Et In Arcadia Ego

"Someday this war's gonna end. That would be just fine with the boys
on the boat. They weren't looking for anything more than a way home.
Trouble is, I've been back there, and I knew that it just didn't exist
anymore. If that's how Kilgore fought the war, I began to wonder what
they really had against  Kurtz. It wasn't just insanity and murder.
There was enough of that to go around for everyone."

That film is going around and around in my head. But it's something
 about the music which makes it cling to your brain. I couldn't find
 you the clip, alas, but it's worth a listen. And I'm adjusting from
spending 12-out-of-13-hours on my own, back to living  in close
 proximity with three other people. Not an altogether unpleasant
experience. But they do think things like Scrabble are a good idea.

It's not nice being back in my house though. Without getting too paranoid, it has a bad thing going on. It's freezing in winter and boiling in summer. Plus, the showers don't really work - and I thought student accomodation was going to be dodgy. It's not small, by no means - but it feels very, very claustrophobic. Partly because my family are quarrelsome, but you get it when you're on your own too. Which might be the knowledge that you're 20 minutes from anywhere interesting, literally trapped as much as metaphorically, but I'm convinced the house has something to do with it. In addition, I don't dream well here. I'm a great sleeper - I drop straight off and am dead till the morning - so living somewhere I frequently take ages to sleep, have nightmares and wake at weird times feels particularly jarring. Especially when you consider I'm closer to a regular sleeping routine than I ever was in Hampstead. I did briefly consider that the house may be a bit haunted, but dropped that line of reasoning instantly because I didn't like where it might lead.

There are good things too, of course. Parents who forget you're vegitarian and get you taramasalata and your favourite brand of duck pate specially. At which point I couldn't let either to to waste. This was genuine forgetfulness - they are pretty supportive and, unfortunately, won't forget again. A massive, massive TV with a sound system which makes the room vibrate - Top Gun instantly became a favourite film, when watched with the volume up. All the stuff I'd been missing, although that's not as much as one might expect. Naturally, I left Planet of Fire in Hampstead, and naturally I am already regretting leaving it there. They have to release it on DVD! That way, at least it'd be practical for me to carry it in a small bag over my heart just in case I neeeeed to watch it right away, which tends to happen on a daily basis when I don't have it to hand. My piano! Sweet beauty, my wonderful piano. Five months with that Hampstead monster had actually convinced me I couldn't play the piano as well as I'd thought, because it's so muzzy and out of tune that it's only fit for pop/rock style slamming the keys. Now I'm home, I can play Beethoven, and Grieg, and my wonderful wonderful Chopin again.

So I've spent the afternoon reading "How Not to Write", and it's a very funny book, but also frustrating. I'm going through the comments and thinking - "but Dickens/Ian McEwan/Victor Hugo/Jane Austen does this ALL THE TIME". But, Doctor Who authors really do them all. Including the appalling ones. I claimed that Doctor Who books have done more for my appreciation of literature than anything else, and I stick by this statement. Doctor Who is the television equivalent of music's "variations on a theme": Doctor + Companion land, there's something funny going on, but they can solve it in under 45 minutes using only a vegitable, their wits, and some sickening faith in humanity. The books have an even harder time - starting in the 90s, they'd already endured some 40 years of this plot in its infinite variety.

It's like the world's most strict art competition, or one of those contests when you have to finish the statement in under 100 words. The result is seeing over 50 authors write identical scenes in their own style, and it's this comparison which I regard as so valuable. Doctor Who novels can be boiled down to elements. There will almost certainly be a scene of the TARDIS landing. Most go for a "wheezing groaning sound as reality was ripped, and with a flashing light an unusual object materialised to the surprise of only a single seagull as he flew on his way". Yaaawn. Compare that to, say Matrix - and I'd type the passage out, had I not lent the book - where the appearance of the TARDIS is made completely terrifying to a random bystander. It's an awesome piece of text, to convince the audience that this familiar, loveable item's appearance is as genuinely unsettling as it strictly should be. Same goes for "let me explain my nefarious plan!" scenes, introductions to Fred the extra marked for death, and transparent excuses to get companions naked. And all of these things, crap as they may be, can work. But getting to experience them all on a regular basis really does give you an acute appreciation of what works and what doesn't. Some Doctor Who novels are the literary equivalent of the airport novel. Others have genuine literary merit - see Lawrence Miles, Paul Magrs or Lance Parkin if you fancy an experience.

