The One Show of Literature Modules

Today I walked, in the rain, to my first lecture of term in which I was certain I would know absolutely nobody in the room. As predicted, the room was full of strangers. Well, apart from the lecturer … He tutored me for an independent essay 2 years ago. He didn’t seem to recognise me though…



Having left home in a slight hurry, I stumbled in last, with steamed up glasses, soggy jeans, and a puddle in the back of my rucksack. I did that proper slow trudge into the classroom, looking around (pointlessly) for people I might recognise or who might ask me to sit with them. But of course all the desks were full, and I don’t think everyone was quite as aware of my entrance as my mind would have me believe. In my nervous distraction I took off my coat and hoody and bag, but not my hat. I realised this about 10 minutes in, but my state of hyper-self-awareness prevented me from taking it off at such a late stage in the lecture. It stayed on for the entire session. My head got a bit hot. The shiny new classroom design (with screens everywhere and words like ‘inspire’ stenciled on the walls) made me feel a bit like I was a new girl walking into an American form room. You know those films where the ‘new kid’ walks in and the camera pans round a room of faces staring open mouthed at them. That and the fact that I was wearing glasses and carrying a rucksack…

Having spent my morning reading the some of the lecturers recommended reading, which went rather enthusiastically into all the minute details of medieval English theatre staging, and used the words ‘interestingly’, and ‘fascinating’ both repetitively and over-optimistically, I was actually rather looking forward to the module. In a slightly amused way. The academic had also interspersed his chapter with sentences along the lines of ‘But we will find the true importance of these ‘parts of tree’ rollers attached to the York wagons later.’ And ‘Another function of the wooden arches will soon be revealed’. I felt like I was reading a ‘York Mystery Cycle’ edition of the One Show. I got the impression he fancied himself a bit of a geeky detective, and actually found it a bit charming. Not enough to read it to the end. But a bit.



After I sat down, the lecturer opened his first session by saying ‘I’m not going to make the mistake of asking if this module was anyone’s first choice, as I suspect it wasn’t anybody’s. However I will say this: students who study my modules tend to do very well’. I was the only one who laughed. Luckily I don’t think anyone heard me slouching at the back. He went on to say that we were welcome to take notes if we want, but all the information’s online.



Despite my awkward start in Medieval English Drama 3, I think I’m going to enjoy taking The One Show of literature modules. I’m looking forward to discussing whether the Wakefield Cycles were performed on manual or horse-drawn wagons, and why some wagons used 6 wheels and some 8, and whether the York wagons were meant to be viewed side or head on. I haven’t yet decided whether I am excited about this for the sheer hilarity of the situation, or because, deep down, I actually find it quite interesting. It’s the same complex emotion I experience when Matt Baker segues from interviewing Maggie Smith to a segment about British cauliflower consumption. I laugh at the hilariously tenuous link, but I once it starts, I kind of want everyone to be quiet so I can learn about cauliflowers …

 

the sort of people who are interested in my module 

Back To School

Would you look at that. It’s been a WHOLE YEAR since I started my blog! Happy Birthday Blog! It’s nice to think that this little site has now kind of tracked an entire year of my life. And an exciting year at that. With this in mind, I’m going to try and update it more often, so I have more to look back on when I’m old and boring and grey.

Starting blog-year 2 off with a BANG:

It’s 9.30 on a Sunday night. I’m curled up in bed wondering whether to finish reading Henry VI, or to watch a tv programme before I go to bed. If I decide to watch something, I’ll have to choose between the new Attenborough show about the rise of vertebrates, and the documentary about giant animals with Steve Backshall…

Cosy as I am, I can’t pretend this how I imagined I would be spending the night before my first day back at university. My overriding memories from first and second year consist mainly of painting my face like various different animals, and after a few beers roaring ferociously at anyone I met. Apart from that time I dressed up as a zebra…

Today I have divided a 100 page course-pack into sections and bound each one neatly with string, eaten 1 malteasers bar and half a bag of chocolate eclairs, read and made notes on a middle English York Mystery Play, done lots of ambigious ‘computer stuff’, and decided that strumming without a plectrum definitely sounds better when playing ‘Other Side of the World’ on guitar. Oh, and I walked to the postbox. It’s at the bottom of my road.

Had I, all that time ago back in August, followed some crazy reckless abandon and refused to register to come back for my final year of uni, my day would probably have gone very differently. I would have gone to work for the seventh day of the week and run around behind a bar for 6 hours. Then, due to my living quarters being slightly cramped, probably opted to spend the evening in another pub before skipping tipsily home around 11 and setting my alarm for 7.30 to get up for job number 2 on Monday morning. It’s a slightly different lifestyle. I would have eaten less food, and spoken to more people. I would also have read less, and played less music. I would have gone further than the end of my road. Rather than walking to the postbox, I would probably have looked guiltily in passing at a pile of letters and papers yet to be written on and sorted out.

When you come home from work and turn on the tv, you don’t have a constant nagging feeling that you should be doing something else. Here, with two dissertations to write and over 40 Shakespeare texts to cover in 20 weeks, there’s always something else I could be doing. I don’t know which I prefer. They say that spending a year out is a good thing to do, because it makes you appreciate education more. I'm not sure working has made me appreciate education more, but it may have made me appreciate midday starts and student discounts more. I can’t help wondering how many of the things my lecturers say next week will strike me as impractical academic bullshit.  

That said, did you know that H.D. was sent from London to Austria and referred to Sigmund Freud in 1933 due to her increasing paranoia about the Nazis and Adolf Hitler? I found that out this week. Some of the politicians at the time might have benefited from the same condition! I can feel I’m getting my geek on already.

