idea Generation Gallery's fantastic new exhibition, Monsters Inked. Scerryyyyyyyy......

With an enormous new commissioned work from Pete Fowler, and the first gallery showing of Rob Steen's Flanimals as part of their Monsters Inked show, we sent Emily Hobbs down to explore Idea Generation's lair.

Once upon a time (Tuesday night) in a strange and far away land (Shoreditch), a really not at all bad looking and thoroughly nice princess (me), clutching at a crumpled and torn map, followed the dark and labyrinthine alley-ways behind the Rainbow Sports Bar toward the unknown spot marked ‘X’.

Eventually she found the warehouse space containing the collection. Taken aback at such a comprehensive display of beastly incarnations the princess stood and pondered for a moment; what was the correct collective noun for a group of monsters? A scare? An ugly? A Cthulu? After some consideration she decided upon a scream of monsters.

Realising that the fairy tale conceit was at this point beginning to wear a little thin, and unsure how to convincingly keep it going for another six paragraphs, the princess switched back into the present tense to continue the article...

You know that the Monsters Inked exhibition is officially amazing when you can’t actually manage to see it. Its popularity is understandable when you consider that among those artists exhibiting were Rob Steen, the illustrator of Ricky Gervais’s wonderful Flanimals; the Godfather of monsterism, Pete Fowler; and artists including Thunderdog, Mick Brownfield and Ray Smith from the Central Illustration Agency all showcasing the best illustration and creative talent.

The exhibition includes 20 previously unseen illustrations by Steen which follow the translation from the draftsman board through to the finished image. Naked and pencil-drawn, the Adult Mernimbler's monstrous demeanour is somewhat lacking. However, the next frame affords a fully fleshed-out Mernimbler in all its colourful and grotesque glory, grimacing against a nightmarish backdrop of flora and fauna that makes you want to hide under a big duvet.

In the gallery's atrium there is an astonishing 800 square foot vinyl installation of Monsterism Island, created by Pete Fowler. The piece proves just how far an artist can take the concept of monster art. The eye is caught first by a sort of Jesus looking if he was John Lennon's younger brother and the whole world was made of LSD, before being drawn upwards to the demonic black fuzzy thing with antlers which is standing on his head, unabashedly displaying a humorously placed bone on what can only be described as (if monsters have such a thing) his crotch.

On the wall to the left as you go up the first flight of stairs there are some small, intricate studies drawn by hand in ink. Tom Jennings' illustrations feel more artistic and line-drawn than the bubble-gum style of some of his monster wallmates. One figure's face is comprised of two colourful birds.

Don't be afraid though, there's a big 'Awwww' factor at Monsters Inked too with the cute and cartoony Moshi Monsters - think Hello Kitty's genetically mutated cousin. My favourite part of the whole show is an interactive section where you can adopt one one of the Moshis or create your own monster using either digital design tools or good old fashioned pen and paper. If you feel you have a monster inside that you want to release, this is the perfect outlet. Someone might even want to take it home with them.

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/democracy/monsters-inked

The Power of Voodoo. Who Do? You Do?

2009-03-24T05:14:00.000-07:00

My latest piece for Don't Panic online, reviewing the Leah Gordon exhibition of Haitian carnival performers is here:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/leah-gordons-voodoo-carnival

And below without pics, so you'd be better off clicking the link really.

To most people, Carnival means music, sequins, feathers, glitter, girls in minuscule costumes and men in drag, but for the residents of the small coastal town of Jacmel in southern Haiti, Carnival, or Kanaval, means (unsurprisingly for a country where the principal religion is Voodoo) scaring the shit out of each other. And men in drag.

There are processions of children in rags and chains, blacked-up ‘slaves', representations of mass murdering prison guards, and home-made costumes adorned with animal teeth. What the Haitian carnival lacks in glitz and glamour it makes up for in home-grown surrealism and metaphor.

British born photographer and documentary film maker, Leah Gordon, has built an extraordinary body of work exploring the fascinating traditions and culture of Haitian communities since her first trip to the island in 1991. In this exhibition at the Photofusion Gallery in Brixton she explores the characters and performers of Jacmel's annual Kanaval procession.

Taking them out of the context of the event, Gordon's photographs focus on individuals from the various performance troupes in isolation. In a departure from her documentary style, her subjects are posed which in this instance affords them a kind of control over their own narrative - a conceit aided by the fact that beside some of the photographs are paragraphs of text taken from conversations with the performer featured in the picture.