And I've been having fun with my Tarot cards. Lets get this straight: no, I do not believe just by shuffling a pack of cards, however prettily they be decorated, I will recieve an answer from the god of lucky guesses. Yet I still do it. I love the "ooh, occult!"-yness of them, and the history and art. It'd also be a great party trick. I used to be very good at palm reading, and although it's another pseudoscience I'm pretty sceptical about, that doesn't stop it being harmless fun. I did it for a charity fair a few years back, and spooked my Technology teacher so much that she still mentions it when we meet. I must have touched a nerve. The problem with palm reading is it's really, really non-specific. My life line intersects my head line, which indicates I am a dependant person. And it's true, I really do depend on other people - I tend to get very rubbish sans friends and conversation. Yet if the two lines didn't meet, indicating I'm independant - well, you've seen my dress sense.

My point is, I believe myself to be a paradox - and I think a lot of other people are too. I am dependant (in some ways, in certain circumstances), as much as I am independant. I can be very emotional. I can also be markedly unsympathetic. Tell someone a fact about themselves, and they'll squidge their own life to fit, ignoring the bits that don't work and adapting those which do. This is either a sign of wanting to believe, or that humanity is too multi-faceted to be boiled down to single character traits.

Tarot is a far more convincing mode of divination, as far as predicting the future can be convincing. And I do find it genuinely helpful. There are two ways of looking at this. The first is with blind faith, that like or not I'm channelling some higher power. And the second would be Rorschach's response - it's just humanity seeing patterns in a completely random structure. Still, you are sitting down and clearing your head, and dedicating half an hour to thinking soley about an issue. For me, it doesn't matter whether this is "putting yourself in a ritual state" or just calming down and being rational because it does work, on whatever level you choose to take it. The interpreting process is just a formalised way of thinking through a problem from a new angle. I would never, ever go to a professional Tarot reader for sincere advice, because you'd lose that introspective experience. I would, however, certainly go once were it reasonably priced.

And besides. It's very, very cool. So hopefully (along with two glittering essays) I'll bring a new talent back to Hampstead.

Now, if anyone wants to see my thoughts on the Planet of the Dead trailer (or, by the time you read this, perhaps the episode itself - it's out on the 11th), pop over to Malcassairo for my enlightened thoughts.

I suppose I was probably having a bad day from the start.


I woke up, and instantly had one of those clinging "I just want to curl up in bed, be luxuriously miserable and drink hot chocolate all day" things which hit all sane people now and then, but me more than most. Which instantly shot up red flags because this was the morning of the Colin Baker'n'Nicola Bryant signing on the Strand. I suppose it's a confidence thing - when I'm having a bad day, my confidence plummets, so it's hardly the fit state to go through the unpleasant process of actor meeting. Still, when staying at home seems like a serious alternative to MEETING COLIN BAKER, which I've been looking forward to for since January, you know it's not going to be a great day.


I probably spent longer on my outfit than I have done all year. It was trying not to dress like a nutjob which was the hard part - peversely, I look odder dressed "normal" than in full multi-colour regalia. Normally, I just shove on whatever and it looks OK. In a strangely contrary act, I also decided against wearing my Colin Baker tribute trousers, despite - or maybe because of - the prospect of spending several hours in the company of people who would both recognise the source, and find it charming. In retrospect, I shouldn't have worried about looking like an idiot in replica costume, though we'll come to him later.

I tried phoning Spirita once or twice, but made the mistake of using the wrong number. When I remembered she had a new phone, I was already at the Strand so I got chatting to the people in the queue.

I soon realised they were all crazies. "Crazy" is relative, when you've stood outside in the rain for two hours to meet an overweight shadow of an actor from a show he hasn't starred in for twenty years, in order for him to scrawl on a little piece of paper with a Sharpie. And I'm far from entirely sane myself.