My first seminar is tomorrow. Having been away for a year, it’s unlikely I will know anybody in it. I also have my first meeting back at the uni newspaper tomorrow, and a trial shift in a local bar next week. Give it a month or so and hopefully I will have got myself a nice (but probably reasonably unstable) balance of the two. 

Flashback

Money, Hypocrisy, Williamsburg and Wall St: They're not as bad as eachother

In the last couple of weeks I’ve somehow found myself in 3 separate jobs, working almost 7 days a week and simultaneously moving house. Phhew! My feelings of guilt towards this blog hold what I imagine to resemble the awkward feelings of a busy, neglectful mother towards her child. All I want to do is look after it and write for it and plan more things to do with it, but unfortunately, earning money has to take precedence.

In about a month I’m going travelling, and come September I’m going to have bills and expenses flying out of my bank account left right and centre. You know, like other functioning members of society do all the time? My break from the world of careers and study will soon be over, so I’m going out with a bang. The day before my 21st birthday, my friends and I are flying out to Amsterdam! We’re going to spend 3 weeks interrailing round Europe, and fly back to the UK from Venice in September. If all goes well, I won’t even notice myself morphing into a responsible adult. That’s what happens when you turn 21, right? I’ll return to the country an of-age young lady, and with all these exciting experiences under my belt, will settle immediately back into Birmingham life. I shall get a job and pay my rent on time and never drink too much and shall consider hand sanitiser, plasters and tissues as handbag essentials …


I’m going to have to get myself a handbag…

So unfortunately my writings have suffered in this new onslaught of life-stuff. It’s a bit of a sad situation. But while I have a spare couple of hours, rather than leave this space blank, I thought I would make like a dodgy sit-com episode, and go over content I’d made before. I curled up with my notebook, and had a read through the old scribbley pages from New York that hadn’t made it into digital form yet. So, again in afternoon television fashion,

HERE'S ONE I MADE EARLIER

:

I’m sitting in a café on Bedford Avenue (aka Hipster High St, Brooklyn). I’m in the corner on a rickety chair; the walls are stained with chipped yellow paint, which strange stained glass lamps on the wall dye orangey red in places. An exceptionally raucous Buzzcocks number is playing, much louder than a coffee shop should. A large black woman is taking orders behind the bar, belting out every instruction and customer request in bold soul-singer style. ‘Plain bagel and cream cheeeheeese, yeah!’ ‘thankyouuu, coohoome again!’ She doesn’t worry about making her tuneage meld with the angry guitars also blasting through the small shop.


I’m watching the queue for the bathroom begin to snake out of a dark, red-painted tunnel, at the end of which I can only assume is a tiny door shielding a toilet lodged in a cupboard. I really need a wee. I bet there isn’t any loo roll.


On using the toilet, I found band stickers plastered from ceiling to floor, across the cracked mirror, and even on the toilet seat. The one right above the sink said ‘fuck your job, write your screenplay’. The soap was kept in one of those plastic ketchup bottles you get in diners. There was loo roll.


I like Williamsburg. I like the cracked paint, the rickety chairs and the loud music. It tickles me, rather than repels me, that it is has been necessary to put up a sign saying ‘no spitting’. I like that I am asked whether I want ‘big or small’ as opposed to ‘grande or tall’. I like it, but I’m also faintly amused by the whole atmosphere I now find myself in.


Looking through the bookstalls stationed up and down the bustling street – every one of which has at least two Camus books, a copy of Aristotle’s Ethics and a minimum of one novel by either Virginia Woolf or Doris Lessing – I can’t help but crack a bemused smile. There’s something undeniably hypocritical about an area where people sell their art on the street every weekend for $10 or $15, and give their books away for any donation, but where the shops sell ‘vintage’ clothing for upwards of $150 and bespoke indie jewellery for as much as you would find in Manhattan. You can’t help but wonder whether the sellers are just setting up bookstalls in order to show the world that they have read Camus, and philosophised over the Greeks. The majority of people here are not short of cash. The local houses are beautiful family homes, or river view penthouses. With this in mind, the rickety chairs and chipped paint of this café become highly intentional design features, rather than odd quirks. People seem to be paying a lot of money to appear poor, anti-establishment, and grassroots-y. And frankly, thanks to their ripped levis and genuine ray-bans (even though it’s October), it’s a slightly half-arsed effort. Haight-Ashbury this is not.

All this amuses me, but doesn’t anger me at all. I have no judgement to pass on Williamsburg, as I did on the BusinessAwards Dinner. I don't have the same vom-ball forming in the back of my throat when I overhear conversations here, about tattoos of cats and bikram yoga. People here have just as many image hang-ups and hypocrisies as their Wall St counterparts, but at least the image they are conveying is one of sharing, and a lack of emphasis on money and value. Their hypocrisies don’t effect global finances, or lead to tax evasion, or deny school places to children in Africa. Hell, I’m sitting here too. Writing in my hardback notebook, wearing Calvin Klein jeans. And I have a copy of Ariel in my bag. I’m right at home. I don’t really see a problem with maintaining an atmosphere of dilapidation and retaliation despite the wealth of the area. 

Isn’t it actually nice to think that some of the people giving away books on the street must be highly paid city-workers…?

Mistakes.

Today, most of the people I started university with got their final degree classifications (well done everyone!) and I had a job interview. So the buzzword for the day really has been all about careers and lives and like ... the future and stuff. You know, that massive dark cloud of uncertainty, fear and despair hanging over my entire generation?

It got me thinking about what makes a good career, a good life, and whether there is a formula for success.