Their costumes and characters are steeped in history - the slaves' revolt and ancestral memories, inspired by folklore both local and imported from Europe and Africa. One troupe portrays the medieval Christian story of the ‘Wandering Jew'; condemned to walk the earth indefinitely after taunting Jesus on his way to crucifixion, he is depicted wearing a top hat and carrying a stick to beat away anyone who tries to get too close to him, so accustomed is he to being isolated. "It helps to be big", says one performer who boasts that he is the best person to play the Wandering Jew because he is tall and can scare the audience.

One man captured front-on in a very fetching off-the-shoulder lace number explains how his gender-bending interpretation of the Devil as a transvestite came to him in a vision when he was working on a sugar cane plantation in the Dominican republic.

If you've ever seen the impossibly cheesy James Bond film with Roger Moore, Live And Let Die, you'll be familiar with the Vodou aesthetic. It's actually very much in evidence in Gordon's photographs - there are definitely one or two Baron Samedis grinning back at you from the black and white medium format (perhaps unsurprising as the character's name is shared by one of the Haitian Loa, or deities).

Scary, satirical, sentimental and spectacular, Jacmel's communal creativity is vivid. Gordon's exhibition includes a short film depicting some of the characters from the carnival, which is compelling and at once nostalgic and contemporary.

Leah Gordon's Kanaval is on at Photo Fusion Gallery until 24 April. Voodon't miss it. More info hereSee more of Leah's work at www.leahgordon.co.uk

Interview with author Pat W. Hendersen...

2009-03-16T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/decade

And here:

A new novel about drug dealing and the Scottish rave scene, but it's not written by Irvine Welsh? Exploring a side of Scots culture that most St. Andrews undergrads will never see, Pat W. Hendersen spins an allegedly fictional tale of a major drug deal gone wrong.

To say that everyone has a past is a hoary old cliche. What it really means is that everyone has a naughty past, which is probably universally true. Look no further than any of your friends’ online photos and you’ll see evidence of such history in the making.

Very respectable and sensible businessman turned novelist Pat W. Hendersen has decided to fictionalise his own despicable exploits for his debut novel, Decade (originally titled Five hundred disco biscuits). The action is played out during the Scottish rave scene of the late 80s and early 90s. Published this week, Decade centres on the unlikely friendship of Martin and Colin and follows them as they haplessly navigate dodgy drug deals, football hooliganism and Scotland's underground rave scene.

Hendersen has protested in interviews that, although the novel is based on his own experiences, it is not autobiographical and the characters are entirely fictional. In an informal setting, I probed him for the dirt, the truth and the stories.

So, is 'fictional' just a tag for dodging lawsuits?

It’s like the start of Anchorman; “The book is based on a true story. Only the names, dates and events have been changed.” I can honestly say that the main event of the characters Colin and Martin meeting and all the major events of fighting, jail-time and drug deals gone wrong are complete fiction. Background events may have happened. The Cosmos & Rhumba clubs are all pretty accurately based on fact and the characters are definitely an amalgam of people I met but not to the extent that anyone reading would be able to say ‘That’s me, that is!’

Are you still in touch with any of the people you reference from you own past in the book, or have you re-invented yourself in a completely new life?

Yeah, I still have contact. I don’t live far away from Dundee now and still enjoy the odd night out there. Moving away in the first place wasn’t an attempt to re-invent myself. I’ve no interest in re-inventing myself and hope I never do!

You write under a pen name - is this because you wish to remain anonymous for safety reasons?

Trust me, I’ve no reason to fear my safety. Sure a few football casuals may be upset at their portrayals in the book but football casuals fall into two categories. There’s the proper nutters who won’t be offended in the slightest and who know me anyway and then there’s the bottle merchants who... Well, they’re bottle merchants, so what do I care.

There will inevitably be comparisons drawn between you and Irvine Welsh - how do you plan to answer those?

Firstly I should say I’m a fan of Irvine Welsh. I do however think that any comparisons are tenuous and based really only on the overt Scottishness of the stories. I actually think that it’s unfair to even compare Irvine Welsh with Irvine Welsh. By that I mean, compare books such as Marabou Stork Nightmares with Crime, for instance. Both are completely different stories with only the theme of sex crime really linking them. The marker for Welsh will always be Trainspotting though, won’t it? The difference between my stories and his is that Welsh injects more fantasy. You couldn’t really read Trainspotting as a story that might have actually happened. You probably could with Decade.

Why do you think there have been so many stories told about the Scottish rave scene and comparatively so few stories about the English rave scene?