But - and I'm going to try and put this non-offensively - many of them seemed to be a little slow, detatched or otherwise disjointed from reality. That sort of detatchment you get from drug addicts or tramps - or people who start chatting to you on public transport. Now I adore the conversations I have on public transport - the people you meet, the stories you hear, the rush of joy you experience from interacting with the human spirit! Or merely relief they didn't stab you up. But they do all have this slightly odd expression - naturally enough, I suppose, because they're talking to a stranger on the Tube instead of glaring like a rabbit in the headlights and coldly ignoring everyone else. Maybe it was good in a way - obviously, they weren't bricking it lest they go pink or pass out.

But they were fun to chat to. The group I was with were a naturally odd bunch. An American woman who'd taken the morning off work and had a great "I heart heart the Doctor", which took me all morning to work out. This seven year old who'd persuaded his mum to take him out of school for the morning. She was standing around cluelessly, and proudly pointing out how confused she was. "When you say Jon Pertwee, all I think of is Worzel Gummage!" she declared, which would have been amusing in any other company, and we all glared at her sourly and went back to talking to her son. Who was wonderfully enthusiastic, in the way of all teen-experts, and he gleefully explained the plot of several episodes I'd already seen to me, several times over. Favourites: Two Doctors, Survival, Robot. Didn't like: Brain of Morbius, or Peter Davison, at which point I could have smacked him around the head.

The Peter Davison haters were out in force, actually. Davros - this was his idea, not mine. He was in a motorised wheelchair, and referred to himself as Davros at several points - in any case, this chap disavowed my defence of Peter Davison on the grounds of me being a gal. I got pretty tetchy at that point, but decided not to tell him that yes, perhaps as a female I like Peter Davison because he's very easy on the eyes - but not exclusively for that reason - and besides, I also find Jon Pertwee and Sylvester McCoy smouldering, in an avuncular sort of way. I was having a good morning, and am aware my Who views are unconventional. Keeping my mouth shut, if not actually compromising, was a far better idea than expressing my healthy, natural reaction - which was re-enacting that bit with Heath Ledger and the pencil*.

And then the final member of our group was another nutcase. Once he'd left, our American friend said she'd actually heard of him before. Apparently, he has a reputation for giving poor Nicola Bryant a hard time. Well we got to the front of the queue, and Spirita was still absent - so the guy at the door said he'd let me in when she arrived. By this point it was raining, and I had my outrageous brolly with me - so I went and befriended some women at the front of the queue who were getting rather wet. She cried when David Tennant announced he was leaving. That's funny, I thought, I don't know anybody like that...

After that, I went and latched onto a group further back in the queue. While we'd been chatting, a fantastic blur of colour had launched down the Strand and joined at the back, so as Spirita was still not around I felt I had to compliment the brilliant replica costume standing under its own rainbow coloured brolly. So I said hi to him, and he introduced himself as Thete, and we got chatting - apparently he's got all 10 of the costumes, and intends to get Matt Smith's as soon as he can. And he gave me a good tip for making my own - his gran made his by sewing the material over a regular coat with a similar cut. He described sitting down to make the notes for it, and I sympathise: I painted the Doctor Who minatures for my epic board game, and I spent the entirety of Mysterious Planet filling three sides of paper with densely packed illustrations and notes. And STILL got some of the colours wrong. He's been seeking for a Jon Pertwee cloak for years.


Anyway, he was a decent chap and he offered to let me have a photo - apparently he could do "happy" 6, "moody" 6 and "smug" 6. I went for smug, and was rewarded with a very amusing impression indeed. I'd post it, though I'm not sure whether that'd be legal/fair. He probably wouldn't mind, but you never know. It transpired he's coming to the same convention as Friends 3, 4 and I are going to, and in that getup he's very hard to miss, so we've promised to meet and say hi again. And this time, I will wear my striped trousers.


"This is a very odd waiting room. Where are the hopelessly out-of-date magazines? Hm?" He boomed, citing Ultimate Foe as we stood under our twin rainbow umbrellas in the rain. In fact, as the time passed he quoted more and more often, and I could tell he was kinda showing off; but at the same time, he also could tell I found it completely adorable and couldn't help but encourage him. And we got chatting to the people around us - a nice, quiet, grew-up-with-Pertwee guy with whom I shared my brolly. Well spoken, and most crucially, saner than anyone else I'd met all day - I always like to meet Pertwee fans, there are so few of them. Or maybe they're just all quiet.