Career-wise, whenever successful people and celebrities are interviewed on TV about their careers, they always seem to say that they just fell into it. ‘Lucky bastards’ I used to wail in my head. ‘Don’t be so modest; stop pretending that everything in your life was so unexpected. Give me the key, the EXACT WAY you got your EXACT LIFE.’ These days I tend to think that they were probably telling the truth. Few people do exactly what they wanted to do when they were in school. I also think that it’s a good thing there isn’t a key, because I don’t really want to be Sporty Spice any more. My 9 year old self could have fast-tracked me on to X-Factor by now … ew. 

This last year, things didn’t turn out the way I had planned. All my deliberation and reasoning around my decision to leave New York circled around the idea of thinking about not just what I want now, but what is best in the LONG RUN. Whether or not in 10 years’ time, I would look back and think that I was stupid to leave.

But I’m not sure that this is necessarily the right way to look at things. The more time that passes since I left, the smaller the event seems. As more stuff happens, that decision becomes less and less relevant to my life. I think in general, in the actual ‘long run’, things matter less. Getting over the initial hurdle of rearranging your life is a big deal, but I reckon that individual moments are, as a rule, rather insignificant in our lives. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t scrutinize and think long and hard about big decisions that we make. -Actually, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. If it’s the best move at the time, worrying about whether it will still be the best move in ten years’ time is silly, because it ten years’ time it will be in the past. I'm so bored of second guessing my 30 year old self. That’s why left New York. And why I got a tattoo.

It’s pretty much a standard assumption that last year I made a ‘mistake’, giving up an exciting and important career opportunity. My decision has been one I’ve never publicly justified, and one I don’t defend a lot even in private. I think I need to, because I don’t regret it and I really don’t want people to think that I do, or to feel sorry for me.

I think mistakes (if you want to call them that. Although I prefer the term 'detours') are great. They make life more interesting, they make you more interesting, and they keep you on your toes. I hope I make many more. Working consistently within the realms of the reasonable, safe and practical can, I suspect, lead to more regret than a few unexpected debts or compromised living situations. I refuse to be submissive to some fictional, world-weary middle aged version of myself. One who everyone seems to be trying to convince me will be disapproving and regretful of all the irresponsible actions I make that stop me getting a respectable career. People have been warning me of her inevitable arrival since I first sat in a GCSE classroom. At what point do I begin to turn into this killjoy future-me? Probably about the same time I start answering to her.

I suppose what I’m saying is, in the wake of this imposing dark cloud, full of unemployment statistics, living wage figures, pay gaps and Ian Duncan Smith, I refuse to go corporate out of fear. 

BlogPost2013

I don’t like to let this blog get neglected. My (completely unofficial) target is to post at least once a month, which has so far been an easy task. But as time paces on, further and further away from the last time I posted, I have to admit that this time, I’m struggling.

Sorting out what to write about in my blog is usually a question of sitting down with some pen and paper, and organising all the millions of Thinks running round my brain in different directions; choosing the ones I need, and making them stand sensibly in a logical line.

But recently, I haven’t had the Thinks running round my head. Normally, it’s a question of batting them back and sorting them out before overflow. Like when I’ve got loose paper falling out my notebooks, bags and desk space and I eventually do the filing. 

Now I'm just desperately trying to summon them. It feels like the equivalent to spreading blank paper all over a clear desk and bed. Which sounds like a ridiculous and abstract form of mad protest ... My brain feels a little bit lost.

I seem to have fallen into a numb routine of going to work, coming home, eating, drinking and sleeping. A dim sense of guilt creeps into my head as I hit the pillow each night looking at the pile of half-finished books sitting on my windowsill, and the array of notebooks sitting under my desk; the same place they were in a week ago. 

I miss the Thinks. 

Culture, Innit.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been involved with Birmingham 2022, a project connected with the new library of Birmingham. I’m one of about 15 young people involved with various creative industries have been recruited to partake in meet-ups and an intensive summer school, where we will curate and produce an online blog and print magazine for the Discovery Festival (which runs in tandem with the opening of the library in September).

Oosh, didn’t that sound pretentious and bullshit?! There’s a load more where that came from: prepare yourselves for a reflective post about my life aims, full of words like ‘determination’ ‘passion’ and ‘creativity’!

On top of just making the magazine, another aspect of the project is to look ahead, and discuss what the arts and culture industry is going to look like (particularly in Birmingham) in 10 years’ time. How it will be impacted by modernization, trends, technology, politics, and much more. To this end, we've spoken to a ‘trend forecaster’ (yep, told you to prepare yourself!) William Higham about how to predict cultural trends, and the last session was a ‘cultural meet-up’, where we held a discussion about arts and culture industry with a panel of people from various creative backgrounds: RuthClaxton (Director of Eastside Projects and practising artist), Noel Dunne (involved with an organisation that offers advice and guidance for Birmingham’s emerging creative talent), Dan Whitehouse (the Next Generation producer at Mac, Birmingham) and Katie Banks (Head of Education and Community at Town Hall and Symphony Hall).

So far, I’ve found this project to be a great little peephole into the world of arts and culture. It was interesting to meet people who have made their careers in such a precarious industry, and talk to them about how they became successful; what the realities of the sector are, and what they think and feel about the future.

I’m tempted to describe arts and culture as something ‘I’ve wanted to work in all my life’. But, apart from being an over-used and cringe-worthy phrase, I also don’t think it’s true. The determination to do something creative in the future has only really come to me in the last year or so; since going to the States. Only recently have I managed to shake off some instincts which I think are especially ingrained in my generation. Being born at the tail end of Thatcherism meant that we were brought up seeing the mass-firings and downsizings of the 90s as normal procedure. Growing up, we knew that profits were king; that workers were replaceable, and quick hirings and firings were a company’s right; that to make money, you had to get an impeccable skillset tailored to a specific profession, because unique talents are pointless. So no, I didn’t have a lot of drive to be creative. More an anxious scrabble to discover perfect office role for me, one I just couldn’t have heard of yet.