Cue incredibly pretentious answer. Nah, not really. I didn’t sample that much of any particular English scene, but what I did sample was no less vibrant or vital. I think it’s more to do with the Scottish disposition to tell stories. Something we share with the Irish I think. Not to decry English literature but if you look at the size and population of Scotland that’s a hoor of a lot literature we’ve lent the world (Burns, Scott, Lois-Stevenson, et al). Equally it might well have been that English clubbers were too busy having the times of their lives to be sitting behind a word processor. Yeah… Probably that actually.

There is an element of anti-drugs moral to the story, was your intention to make a statement against drugs with this book?

Not anti-drugs, no! I couldn’t really do that, it would be a bit hypocritical. The drugs message in the book is that if you rip the tits out of it, expect repercussions.

You're already writing a sequel, right? Can you give any teaser as to where the story is going to go in the next book?

Funny, I didn’t intend to write a sequel. I sat down to write another novel using some bit part characters from Decade but now that it’s about four chapters from a finished first draft, I might as well admit to myself; it’s a sequel. Writing is like that though. It can take you to places that you didn’t necessarily intend to go. So the second novel starts with a policeman named Clover who was very much involved with one of the protagonists from Decade, Martin Bridges. Never having met the other protagonist from Decade, Colin, before, Clover realises that Colin is a partner. And so the chase begins. But expect twists, that’s all I’m saying.

Decade is out now via Phoenix Publishing. For purchase information, click here

Julian Yewdall's exhibition...

2009-03-16T13:06:00.000-07:00

With lovely pictures here:

http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/ritual/julian-yewdall

Or without pictures (and arguably, therefore, without point), here:

Back when Julian Yewdall was taking pictures of rock bands, being a photographer meant being a documenter, a chronicler; a diarist almost. Not an operator of some clinical tool for recording PR images. To mix my media similes, think Johnny Rotten on the Today show and then watch (if you can bear it) Donny Tourettes on Never Mind The Buzzcocks and shake your head in despair. Anyway, I digress.

For the past 40 years Yewdall has been working as a documentary film-maker and photographer and is primarily known for his early iconic images of Joe Strummer and The Clash. However, his latest exhibition, The Language Of The Eye, is a departure from his rock roots and although there is an inescapable candid authenticity, which gives a respectful nod to that period, this exhibition is much gentler and more passive than the aggressive posturing and live action of band reportage. Yewdall's documentarian eye is evident in the composition of all his pictures. From still life to portraiture, there is a sense of an implicit curiosity coming from behind the lens and a real affection for, and genuine interest in, his subjects.

The PR blurb for the exhibition is pretty concise generally, offering only the bare minimum of information about the photographer himself and entirely failing to include any mention of Yewdall's intention and ambition for The Language Of The Eye. Perhaps it has been left deliberately ambiguous because when viewing the exhibition, there doesn't seem to be any one unifying theme.

Instead we are presented with a kind of ‘collage' of images, which are simply studies of subjects that have pre-occupied Yewdall in the intervening years between his rock period and the present day. And those subjects are many and varied, spanning the breadth of Yewdall's imagination as his natural inquisitiveness propels him towards vivid colourful landscapes of blooming flowers in ‘Poppy Field, Greece', to anonymous black and white nudes, to gritty bikers in ‘Road Hogs, Rivington-Pike Free Festival, Lancs 1977', to the self-explanatory (and personal favourite of mine) ‘Geishas On A Train, Tokyo, 1986'. Some of the prints are grainy, unpolished, but you can forgive this because they are somehow made more tangible.

The Subway Gallery's intimate, subterranean space serves to bring cohesion to what is a quite disparate collection of photographs. Each image's proximity to the next helps to pass the baton of Yewdall's own narrative thread from the one to the other - as if they were distant relatives encountering each other for the first time and recognising their resemblances. The preview night in the small gallery is chaotic. Children weave in and out of the static adults, shrieking as they chase each other; everyone suspends their disbelief as one window of the gallery becomes a walk-thru burger kiosk - a prop in their boisterous game. Some of the adults join in, shouting orders through the glass slats. In the midst of it all stands Yewdall, unassuming and friendly, observing, recording but not disrupting; his pictures doing the talking.

The Language Of The Eye is on at the Subway Gallery, until 28 March www.subwaygallery.com

I give you... Derelicte!!!