But he wasn't as much fun as the man in front of us, who looked like an unholy crossbreed of Christopher Ecclestone and Bono - with all the fury that combination implies. Opinionated, stubborn, and brilliant. Like many an old fan, he hates the new Cybermen and wants them to bring the our-universe Cybs back. Not sure why it'd make a difference - I like the fact they have given an official, in-world explanation for the fact they are being written by a new team in a new way. Thete seemed to be something of a mediator, and they chatted Cybermen for a bit (ChrisBono: "...they couldn't have given Pertwee more Cybermen episodes, UNIT+Cybermen had already been done in The Invasion. It'd be the same again.") Chris-Bono described the Ninth Doctor's run as "13 episodes of him looking embarassed about being there". Now obviously that's unfair - every Doctor has his moments, and even if you can't stand an actor, in a whole series there must be some plots or touches that you will find engaging. On my Who-blog I did a post on the terrifying varieties of fan, the gist of which most people can appreciate, and Chris-Bono was a classic case of "The Critic" - the one who picks so many holes in the series, you start to wonder what they're actually fan of, because everything is a disappointment compared to what came before. He didn't like Ultimate Foe either, even after Thete mildly pointed out that it was Robert Holmes (saint of DW writers) who'd written it.


A lot of people picked on Sylvester McCoy in that queue - I suppose, as we were queuing to see the other most unpopular Doctor, his haters were probably out in greater force. But Chris-Bono went further than Davros had earlier, in claiming not a single episode was any good. A line of reasoning very easy to fault - in three series, in a show as inventive as Who, must have produced something admirable. Thete suggested what he considered to be the highlights, and Chris-Bono combatted each one with a dismissive "rubbish!" - Curse of Fenric - rubbish! - Remembrence of the Daleks - rubbish! - Silver Nemesis - rubbish! I cautiously asked if now was the wrong time to bring up Ghost Light. It was. Rubbish!


Still, I did enjoy the conversation, and it's hard to take a man seriously when he's that darn picky, and yet still thinks Timelash is a forgotten gem.


To digress for a moment, I like every Doctor, most companions, and pretty much every episode I can find something in. It is a popular fact that the letters of "Timelash" can be rearranged to form the anagram "Lame Shit", and there's a good reason for this: it's appalling on every concieveable level. The plot is a very cliche one - factions on an alien planet, cosmic councils, twisted meglomaniacs - and presented in a dull, uninspired manner. The script is bad. Sans Colin Baker (I believe it's his best performance), the acting is appalling. It's not even spectacularly awful in the way Doctor Who often is: it fails through a total lack of imagination and effort, and into the bargain the effects are pants. It's also about 85 minutes too long - if they'd cut it down purely to the five minute segment of Six confronting the Borad, then it would be a forgotten gem. This episode actually contains the words "choose your next words carefully, they may be your last." And not in an ironic way. (you can read my very generous review if you like)


The pair of them agreed that Matt Smith was a bad thing, though - Thete did say he couldn't quite judge yet - but both seem perturbed by the age thing. They do, to an extent, have my sympathy although it is too soon to judge. It was about now Spirita arrived - Thete said "I thought I heard the Trial of a Timelord theme tune...", and again though I was in the company of the core of Londoners who'd find that fact cool, it actually made me feel more sheepish. But he was right - my phone had gone off (how did he hear it, and me not - that is the question?) - and naturally, I was not hard to find standing next to and under a pair of rainbows.


The guy at the door let us in, I paid the shop for an extraordinarily overpriced copy of Attack of the Cybermen - but I had to get Spirita to open the plastic wrapper, as my hands just working so good at that point. Twas OK. I'd given blood the day before, and slept badly for the last week - so there were good reasons for me to be feeling very queasy and a bit faint. Right?






I have never had a favourite Doctor. I still don't. I never will. It is true to say I go through shifting preference depending on the mood, the season, the weather - and certainly that I love them in different ways. I love 1 for not being able to get a handle on him, just as I love 3 for understanding him completely. My Seventh Doctor phases are admittedly not frequent, but they are intense and crazy. My Fifth Doctor obsession manifests itself in merchandise - my resistance to spending just melts with regard to anything related to his era. And then we come to the Sixth Doctor, Colin Baker, and that's a rough one. I don't just mean my propensity to find outrageously tacky clothing charming either. Because Doctor Six is my hero. Five too to an extent, I suppose, but when it comes to giving up meat, donating bodily fluids to medical science and walking fearlessly down dark alleys - well, the fault lies somewhere in the first half of the 1980s.