Since the 80s and 90s, ‘corporate’ seems to have become in itself a compliment; a byword for ‘efficient’ and ‘good’. The financial crash happening the year we took our GCSE’s, and the UKs austerity measures being introduced the year we did our A-Levels, meant our schooling too, emphasised in us the importance of getting a ‘real’, ‘paying’ job, and encouraged us to see stable industries like banking and business (ironically) as the only viable sector. Because despite the crash, they still made the most money. Even now, despite not claiming any welfare, and being able to afford to do exciting, voluntary positions, I still feel a slight sense of guilt, and of uselessness, if I’m not earning. Arts and Culture seemed to me to be this amazing working environment, but never something to aim for. For people growing up shit-scared of not having any money at all, an industry where actually earning a living from your profession is one of the biggest obstacles made it an unthinkable career option.

 After talking to these professionals about the fact that you will do many different jobs, and your career will change direction many times, the precariousness of the sector no longer seems to me like a price to pay for doing what you love, but part of the beauty of it. Switching jobs on a regular basis, and working within many different but interconnected industries (literature, theatre, tv, film, dance) appeals to me much more than any definitive career path. Since I left BAB, (effectively officially shutting the door on international business) I’ve been looking for an alternative option. I’ve been desperately looking for one profession that I love so much that I would never consider doing anything else. Because that level of passion seemed to me to be what you need to succeed in your chosen workplace. But there isn’t one thing that I want to do rather than anything else at all. I find it all exciting. For many people, this is the problem with working in arts. It’s not a 9-5 job, with a set pay rate. It’s not safe. Since running away from rubbing shoulders with CEOs in a cushy 9-5, this aspect now offers me a fantastic kind of freedom.

Just because I find a happy autonomy in the fact that arts and culture workers mainly occupy multiple jobs on short-term contracts and are unlikely to have regular income, does not mean I’m going to paint it as some hidden perk of the industry, if only you look at it from a slightly different angle. I would not consider it to be an objective advantage. I’m not going to gold leaf shit. I’m not a politician. Although I can’t help thinking that sometimes, having a similar environment in some of our more prominent industries wouldn’t be the worst thing. Imagine if every future hedge fund manager had to ‘pay their dues’, and spend 5 years doing accounts for welfare-recipients and the unemployed; getting paid pittance and travelling from job to job in a 1986 ford escort, occasionally having to busk on the streets as a human calculator for petrol money. Really demonstrate their passion and commitment to banking.

The biggest problem with there being so little employment and money circulating in arts and culture, is that (as was pointed out on our panel) it means that only a fraction of the population can afford to properly commit to it. In our session, when we thought about the future, and the impact of austerity (which generally means a cut of around 50% in most councils) on the arts, a few panelists chose to emphasise the advantages of this. I don’t deny that with less government help, there will be an exciting rise in a more DIY approach to things like theatre, exhibitions, and other cultural events. Without access to as many venues for example, people will no doubt find creative alternatives. With less funding, also comes greater scope to be experimental. If you have the money, that is. I couldn’t help a slight nervousness from creeping up on me when we talked about arts and culture becoming more entrepreneurial. Surely, there is a flip-side to this, free, experimental, DIY arts scene we are envisioning. Businesslike, profit driven arts and culture do already exist: the X Factor, Twilight, Crazy Frog. I personally feel like I’m already seeing a rise in repeats shown on prime time BBC…

Perhaps we just have to accept that times change. Arts and culture will always find funding. Perhaps emerging young artists will have to adapt to a more American model for financing themselves. In London too, artists could clear out their workshops once a month, hire a bad DJ, splash some UV paint around and shower everyone in PBR for a tenner entry. Or maybe it is time to stop gold-leafing shit. I’m still waiting for our generation’s punk or Spitting Image. A bit less positive thinking and a bit more anger may be just what we need. 

Reds v Dead (Woman).

My weigh in on the media's coverage of the death of Maggie Thatcher: Late on the uptake as ever, here’s my reaction to the reactions. 

Grief-Encounter

Whatever you think about Thatcher, old ladies, strokes, strikes, Tories, the dead; your view was probably echoed thousands of times across the internet last week. At lunchtime on Monday, the web experienced an almost instantaneous sea-change as people uploading pictures of their soups and sandwiches were suddenly drowned out by the swaths of people expressing sorrow, cheer, voicing disgust, advertising party venues, publicising condolances, moralistically chiding cheerers and shouting chiders down from high horses. ‘Shouldn’t we remember what she did in the Falklands?’ ‘Can we get Hefner to number 1 this week?’ ‘This isn’t a victory, lets be perfectly clear, boys and girls …’



Social media became a verbal riot. In half an hour, my facebook feed was transformed from the usual continuous drone of cat pictures and football results to political essays abound, expostulating about the reactions of both right and left. Monday’s twitterverse confirmed that, as we were all aware, Maggie polarized opinion, leaving no one on the fence. I can’t help feeling like die-hard Thatcherites who are also big fans of Frank Turner and Irvine Welsh must have spent the day in quite the emotional pickle, wrestling with an inner beast. (Although in my opinion, that must be how they spend most of their lives. Can an extreme exercise in doublethink such as singing along to Different Class whilst concurrently harbouring a mistrust of welfare-recipients stem from anything other than deep-seated confusion? David Cameron can’t listen to Morrissey and live with himself simultaneously, CAN HE!?) But that dichotomy is for another time.