2009-03-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

Model turned designer Erin Wasson really ought to shut the hell up about poor people having the 'best style' and how the homeless are so, you know, like, chic. Not only because, coming from a privileged super model (or coming from anyone really, but especially a privileged super model) it's just offensive; but also because, as a designer about to launch her first clothing range in stores, shouldn't her ambition be to sell us clothes, not give us reasons not to buy them (reason 1 being that poor people will always be better dressed than people who can afford to buy her designer clobber anyway, and reason 2 being that the designer of that clobber is a patronising, vapid, idiot)?

In the Sunday Times Style magazine today she opened the vacuum inside her head for long enough to let the air rush in and displace this gem from her otherwise empty skull and into the tape recorder: "The poorest people have the best style — they don’t just walk into swanky stores and swipe."

Really Erin? So us poor recessionistas won't be needing to swipe any of your RVCA tat then.

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/celebrity/article5838080.ece

And if you want to watch her hang herself with her own rope, read her feeble defence here (if you can manage to get to the end without your throat clenching shut in rage):

http://stylefrizz.com/200902/erin-wasson-on-homeless-chic-reloaded/

For Successful Living?

2009-02-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, it's beyond trite and unnecessary to tread the well worn 'models are too skinny, blah blah blah' path. And it's oxymoronic to set out to criticise the execution of a poster advertisement and its exploitative denotation with a personal critique of the very subject it exploits. But let's examine the context in which this image is being presented to us.

As a study in photography it is powerful and arresting. Set in some kind of anonymous space against a bare backdrop, the model is presented to us in a semi-naked state and there is a sense of action, or is it reaction?, that the model's pose leaves deliberately ambiguous. The looming shadow is larger than life size and has taken on a more masculine silhouette. The effect is predatory and the register is that of a cult horror film. There is an implicit tension between the model and her oversized shadow; she appears vulnerable and under threat. Her shadow becomes a canvas on which the viewer can project their own interpretation - does it represent the malevolence inherent in an industry obsessed with appearance? Or does it represent the irrepressible spectre of old age, weight gain and therefore, ugliness?

Whatever the inference it is not that I should buy some new jeans from Diesel.

When the image is viewed in the context of the artifice of an advertising campaign it is somehow undermined. By badging it with a denim brand the model is stripped of her narrative and instead she becomes a paragon of a described lifestyle, an accessory to the message, not the message itself.

And what is that message? Diesel, by using this image, is looking to leverage its own equity through the halo of association. But those associations are discomfiting; they invoke ideas of vulnerability, prey, distress and exploitation. Whatever the brand may think that says about itself, I would question whether it's what most women would want to hear.

Root Ginger

2009-02-26T01:30:00.000-08:00

So, redheads could be extinct within one hundred years. With no survival advantage to gingerism, it has been suggested that the gene may die out. Is that really the kind of evolutionary progress we want to see? Photographer Jenny Wicks has documented the increasingly elusive breed in a series called Root Ginger, and Emily Hobbs visited the Idea Generation Gallery to check it out.

Redheads are a pretty big deal. From naughty Eve in the Garden of Eden, without whom some might argue none of us would be here at all, to Britain's most renowned monarchs - Henry-the-serial-wife-killer and his daughter Elizabeth-the-virgin (perhaps some connection there), not to mention the recent Prince Harry-the-rascist. People have been singing ballads to readheads since time immemorial (especially the Irish). More recently there was Valerie, so lamented by The Zutons and Amy Winehouse in the song of the same name. Would the song worked if Valerie had been a brunette? It’s impossible to say. Yet despite their abundant tenacity, gingers receive a very bad press and have often found themselves the objects of ridicule and the victims of what remains in our society, apparently, the last acceptable discrimination.

It was a reaction to this type of discrimination that prompted the photographer, Jenny Wicks, to explore what it means to be ginger through her study Root Ginger, a film project complemented by a book of photographic portraits focusing exclusively on red-headed subjects.

When both her nephews were born with ginger hair and one of them was later diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis, Wicks undertook an investigation into her family’s genetic history and discovered that there existed recessive traits for both the disease and red hair. It was this seemingly random allocation of DNA that inspired her to delve deeper into the subject.

“The book is a tribute to people with this hair colour," says Wicks, “but it is also an investigation into the genetic lottery that we all play… I was interested to explore the phenomenon of recessive genes as well as the human tendency to judge and make snap decisions about people who simply look different to them."

Wicks' photographs are beautiful and touching studies in gingerness, spanning the very young, the adolescent, and those who are approaching old age (ginger people don’t go grey, they go sandy then white). Beside some of the portraits are testimonials from the subjects; anecdotes about their experiences as people with ginger hair in a monochromatic follicular landscape.