So you understand that, even if I accept (which I do, in principle) that actors are more real than their characters, Colin Baker did have a bit more to live up to than Tom Baker did. Incidentally, I have sort of ruled out meeting Peter Davison in the future. Partly for the intense hero-worship. But also partly because of his commentaries, in which he tends to savage his episodes rather badly. Amusingly, I'm told - probably accurately too - but it's hard to cope with someone so vocal about the fact he regards at least one whole season of his work as so awful he decided to leave. For example, Black Orchid was a highly regarded oddity in the community until the much-anticipated DVD release last year. It's criticised far more since, and I do believe this is partly down to the (unjust) critical mauling given to it by the whole cast, companions included.

It'd make me think twice about asking him to sign my favourite episode, Enlightenment, which is in said season, and in which I'm perfectly aware the Doctor doesn't do anything at all of note. I'm sure it'd be fine, and he is certainly entitled to his opinion. Yes, many of his episodes were dodgy, and yes he doesn't do anything of significance in Season 20. I just can't help but feel "couldn't you be a little bit more supportive of this show that so many people still love you for?"


See: Dirk Benedict, who's still defending old-school Galactica. True, his motives have distinctively mysoginistic, American and almost homophobic overtones. Yet I still can't help but admire him for caring so damn much about the work he produced as a kid that he is still making a fuss about the way the new series has twisted the original's optimistic themes into something far darker and less morally OK: "Re-imagining", they call it. "un-imagining" is more accurate. To take what once was and twist it into what never was intended. So that a television show based on hope, spiritual faith, and family is unimagined and regurgitated as a show of despair, sexual violence and family dysfunction."


And I admire the fact he cares for his character so much, so far on, that he's still kicking up a fuss that he was recast as female. Of course, he loses brownie points left right and centre in that article for complaining loudly about the war on masculinity, and having some very entrenched views of male/female social roles - Calypso, read it if you fancy a really good angry rant sometime, but under no other circumstances. The reasons he cares are arguably not very admirable. But ignoring them, the fact he does at all, I find endearing.


And partly because the more sigs I get, the more I feel like one of those terribly unhealthy "collector types" I so despise (see: scary fan post on Malcassairo, or disappointment at the collector's fair)


Though I might still go for it. I don't know: for my Planet of Fire, I'd do pretty much anything. The only person I'd rule out almost 100% is Michael Jayston who played the Valeyard. The thing about meeting actors is it's the voice that really gets you. Out of costume, out of hairstyle, out of makeup - often twenty years onwards - sometimes they really don't look like they do on TV. But the voice is always hard to disguise, and that's the the thing that I've really taken away from every actor-encounter I've endured. Perhaps (see below) why Nicola Bryant, who had a fake accent on the show, didn't make so much of an impression. And it is that point at which you can't help but sense the character come through - in a person's vocal ticks and ways of pausing and emphasising, more than movement or actual words.


The problem is, no matter how cool I find him, no matter how much I want another Sharpie scrawl on my Trial box - the Valeyard terrifies me, to the extent that I still have to watch Trial of a Timelord curled up, hugging myself or any cushion that presents itself and generally peering over said cushion while nervously comfort eating. Apparently, it's quite funny to watch. The first time I watched Trial's final two episodes, I was actually hiding behind a towel and I swore under my breath literally every two or three minutes: that's how tense I was. And more than the dead eyes, or anything he does or becomes - it's the voice that scares me. Now when Colin or Tom Baker accidentally stop sounding like themselves and start sounding like the Doctor, it's rather a guilty pleasure. It might not be so funny if that happened with Michael Jayston, and pathetic as it is, I honestly don't think I could be in the same room with him. I get nervous enough over meeting "hero" actors. I wouldn't enjoy it, and if I totally overreacted, I'm sure he wouldn't either.