We have no control over what is said on the internet. So naturally, sitting at our computers, like we do all day, we are exposed to an uncensored and unpoliced view of what people have to say. Especially in the aftermath of an event as emotionally evocative as the death of the Iron Lady. The reaction on the internet, varied and discursive as it was, was a lot less troubling than the coverage that has since graced our ears and screens for the past week from official news outlets. The television, and the papers. The professional correspondents, and politicos. Even the satirists. Watching news (the local, the national, the rolling; the Newsnight extended edition; the specialist Question Time, etc …) as I - masochist that I am - am wont to do of 5 consecutive evenings, I was a little disturbed. Not by the lack of debate, but the nature of the debate which did take place. 

The news did not erase the fact that she was divisive, or that her policies hurt people. Insults or disrespect were not what I was hoping for, anyway. Given that I felt uneasy watching the celebrations taking place after Osama bin Laden was killed, I knew I could not join the revelers in Brixton. Such action would make me an unparalleled hypocrite, and probably not a very nice person. Given that I disapproved of the way the Americans denied Bin Laden the correct muslim funeral, I’m wondering whether it’s even okay for me to condemn the expensive, sappy vom-fest that tomorrow most probably will be. (But I can’t help a little bit of me hoping that someone throws an egg … or a carton of milk …) No, I didn’t feel like there was any attempt by the media to paint her as something she wasn’t.



However, there were a few moments of news coverage in the aftermath of Thatcher’s death that I found very disconcerting, and very telling. One was David Cameron’s speeches on the subject, first outside Downing St, and then a couple of days later in the House of Commons. His choking up at the phrase ‘she didn’t just lead this country, she saved it.’ His visible, full bodied wince as he admitted that ‘she … divided opinion.’ His fairy-tale reference to the position of Prime Minister as 'the greatest position in the land.' His waxen forehead, reflecting the weak sun as it bowed in sorrow and grief ... his pudgy finger subtley and yet oh so obviously wiping back a tear from his soulless eyes … But I'm getting carried away. Whatever, it was the most histrionic bumlick of a speech I have ever witnessed outside of the Academy Awards. Ken Livingstone is labelled ‘absurd’ on Newsnight for harking back to the banking regulations of the 70s, and yet Davey C's theatrics go unchecked and un-mocked?



Leftwing ideology has lost a lot of credibility in the last 30 years; these days, 'unionisation', ‘tight regulation’, and ‘high taxation’ are buzzwords for political suicide. And the media are playing the same game. Thatcher was an unwavering Conservative, and everyone feels the need to appease her slightly in their policies. Shirley Williams desperately trying to make it apparent that she respected Thatcher as a woman, did nothing for her Socialist Democratic Party whatsoever, and the sight of it made me squirm almost as much as she did in that Newsnight chair. 

While the coverage of the Lady herself may have been reasonably fair and not too airbrushed, it was an odd post-Thatcher world the media coverage showed us. One in which there seems to be an unwritten rule that we cannot question the goodness of markets and money. One in which broadcasting voxpops of people who clearly weren't alive under Thatcher's government shouting ‘She’s a witch, I’m glad she’s dead’ constitutes an uncontroversial and newsworthy representation of leftwing opinion, but for informed commentators, uttering the word ‘socialism’ gets you the verbal backhand, and the label ‘absurd’.

Why Today is Exciting

Today is the 102nd International Women's Day (can I get a 'hells yeah'?)

I could tell it was today, because I walked past six building sites on the way into town this morning and didn't get whistled or winked at once. 

I mean, that's a lie. But wouldn't that have been cool!?

Unfortunately celebrations have not been quite so universal as they are in my mind-world. I'm not surprised to see the tabloids steering clear of the subject ('what does Tina, 22, 34DD from Leicester think about equality!?') but I'm disappointed to find the Independent's coverage, given the context in which this year's IWD falls, is conspicuously half-arsed. And the Times has a Star Wars quiz more visibly positioned on it's homepage than any mention of women, let alone IWD. If you are in search of some interesting, comprehensive coverage, I direct you to the Huffington Post's dedicated page - it's really great. But on the whole, I'm feeling a little let down.

I once thought that just identifying as feminist was, well, kind of me done? That sticking the label on myself was a form of fighting for the cause; some sort of modern day equivalent to signing up to the suffragettes. I put a little feminist badge on, joined FemSoc and thought that constituted making a stand. But this isn't suffrage any more. Feminism is a very different thing in the 21st century. The word alone doesn't have a single manifesto attached to it like it did 100 years ago. It requires explanation, and more nuanced definition. In the last few years I have learned that the need for feminism clearly isn't as self-evident as I thought it was. That a lot of people are complacent about the state of equality, and don't see a need for a vast culture shift. No matter how much I bury my head in The Vagenda and Jezebel, in the wider world, feminism does still carry with it the old misinformed tags of 'whiners' 'man-haters' and 'humourless militants', for men and for women. I need to stop ignoring those people, as if they don't matter. Because this complacency and these stereotypes are more easily enforced when there is no conversation at play. When protest and change is sporadic, a needful cause can be hard to identify. 