“My mother’s reaction to being told her first-born was a ginger was to weep uncontrollably," says one man. In another, a young woman explains how no one in her family has her hair colour, except for her father, who had a head of black hair but a ginger moustache.

Wicks’ photographs invite the viewer to consider the social aspects of having red hair and how society views and treats a minority group. For many, discrimination against those with ginger hair, either by teasing or more aggressive measures, remains the last bastion against political correctness and the subjects’ anecdotes often prove this.

What is most arresting about the Root Ginger study is how viscerally lovely red hair actually is. The enduring feeling you’re left with as a non-ginger onlooker is that of being an outsider – the positions become reversed. Being ginger is not a signifier of ‘otherness’ but it is transformed into a membership pass to an exclusive and rare club. You want to be ginger too. You are envious.

But ultimately Root Ginger is a testimony to, and a celebration of, the wonderful diversity and innate gorgeousness of human beings.

A selection of images from the book Root Ginger: A Study of Red Hair by photographer Jenny Wicks will be exhibited at Idea Generation Gallery until 8 March 2009. Proceeds go to Cystic Fibrosis Trust. For more info, visit www.ideageneration.co.uk

URL to original article on Don't Panic's site here: http://www.dontpaniconline.com/magazine/progress/root-ginger

Nip Tuck

2009-02-21T04:04:00.000-08:00

I was reading one of the free commuter papers we have here in London today and noticed this piece about a protest group which has been set up on facebook in response to the latest poster campaign from the Harley Medical Group; a cosmetic surgery clinic who regularly advertise on the London underground and buses. Their posters are usually comprised of 'before' shots depicting what, to any human female, should register as perfectly normal breasts, stomachs and thighs (although they're always shot in terrible light and stripped of any colour saturation so that the flaws are magnified and made to appear grey and lumpy); and 'after' shots where we see the previously disembodied, undesirable body parts now tightened, lifted and in context on their delighted and, as is inferred by the poster, now socially elevated owner.

The latest poster from the Harley Medical Group features one of their satisfied customers, Clare Thornton, who had a breast augmentation to take her from a 34B to a 34DD. On the poster she evangelises that 'Cosmetic surgery was the best decision she's made', which may be true. But was it not also the most personal decision she's ever made? The most intimate? There is something in the poster's sloganeering discourse on the subject of the alteration to the parts of Thornton's body, so inextricably linked to her femininity and identity, which for me, as a viewer and a woman, invokes a feeling of discomfort.

The facebook group named 'Somewhat Strident But Who Cares' features photos taken of the defaced posters by group members as they travel around London. In some cases the photographers are themselves the defacers, often they are simply recording the efforts of others. "Everyone is beautiful already" is scrawled in red over the poster in one picture - an affirming philosophy but slightly less helpfully is a sticker placed over Thornton's breasts bearing the words 'Sexist Shit'. SSBWC have developed their own slogans which are available for download. One such slogan says, "By women who hate women, for women who hate themeselves, YOU ARE NORMAL. This is not". It's unclear in the reporting exactly what the 'this' is referring to. Presumably cosmetic surgery, hopefully not Thornton herself.

Thornton has said that she finds the attacks rude and upsetting and that she is happy with the procedure she undertook and proud of the results. She seems to have become the unintended victim of a group incensed by the wider issue of the manipulation and influence over women's relationships with their bodies that is exercised by companies such as the Harley Medical Group. But is Thornton really merely collateral damage in this debate? The slogan "By women who hate women, for women who hate themselves" is internecine, and as an argument, ad hominem.

Thornton, as the poster girl for the Harley Medical Group, has become the face of all that SSBWC finds abhorrent about cosmetic surgery, and by association, she is therefore abhorrent and a target. It is her image which is being defaced and attacked in response to incitement by SSBWC. To attack the posters is to attack Thornton's right to make an informed choice about her body and her right to speak about it. That she felt she even had to make a choice and take a decision of this type in regards to her body is a wider issue that requires examination of our media, cultural and social expectations and punishment/reward systems for certain types of behaviours; all of which cannot and will not even begin to be addressed by vandalism on public transport.

If you are opposed to cosmetic surgery, the most effective way to dissent is to not have cosmetic surgery. In an ideal world, women would be comfortable with their bodies no matter their shape or size. However, in the world we live in some women feel unhappy enough about their bodies that they willingly subject themselves to surgical procedures to correct their perceived flaws. The good news is that in the world we live in, women have autonomy over their bodies and what they do with them and they are uncensored when it comes to speaking about it.