But I still sort of ended up on my own there, which is what I didn't want to do - and while to say I blacked out would be grossly incorrect, my memories are already very shaky indeed. I didn't really have anything constructive to say, that's the problem - it's just as uncomfortable as meeting any other stranger. Anyway, he complemented my scarf - said it was very Doctory - and hoped I hadn't got too wet in the rain, and I probably said something very spaced out in reply. And she made sure it was Emily with 1 L instead of 2 - apparently it happens - which was sweet of her. And I wished them both a good day, and then went away cursing that I'd forgotten my camera, and hadn't said anything more enlightenened - then suffered an immediate self-esteem plummet when I got outside, and comfort eat for the next hour and a half until it was time for Entertainment Cultures in Greece and Rome.

We were studying fans.

Beat.

Anyway, Spirita was great and all that - she told us a story. I requested mermaids and pirates, so she obliged: a lion tamer boy and a trapeeze artist girl with fantastic emerald eyes from a circus suddenly realise they are in love when their eyes meet (all a bit Byronic since they've been brought up with one another, Eng Lit students will study it for decades). As the circus is by the sea, they go on a romantic dinghy ride - but are kidnapped by pirates! He manages to escape, but she is left behind. So he becomes a monk, and she is sold to some stock-cliche-Arabians where she becomes a member of the emperor's hareem. I forget the rest but Spirita is an awesome storyteller, and we got to the point where the boy's heart has been ripped out and thrown on the fire with him and the girl is trying to save him - but all she finds is his hand, clamped shut - and when she opens it...

...her only problem is neglecting to tell the end of stories, which has happened twice now. I am still on tenterhooks.



Then Latin, in which I did read my poem after all. Again, not under ideal circumstances what with me feeling like the smallest person on the planet, but I was still sort of blanking so it wasn't too bad. I took my umbrella and planted it loudly on the carpet, and didn't make a single mistake. Prize: an awesomely old-school Classical dictionary and some marzipan chocolates. But oh, the pride!



I was still feeling rather miserable when I got out - because reciting Latin in public is really the last thing you want to do to restore shattered nerves - so Spirita and I made good on the decision we'd made earlier in the day, to watch Planet of Fire, because she hadn't seen it for a while, and because I love destroying the integrity of that infernal library by polluting it with non-academic activity. Which in retrospect was also a stupid stupid stupid idea, as I find it hard to watch under the best circumstances, but there you go. I did offer Spirita the chance to see Trial of a Timelord instead, as my reaction is half as extreme but twice as funny, but she elected for the nervous breakdown instead. Fortunately, time ran out before we got to episode three and before the trouble starts.

Then we trekked to UCL territory, talked old movies and ghosts, to be bodies for a student film. This was pretty fun - we checked the main UCl bulding for directions, and once we left Spirita figured our guide had returned and said "kill them". We expected to be ambushed at any moment - although obviously, we could have taken on the whole of UCL single handed. But we got to the set no-harm, and twas a lot of fun. I draped myself over the desk, Spirita crunched on the floor, and the creators broke out the fake blood, which was wonderfully realistic stuff. I contemplated keeping mine for the tube home, though it was pretty sticky. There was a funny moment when an NPC passed the open door of the room where some six of us were slumped dead, gave us a funny look then kept walking. It took three takes, by which point the genuine blood had completely rushed to my head and I felt very dizzy. Then Spirita and I took photos and went home for tea. I perked up at this point too.

I miss my films. I still want to finish my Robin Hood, and my Bones movie. I filmed a short segment from Bones for my film studies coursework, and while it's artfully derivitive, it's also genuinely scary.

The basic premise of the film is this: bones are discovered underneath an isolated girls boarding school. I haven't decided whether it's present day or in the past, but the whole thing has this defiant Victoriana feel. A sort of mass hysteria spreads - they start imagining they see it, getting uncomfortable when alone. It's nevermade clear whether there really is a ghost, but the suggestion is that it's more likely a product of madness caused by the institution rules and enforced closeness with a small group of people (channels 12 Monkeys, Full Metal Jacket and particularly Picnic at Hanging Rock, though I hadn't seen that at the time). I dunno what happens at the end - I think everything gets well out of hand, and something grotesque and charmless befalls the school.

The sequence revolves around a game of hide and seek. X goes hides, and gets stuck in a tiny dark little space. She gets increasingly paranoid and claustrophobic, to the point she realises she can't get out of the cupboard and starts banging to escape. Meanwhile, her friend takes as aaaagonisingly long time as possible to find her in the big, empty school (yet in the corner of her mind, she can't shake her own worries about the ghost).