Recently, there has been a build up of events, sparking continuing debate around women's rights and the state of equality, both in the western world and globally. With the horrific case of gang rape in Delhi, and the shooting of Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan, to the NoMorePage 3 campaign and the Lord Rennard allegations here in the UK, it feels like we could be approaching a tipping point. Anger, noise and, most importantly, discussion about sexism are ever increasing. We need to keep this momentum going. Whether it's exposing the culture in Westminster or responding violence against women overseas, issues of equality are frequently making the headlines. This is promising. It's important that coverage of feminism (that broad, blanket term that is SO SO useful) stays this mainstream. I really hope that this struggle becomes a permanent media narrative. You know, like how we get every UK company's quarterly profit margins reported to us as news since the financial crash in 2008? Yeah, that kind of narrative. After reading the morning paper or watching the 6 O'Clock News, I want people's heads to be brimming uncontrollably with gender injustice and pay gap statistics. I want the discussion down the local pub to be about the pros and cons of introducing quotas. I want 5 year olds to be shouting at eachother in the playground 'Ew, you play with lego?? They advertise with page 3!'. I want women's rights to be that pervasive. We need to keep people talking, and not be sidelined or forgotten by everyone who has had to take notice in the last few months (Nick Clegg, for example). 

So, to celebrate this day, I give you all a few things you can do to up the anti, and to make a difference, none of which take more than 5 minutes. Take your pick. 

Read this little introduction on IWD, what it means and why it might be important to you


Read this and get angry:
Men and Women Must Unite for Change 
'women aged 15-44 are more at risk from rape and domestic violence than from cancer, car accidents, war and malaria combined' 

Read this synopsis of a nationwide (well, radio 4 listeners) discussion of feminism; a gauge of general opinion

And read this, for a bit of optimism. 'we can want equality before we achieve it'

Watch this funny video

and sign this: http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/dominic-mohan-take-the-bare-boobs-out-of-the-sun-nomorepage3 

And take a little look at this: http://www.everydaysexism.com/  And add to it. Because I bet you all can, boys too. I bet you'll have to choose from a list which scenario you'd like to post. 

Or just comment here. Start up a discussion, Get involved! 

The Fucking F-Word

Until this week, I had no idea who Ella Henderson was. My first knowledge of the X-Factor star's existence came from a disturbing recount of a phone interview with her by Emma Barnett, women’s editor of The Daily Telegraph.

Young pop stars being excessively controlled by their managers and PR is a story we are all well versed in, and horribly blasé about. It is but one of those in-your-face issues that makes X-Factor not just an hour long session in eye-scratching, but also sends its viewers on a double downward spiral of introspection and shame, in preparation for their Saturday night pillow-cry.* In all fairness, my usual alternative of spending 5 hours in the pub leads to pretty much the same conclusion.

According to the article, when Henderson was asked if she considered herself a feminist, the phone interview was interrupted by a PR official, preventing the 17 year old from answering:

'Suddenly a gruff man’s voice out of nowhere growled: “She’s not answering that.” Said aggressive man when asked who the hell he was simply replied: “Her PR”. I then pushed for Rude Bloke’s name and was told “Russell.”

'I then asked why she couldn’t answer this question, and he replied “She’s just not. It’s not to do with Safer Internet Day.”'

The article continued to interview many other industry professionals about the incident, in an attempt to make some sense of this confusing and disquieting situation. To me, it read like a spoof. A surreal, ridiculous tale, it resembled a left-field Lord Curzon commission, fallen straight out of 1912. It was an interview conducted from a dystopic, Orwellian representation of post-suffrage Britain: ‘Russell’ was a strange, resolute symbol; the last man left clutching to better time once had, now lost in a violent wave of votes for women, educational reform and evolving pop-culture. Because the discussion: ‘Is the f-word too dirty for pop?’ frankly, takes the piss. The consistent questioning of whether feminism is still too ‘dirty’ or ‘divisive’ for certain industries hit me like a horrible wake-up call to current general attitudes towards the word ‘feminism’. A true pointy pin in the side of my once floaty, optimistic progress-balloon.

One of Barnett’s interviewee’s explained that some acts will be ‘advised against it [identifying as feminist] out of a fear of pigeon-holing the pop star and putting fans off.’ This is the same warped logic found in mainstream music companies that dictates that the public control what music an artist makes. Now this mass, reactionary, Coldplay-adoring ‘public’ defines the personal views of those in the spotlight, too? If an artist is banned by their label from making their own opinions and music public, they should also be banned from using the word ‘role model’ and ‘individual’ while they are with that label.

I didn’t think we had equality, or that the fight was over. But the battle in my mind was very different to the one this article confronted me with. I was under the impression that any anti-feminist feeling in modern, sane humans was subconscious; a latent distrust that wasn’t really possible to articulate. Like the bizarre grudge that makes me switch channels every time Nick Robinson appears on the BBC. To me, 21^st century sexism was a thing that came from a cynicism and complacency started a long time ago, now inexplicably wedged firmly in the back of the minds of a few. An invisible, toxic cultural meme, where page 3 and spearmint rhino are ‘tradition’, like wearing hats at weddings, or the right to bear arms in America. It seeps secretly into everyday life in the form of ‘eesh, got your period?’, ‘slut’, ‘whore’ and ‘aw she thinks I’m being sexist!’ (That one did personally happen to me. It turned a nice evening of mattress surfing rather ugly. But that’s for another time).

But this, this was blatant. Questioning whether the society is ready to hear people publicly claim to be feminist? Seriously? Whether young girls need to hear their idols speak about gender? Whether they should be exposed to something alternative, that shows them they don’t need to dance like Rihanna, or wear cupcake bras, or get approval from boys to be normal? That being successful by picking up a pen, or a banner, or a pair of fucking roller skates is just as fathomable? QUESTIONING whether women should affiliate themselves with the movement that turned us into the voting, working, jeans-wearing, slut-walking sex we are today? I really thought we were past that. That’s not sneaky, subconscious sexism. And it’s just as dangerous, if not more so. It’s evidence that feminism is losing momentum. The debate’s been sidelined. We’re being pushed backwards.