What do you think?

http://somewhatstrident.com/

Douchhhhhhe

2009-01-08T03:47:00.000-08:00

Every now and again I'll read something by an author, like the one below by Amanda Maxwell, that makes me feel like I really just should never attempt to write another word ever again. A short story by her below:

Sometimes the world lets me in on its secrets. Not its important secrets, just its special little ones. The kind of secrets that help me to uphold a wonderful illusion of cleverness in the eyes of my friends and family.

For example, I know how to look amazing in photographs.

A little while ago I took a trip on an airplane. Sitting next to me on the airplane was a girl with long hair and curled eyelashes. She was reading a glossy magazine.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hi,” I said.

“Do you want to read this magazine?” she asked. “I’ve finished with it.”

I was grateful for her kindness, as it wasn’t the kind of airplane with television screens on the back of every seat and I had made a bad choice of paperback in the airport news agency.

“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

The girl passed me the magazine.

On the cover was a photograph of Scarlett Johansson. In the photograph Scarlett looked especially amazing. I looked at her for a long time without opening the magazine, and while I looked at her, I asked myself a question that I often ask myself when I am looking at amazing photographs of beautiful ladies: How come you look that amazing?

Her hair was all everywhere, eyes looking into my eyes, mouth doing that secret thing that model mouths do. It was amazing.

I couldn’t bring myself to open that magazine; for an hour or more I just kept looking at the cover. We had hit a little bit of turbulence and the girl beside me had turned white.

“I get so scared on airplanes,” she said.

“You’ll be fine,” I said and squeezed her hand. Then I went back to looking at the cover of the magazine.

Outside the sky was dark and empty. When the turbulence had settled down, the air hostesses came out with wine and lemonade. And then an eerie thing happened: I heard a sound. Not an airplane sound or the sound of a glass being dropped, but something like a whisper. It was coming from somewhere very close to me. I looked at the girl beside me. She was asleep. I heard it again.

“Shhh,” it said.

When I looked down I realized a very scary thing. The sound was coming from the glossy magazine in my lap. I picked the magazine up carefully and very slowly put my ears to Scarlett Johansson’s lips. And this is what I heard:

“Dooooouuuche.”

Just that single word.

“Did you say ‘douche’?” I whispered in Scarlett’s ear, but the sound was gone.

I drank my glass of wine in one mouthful. I wondered if this was what it was like to lose your mind.

Douche: a shower in French; not a shower in English.

I thought about an episode of Oprah that I’d seen a few years earlier. Oprah had been interviewing a gorgeous gynecologist who had just written a book on all things lady. The gynecologist was smiling and sharing fabulous feminine tips, more of which could be found in the book if you bought it. Suddenly, Oprah stood up and said, “You hear that, ladies? Don’t douche!”

And the crowd went wild. They joined her in a chorus of “Don’t douche, don’t douche, don’t douche.” Fists punching the air.

But on the airplane that day the memory seemed too good to be true and I couldn’t guarantee that I hadn’t made it up. Things were very strange.

The girl next to me was awake now and looked much better.

“Thanks for lending me the magazine,” I said and gave it back to her.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Great cover isn’t it?”

“It is,” I said. And then I decided to be very bold. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“Shoot,” she said.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Well, it’s a bit of a personal question, but, you see, I’m doing some research for a health magazine and I wondered. Do you, um… douche?”

She looked at me in a sideways way and didn’t say anything. The photograph of Scarlett stared out at me from her seat pocket.

“Sorry,” I said. “Let’s pretend I never asked you that.”

“Okay,” she said, still looking at me in that sideways way.

“Okay,” I said. I pulled my eye mask on in a hurry and faked sleep. This is what it is like to lose your mind, I told myself.

Douche: a shower in French; not a shower in English.

I guess I drifted off for a while then, because the next thing I knew the girl was tapping me on the shoulder. I pulled off my mask and looked at her.

“I do,” she said quietly. “I mean, I have. I mean, I do sometimes.”

“You do?”

“Yeah, but only with Diet Coke after we, you know, do it.”

“We?”

“Yeah, dudes.”

“Diet Coke?”

“Yeah, so I don’t get pregnant. It kills sperm.”

In my head I said this to myself: The girl with long hair douches with Diet Coke after she does it with dudes so she doesn’t get pregnant.

“Thanks for sharing that with me,” I said.

“That’s okay,” she said.

“Will you excuse me?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said.