First and foremost, I drew it from my own fears, of which there are literally hundreds. It's set in my own school, which is built like a warren. The first few weeks there, I kept getting lost. It's styled like a castle, and you can access the third floor and several of the turrets only by staircases marked "out of bounds". I did break the rules once...briefly...and there are even more dark, empty corridors up there. It's certainly the last place you want to get stuck with a (possibly) malevolent ghost, or an overactive imagination. I actually have the ghost appearing in the sequence in flickers, briefly in and out of vision. An attempt to replicate the sense of "What if the ghost is there? Of course it isn't...but what if?", and because what you don't see is scarier than what you do (and hopefully, what you almost saw is scarier than both).

6th Sense is really the only pure horror film I've ever seen (and I intend to keep it that way...), and its influence is very clear. My ghost is clearly from the same universe - though any similarity to the bit where hero-kid gets trapped in the cupboard is entirely unintentional, and only occoured to me just now. Ooops. Also, the idea of putting fear in a neutral location, and during the day (no dark side streets for us!)

More than that, though - when I'm big and famous, people will cite M. Night as my stylistic influence. I didn't really notice until I rewatched Unbreakable, but just the way I was using the camera - framing shots neatly, the obsessive attempts to shoot through mirrors, TVs and obstacles, THE SLIGHT SLOW ZOOM. Seriously, I thought this was just me subconsciously trying to annoy my cameraperson (who finds controlled zooms tricky), but it turns out that it's just me having watched Signs once too many. When you watch his films again, you'll know what I mean...and my hypothetical storyboards are crammed with them.

So the sequence is great, and it's built up by the contrast between these tight dark shots, closeup on X in the cupboard as she panics and channeling Kubrick with some long, quiet, boring shots of the friend to emphasise how alone she is in the empty school - placing the camera and telling Friend 2 to just walk across the massive room. But giving these long-distance shots the feel as if she is being watched. In some of these shots, the ghost is standing in the background. The key to my sequence was half a minute inside the cupboard, when X realises she is trapped and struggles to get out. I intend to hold the camera on that for as long as is excruciatingly possible. I wanted to coax sweat and tears out of Friend 1, if she's up to it. And when it becomes unbearable to watch, I'm going to keep the camera there for a few seconds longer. And then, cut away to nameless-friend who is going to take as long as is humanly possible. Didn't exactly work in practice, but I almost managed. See, most rational people aren't afraid of ghosts. But most rational people are afraid of suffocation, and get claustrophobic pretty quick. It all hinges on Friend 1 being totally convincing. I wanted 110% Mr Orange - I got about 28%, so it didn't quite sell the sequence the way it was meant to.

But it still worked, and then with some scary music slapped over the top it's actually damn creepy. I'd like to make the rest, but the resources are far beyond me - as is the talent to write an interesting, sustained script.

And that was my day.

*This joke pinched from Lance Parkin

I'm thinking of learning some Catullus to recite in Latin.

Partly for the fun of learning poetry - I love the way it sounds - but mostly for the kleios. She's offered a prize of a dictionary, but it's more because I want to do it for my personal glory, and also for PT herself. I think she's great, and if you know how much I still love my old Latin teacher then you'll appreciate she must be pretty good for me to not loathe her on principle.
She's made this offer - an edible prize, plus Latin dictionary - which I know no one else will take up, and even learnt a passage of Gellius to recite to us as an example. Which was understandably brave and nerve wracking. The class is very, very cruel to her, and are downright rude in private. I liked them all personally, but their attitude offends me, particularly one sitting opposite me whom I befrended, not to mention thinking them gorgeous, until I noticed that they were as keen to mock and smirk as everyone else. This made me double angry: there's a level at which if I do this, it'll be terribly teacher's pet and no one in my Latin class will like me - and there's a level at which that's exactly why I'm doing it, because I'm angry and offended by them. Having friends is nice, but some people don't actually deserve your friendship, and this is the politest way I can inform them that I can't stand them.

The translations below are mostly smegged from the web, and tweaked a bit to better reflect what I see as their spirit. Were it not tomorrow, I'd translate them from scratch. Honest.