That people can still have dubious opinions on the use of the word ‘feminism’, while claiming to be an advocate of equal rights, is just so stupid. No modern member of western democracy would openly claim to be anti-feminist without expecting to be thrust into some serious controversy. And yet you don’t even have to take to rural, reclusive England, or the recesses of the internet to be met with a barrage of people flippantly detaching themselves from the movement for equal rights, because (and again I’m quoting from real experience here) ‘I like shaving my legs’, ‘If I want to hold a door for a girl I will’, and, my personal favourite, ‘I don’t want to be stereotyped.’ (Yeah, feminism really created a problem of stereotyping women). You don’t have to go out of your way to hear this. You just have to use the f-word.

It feels so old hat, and so tired, to still be defining feminism for people; to still be fighting against a negative image that never truly existed. ‘I’m not a feminist but …’ is the most infuriating sentence starter in the English language. Wouldn’t it be just FANTASTIC if we could get to a point in society where saying ‘I don’t consider myself a feminist’ created the same outcry and discomfort as saying the opposite once did?

I didn't have a lot on my plate today

*See an interesting and disturbing interview Louis Walsh did for January’s Q [I can't find it online so I can't link you unfortunately, but if you happen across a copy.] Barnett also quoted Crystal Castles’ vocalist Alice Glass on role models in pop. ‘She thinks a lot of female popstars don’t sell a good image of themselves to children as women. She cites Katy Perry (who recently refused to say she was a feminist) as an example of a pop star claiming to be all liberated – and yet dresses up in cupcake bras - and accuses her and others of sexualising children with their provocative clothes and actions on stage.’ It is important to think of the image we are selling to young children in mainstream music. Pop’s wariness of feminism is a probably just another step in the wrong direction. 

Love

I’m in love with Simon Amstell. 

Seriously. I fancy the tight little pants he wears in my head right off his sexy chiseled bum. Sitting on my own at home, watching him on TV, I find myself unconsciously laughing at his jokes extra loudly, and for slightly longer than I would naturally, then biting my lip while twisting a strand of my hair round my finger. His dark eyes and hunched, awkward demeanor effect some sort of cosmic dark magic that tickles me right down my spine. I intently follow his walk about the stage, consumed by the absurd notion that it would be just great to nibble at his hair…

Why am I making public my creepy obsessive tendencies? Because despite how clearly deranged it makes me sound, I know I’m not alone. The concept of celebrity crushes is something I have always been a bit confused by. It strikes me as more than a little silly to fancy someone you’ve never met. I’ve been openly freaked out by my friends drooling over film-stars, guitarists, Derren Brown … (well, that one still does confuse me). I’ve taken part in countless conversations that go a bit like this:

Me: ‘But you don’t know David Tennant. You’ve never had a conversation with him. When you see him on TV, he’s playing a character. How can you be deeply in love with someone who doesn’t know your name?’

Friend: ‘He is perfect. One day I will marry him.’

In the real world, it takes me more than a look, or even a conversation to decide whether I actually fancy someone. Probably more than two or three encounters. Even then I may still not know. I’m not exactly the hopeless romantic type. In fact, I think an official ‘sexual attraction and compatibility trial period’ would be a great system; you agree some dates with the candidate in question, and spend a week together in a hotel, maybe abroad. You turn your phones off, eat snacks, have tickle fights, play Pictionary and compare music collections. You also keep a log rating your excitement and tingles on a scale of one to ten each morning afternoon and evening, and a tally counting the number of times you fiddle with your hair, or speak in a ridiculously high pitched and yet husky tone completely unnatural to you. Once the week is over, you take your log home, catalogue your results (maybe draw some graphs), and see if you in fact might have feelings for the person in question. You then compare your results with the candidate: if you both tingled at least at a level 6 roughly 50% of the time, you can go in for the whole relationship thing. If you want. Like, seriously, I think this needs institutionalizing.  I mean, someone at some point chucked the whole ‘marriage’ thing out there.

‘William! Ranlyn! I’ve got it! This thing they do in the Bible? No, after the bit where they don’t allow prostitutes in Israel … before the command to add fringe to all clothing. Yes, ‘taking a wife’; I reckon we could make it big. We can sing songs and get rings, sign a Godly love contract, and then Godefryd’s your uncle! The girl is yours forever. Once ‘marriage’ has taken place, your wooing days are over my friend! She lives with you and looks after your sheep, and your children, and your mother when she gets old. Plus, you get official usage of the phrase ‘ball and chain’. Eh? Oh, hang on, hand me back the proposal, I’ve got an addendum ….. There. Her family also pays your family as much money as they can. Perfect, now it’s a good way to keep the women at home and richest people a class apart too! EH? EH?’

See, that took off. But I digress, that’s the real world**. I’m talking about the kind of slightly-a-bit-fictional world of fancying celebrities. I no longer find having a magnetic attraction to a public figure you know nothing about akin to an invasion of privacy. (Nor is it in any way equivalent to spunking over Megan Fox’s severely airbrushed tits/face in FHM. Lets just clear that up right now. I love Simon Amstell even when he has spots.) 