In the airplane bathroom I splashed cold water on my face and dried it off with a paper towel. I looked in the mirror and noticed that I had airplane hair. Oh well, I thought. My eyes were bloodshot too. Never mind. I tried out Scarlett’s pose, a sleepy-eyed pout, but couldn’t get the lips right. My pucker was more like a dog’s bum. “Things are very strange,” I mouthed, still watching myself in the mirror. “I think a glossy magazine just spoke to me, and all it said was the word ‘douche.’”

And that was IT. That was the epiphany. That was my moment of clarity. The big breakthrough. Eureka.

I said it again, “Douche,” and as the word took shape in my mouth my expression became the expression of a model. I had the perfect pout. Then it was gone. I tried whispering this time. “Douche.” Gorgeous. And again. “Douche.” Amazing. Now I had the secret. Never again would I say “cheese” for the camera.

When I got back to my seat the girl next to me gave me a conspiratorial look. She leaned over.

“You were gone a long time,” she said. “Were you, um, you know, in there?”

“Sort of,” I said. And with my newfound peace of mind, I let myself fall into a deep sleep.

When we finally touched down I was the third person off the plane. I remembered there being a photo booth in the airport terminals and bypassed the luggage carousel to look for it. When I found it, I ducked in, whispered the d-word four times for the camera, and found the results to be very pleasing. I looked amazing.

With the strip of pictures in my pocket and a lovely feeling inside, I made my way back to pick up my bags. I didn’t get far, though, before I passed a newsstand and stopped dead. On the rack before me there were thirty Scarletts midway through saying “douche” for the camera. Sophie Dahl was saying it. J. Lo was saying it. Even Gael García Bernal was douching. I felt myself blush and looked around to see if anyone else was seeing what I was seeing. There were people all around me, hurrying to and from airplanes, pulling luggage and children along with them. And not one of them seemed to notice.

And not one of them looked amazing.

A Short Story

2008-10-16T04:40:00.000-07:00

My dad left us just after I was born. Mum says it was because he was an asshole. My sister says it was because my mum is an asshole. I don’t know why it was.

Pepper is older than me by quite a lot so she knows about things that I don’t know about. Her real name is Pippa but I couldn’t say it like that when I was little so she’s been called ‘Pepper’ since I learned how to talk.

When our dog, Tandy, was alive we would spend all day playing in the woods with him during school holidays. Now he’s gone there doesn’t seem much point going to the woods just to play by ourselves, and anyway, Pepper would rather hang out with boys now.

That’s why we came to the shopping precinct today. There’s this boy Pepper likes who’s always hanging around by the steps near the station. He goes to Pepper’s school, my school now too actually come September; he’s in the year above her. He and his friends like to hang around near the station and show off to everybody, riding their bikes down the steps and smoking.

Today they’re not there though and Pepper and I have been sitting on the wall of the flowerbed, which forms the centrepiece of the precinct, for an hour and a half now, or as long as it’s taken us to drink 3 cans of Fanta each. We make circuits of the shops and sit and watch the old people coming in and out of the bank with their tartan shopping trolleys. The haze bounces off the cement pavement and makes the air mute. The sky has a film over it and the sun has stretched sticky dust over my palms. I’m bored and my teeth itch from all the sugar. I’m trying to attach the key ring I stole earlier from Clintons Cards to my belt loop, but the metal ring is too stiff and I can’t prise the two halves apart far enough to fit over the denim strip.

“Let’s go”, I say to Pepper. Sighing, she hops down from the wall and brushes her skirt off at the back. Only a couple of years ago I could wear Pepper’s old clothes that she didn’t fit any more. I can’t wear any of her clothes now, they’re too big and made to fit over curves I don’t yet have. I think possibly, lately, Pepper has more curves than she should. She says it’s puppy fat and that I will get it too when I’m older. The last time dad came to see us he said she was too old to be a puppy and that she’s just fat now and will be forever. She didn’t say anything at the time, she just laughed and walked out of the room, but later that night I heard her crying in the bedroom and I think it was because of that. I didn’t know what I should have said at the time. I mean, she is getting fat, but dad shouldn’t say things like that to her.

I can’t remember dad ever telling her he loved her or thought she was pretty. We have to see him every other Saturday and he usually takes us back to his house and buys us Maconald’s to eat while he watches the football on TV. It’s his fault Pepper is getting fat. I remember car journeys with him to go and see our nan, who’s dead now. Pepper and I would sit in the back and sing along to the radio and he would get angry and turn around in his seat to tell us to shut up. Because he wasn’t looking straight ahead, the car would swerve across the road and make us scared. He’d tell us that our singing was distracting him from driving. I wanted to say that he was distracting himself from driving by turning around to shout at us but I was frightened of making him angrier so I kept quiet.

There was a teacher at my old school who scared me like dad did. I was making a magazine holder in woodwork class and it was really difficult, because the wood was too hard and I wasn’t strong enough to bang the nails into it. As I struggled with the glue and the vice, I became oblivious to everything that was going on around me. I really wanted it to be right otherwise I might get into trouble. Gradually I noticed that the class around me had fallen silent and through my concentration I could hear a voice shouting “Oi!”. Looking up I realised that everyone was staring at me. I dug my fingers into my palms and felt the glue take hold and, bracing myself, I met my teacher’s eyes and I knew instantly that I had done something to make him angry.

“When I ask for your attention I expect you to give it to me”, he bellowed. I was embarrassed and confused. All the people in the room were looking at me and I thought if he had wanted to talk to me he should have used my name instead of shouting “Oi!”. How was I supposed to know he meant me? He said I was ‘away with the fairies’ and called me other horrible names and I ended up throwing my magazine holder away on the walk home from school.

I can tell Pepper’s pretending not to be disappointed that she hasn’t seen the boy she likes. As we head home she stays slightly ahead of me so she doesn’t have to talk to me. I can see her knickers through the slit in her skirt. It is too small for her.

We come to the metal bridge that straddles the dual carriageway between the two housing estates. Ahead of me I see Pepper slow down. She turns and makes urgent flapping signals down low next to her leg to get my attention. Following her line of sight I see the boy she likes and his friends sitting on their bikes at the other end of the bridge. She falls into step beside me and as we cross the bridge she starts nudging me and walking into me, throwing me off balance, and she’s laughing really loudly like it’s the funniest thing ever. It annoys me when she does things like that. Sometimes when we’re with my aunty and her boyfriend, or any other people we don’t know very well, she will treat me like we used to treat Tandy, as if she wants me to do tricks to make her look good. Like she’s the boss.

We reach the other side of the bridge and we’re right by the boys now. If we want to get down the other side we need to get past them. Every single inch of Pepper’s body is screaming to me “don’t do anything embarrassing”, but I don’t even care now. The boys are stupid and she’s stupid and I just want to go home and put my new locker key on my new key ring.

They nudge their front wheels out of our way so we can walk around them and as we do, no one says anything. I don’t look at the boys because I’m angry that they’re making Pepper act stupid and I wish they weren’t there. I cross my fingers in my pockets and hope they don’t say anything to us. We make it to the other side of the bridge and as we get to the bottom of the steps, Pepper trips on the last one and stumbles onto the pavement. She starts laughing really loudly but I know she’s in pain because her flip flop has twisted round onto the top of her foot and it must have hurt. I can her the boys on the bridge laughing at us and as we walk away one of them shouts “Fat slag!”. My cheeks are burning red and I want to run away but Pepper is walking really slowly for some reason. “Come on”, I say, and I add “I hate those boys”, because I think it will make her feel better about looking silly in front of them and about what they said. But she just says, “You’re such a baby! Why are you shitting yourself?” and rolls her eyes. “Did you see the way he was looking at me?”, she says. “I reckon he fancies me. Boys are always horrible to you when they fancy you. Don’t you know that?”.

I nod my head like I understand, because Pepper is a lot older than me and knows about a lot more things than me. But the truth is I don’t understand. I don’t understand at all.

Darrenair: Alternative Flight Safety

2008-09-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

If you are able to start fires just by looking at things, then DON'T listen to your ipod.

In the event of a large infected shoulder-boil becoming visible through clothing, blow whistle.

If wearing an identical outfit to a fellow passenger, to avoid embarrassment please do not follow them onto the slide until they have reached the bottom.

Quote of the day

2008-08-13T03:24:00.001-07:00

"You're never going to be able to give up smoking if you keep on smoking."

Quite.

Runs in the family

2008-06-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Check it owwwt. This is a video of twelve-time world champion trials rider Dougie Lampkin tearing up Goodwood House at the invitation of my baby brother, who produced and directed this fabulous film.

When I asked him "Didn't they go mental about tyre marks all over the carpets?", he said "We just did it and let them complain about it afterwards".

Good boy.

http://www.pistonheads.tv/clip1471

New ad

2007-11-10T14:59:00.000-08:00

This is the new ad I've been working on. The 30" is on air right now and the 60" and 10"s are still to come...!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0LoAc-Edy4