I’m never going to be in a room with Simon Amstell. People say my crush is silly because he’s gay. And!? Him being gay is not the only reason me and Simon Amstell being together is never going to happen. It’s not even the second or third reason. That I don’t know him and have never met him are also pretty solid grounds. That doesn’t pain me either. I have a ridiculous level of attraction to him, because the idea of us being actually together is such a surreal idea that I can be over the top and silly with it. In my head we get along famously and never have disagreements unless we’re discussing deep philosophical issues, which we do like to engage in occasionally over a glass of red on a Sunday night. It doesn’t matter that I don’t really know much about him at all, that his stage presence probably isn’t the real him at all, or that he may not like me back, or that he’s gay, and in a relationship. Hell, I like the gay thing. He’s my fictional perfect man. I’m just basing my fantasy in reality. It’s the ‘hot crush’ equivalent to reading Harry Potter when I was five and imagining the Great Hall at Hogwarts as my Grandma’s living room. Siobhan’s head Simon Amstell does not exist in real life. So yes, I do sound a little creepy, but it’s cool like, because I would never confuse Siobhan’s head Simon Amstell with the real one. With Siobhan’s head Simon, we play scrabble, say lovely sexy things and make each other origami sea-creatures (I make a mean narwhal). But if I met him in real life I probably wouldn’t hopelessly vie for his affections. I can’t even do origami. Instead I would probably tell him that while I find him hilarious and fantastic, much as I tried to like it, I really didn’t find Grandma’s House engaging at all. In fact I thought it was a bit egotistical. Sometimes love is cruel.

I used to think that fancying celebrities was ridiculous and a bit insane, given that it’s not a two way thing. But having my own obsession has taught me that it's actually brilliant. You never find out their flaws, no-one’s off limits, and as long as you don’t get weird on their twitter feed, hang around where they live or send their other halves hate mail, no one gets hurt! Edward Cullen, Kylie Minogue, David Cameron … Whoever floats your boat, they’re yours!

*Simon Amstell, if you are by some freak chance reading this, we should definitely have a drink some time. In fact no, let’s not. I don’t want you to burst my bubble.

**Not the completely historically inaccurate world of my head.

'I'm from Hertfordshire Darling'

My first post of the new year, 20 days in. This poor blog's been neglected for 3 whole weeks. Sorry about that. My friends were back from university for Christmas and I got quite excited. There’s been a lot of catching up to be done. Now they’ve all returned to studying and my to-do list once again reads something like:

 - Find a job

 - No, seriously, find a job

 - Any job

 - Sort out banking and tax forms

 - Start getting up before 11

Of course now it’s snowing all serious plans are on hold, but once the weather clears up I will stop writing rude words outside with sticks and taking pictures of frosty spiderwebs, and get back to sorting my life out. Well ‘get back to’ may be slightly over-optimistic wording. ‘Start sorting my life out’ may be more accurate. I haven’t been in St Albans that much at all these last few weeks. Considering there’s not that much to entertain or distract me here, it’s strange that this fact depresses me slightly.

I went to Scotland last weekend. It was lovely. I met up with my best friend from childhood (and from, like, ever) and celebrated her turning 21 in beautiful, rowdy, drinky, teary style. Getting off the train at Waverley always makes me feel excited and nostalgic, and whenever I go back to Edinburgh, I always find myself wondering why anyone would leave. After spending all of 5 seconds in the capital, the crash of rain and the sound of piping hits my eardrums, and my mindset completely reverts into ‘local’ mode; 5 minutes walking down Princes Street and a brash Scottish twang that I never really had even when I lived there injects itself into my accent, and I’m complaining about tramlines, Lothian bus fares and tourists with everyone else.

This time, despite being overjoyed and excited and completely ready to blend seamlessly in to the post-hogmanay birthday celebrations, I found myself not quite so brash. I didn’t encounter anything as drastic or conscious as feeling out of place, or like a foreigner (which, in fairness, with my accent and dislike of irn-bru WKD, would have been easy to do in the circumstances). But in hindsight, I think after having been away in the States, I arrived with a slightly reinforced southern identity. Going for walks round St Albans on Google street view was easy to explain away as simple home-sickness when done from New York. Now though, I found myself in Edinburgh, my second home, still talking about pub closures, and the accordion man, and the field I had to take a piss in once. I think I may have become an official, proud Home Counties resident.

Not, I hasten to add, that I have become some kind of League of Gentlemen style ‘local’. It doesn’t mean that I’ve somehow suddenly accepted everything I used to hate about living in a £4 a pint Tory safe seat where the shops are shut by half four and people wear suits to the pub. I’ve not started baking cupcakes or taken up knitting, I’ve not joined the town council and I’ve still never bought anything from Liberties, Boohoo or Waitrose (apart from gingerbread). But I think there might be something deeper to be gleaned from that fact that throughout my weekend in Scotland, home of whisky and Tennents and Brewdog, I stayed markedly sober, playing only the less popular (and much less interesting spectator sport) ‘water-pong’. Ditching the cava around 2am, and getting into my pajamas, I reasoned to my friends and fellow revelers that ‘where I come from, the pubs shut three hours ago.’

Maybe it’s just living at home, and not frequently being around so many people my age. Maybe it’s not being at university. Or maybe it’s something more. Maybe it’s what 8 years of St Albans residency has done to me. Maybe it’s having spent most Friday nights since I was 17 in the same two pubs that put disco lights on after 9pm and host dodgy middle-aged cover bands; the strange purgatory to which teenagers living in English towns are seemingly committed until they move to London. Maybe it’s, despite having grown up there, not being from the city. Maybe it’s not being used to ‘Hive ‘til Five’, or having ever heard of a ‘jager-train’. Maybe it’s that during the compulsory pre-party drinking games, after a few rounds of ‘never have I ever been fingerblasted in St Andrew’s Square’, and ‘never have I ever got my foof out on a Lothian bus’, I hadn’t drunk a drop, and felt the intense need to stand up in the middle of the circle and declare (in slight deviation from the standard game format) ‘I’m from Hertfordshire! Drink if you’ve ever realised mid-way through sex that you’re doing it to the Radio 4 shipping forecast!’ before downing the rest of my G&T. Level the playing field. Cultural difference, innit.

For those of you who don't know, this is the accordion man. He really deserves a shout out.