My favourite Catullus poem of all time is far too short for me to perform in fairness:

"odo et amo - quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior..."
"I hate, and I love - perhaps you ask why this is so. I do not know, but I feel it - and it is torture"

I think we've all had that. That's one of the chief reasons I love reading Roman texts - they are so, so modern. They grieve, get jealous and spiteful, are slimy, artistic - in other words, nothing has changed.

My next want-to-read is also a short one, and like the previous it really burns with bitterness

"NVLLI se dicit mulier mea nubere malle
quam mihi, non si se Iuppiter ipse petat.
dicit: sed mulier cupido quod dicit amanti,
in uento et rapida scribere oportet aqua."

"There is no one, says my girl, whom she would rather marry than me - not even if Jupiter himself asked. She says - but what a woman says to an ardent lover should be written in wind and water..."

I think we've all been there too. It's the simplicity and sincerity which really stings, and the way he can pass off a perfect truth in under a paragraph.

It's my previous Latin teacher responsible for the Catullus love - we did the famous hundreds-and-millions-of-kisses poem, which is the ancient equivalent of Billy Shipton's inspired chat up line in Blink - "life is short and you are hot":

"VIVAMUS mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum seueriorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit breuis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum."

"Let us live, and let us love! - and rate not a penny the chattering of crabby old farts!
Suns may set and rise again - for us, once our brief light has set, remains to be slept the sleep of one unbroken night. Give me a thousand kisses - then a hundred - then another thousand - then a second hundred - then, when we have made up many thousands, we will confuse our counting and not know the reckoning - nor will any malicious blight us with evil when he knows our kisses are so many"

I used to kid that I'd fall straight for any guy who would read me Catullus, and indeed PT mentioned that her previous year's class, a girl had made that very same comment - but none of the guys took the hint. I've smarted up my priorities since then - now, playing Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu is the minumum standard, along with appreciating that one is supposed to watch the film uninterrupted on a cinema date. But I still think it is often excrutiatingly romantic, particularly the way that poem subsides from the boisterous hope of the opening into the sombre acceptance of death, leading into that frenetic and desperate end. Lesbia was a real young lady, by the way - and ultimately, she was faithful to Catullus as she was to her husband - hence the more bitter poems above. There's a very, very sad one when he realises this too.

He's most famous for the love poems, but he also has a number of witty, cheeky and downright rude notes written to his friends, and about his enemies - try Poem 16 if you want to learn some interesting Roman turns of phrase. But his serious ones are brilliant too, and that brings us to the elegy for his dead brother. This made me cry when I first read it, but perhaps I was having a sensitive day. It's still moving though:

"MVLTAS per gentes et multa per aequora uectus
aduenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum.
heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
nunc tamen interea haec, prisco quae more parentum
tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
atque in perpetuum, frater, aue atque uale."

"Wandering through many countries and over many seas - I come, my brother, to these sorrowful obsequies, to present you with the last guerdon of death, and speak, though in vain, to your silent ashes, since fortune has taken your own self away from me alas, my brother, so cruelly torn from me! Yet now meanwhile take these offerings, which by the custom of our fathers have been handed down -- a sorrowful tribute -- for a funeral sacrifice; take them, wet with many tears of a brother, and for ever, O my brother, hail and farewell!"

There's theories that mortality rates in the past meant people held their families less dear than we do now in more sensitive times - you'll appreciate that after that poem, my only response is to recite some of Catullus' more scatalogical vocabulary. Bit of a downer though.

I should have stuck with "odo and amo", because I just rediscovered the Sirmio poem. It's not exactly a short one, but a particular favourite. Partly because my previous Latin teacher did it more than once, and I found it tricky every time, so it sticks in the mind - but when I fly back over guernsey I always get it running through my head - particularly the discription "ocelle", literally "little eye" or "little jewel". It's Catullus' description of his own joy at homecoming to the island Sirmio, so you can see why I admire it.

"PAENE insularum, Sirmio, insularumque
ocelle, quascumque in liquentibus stagnis
marique uasto fert uterque Neptunus,
quam te libenter quamque laetus inuiso,
uix mi ipse credens Thuniam atque Bithunos
liquisse campos et uidere te in tuto.
o quid solutis est beatius curis,
cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino
labore fessi uenimus larem ad nostrum,
desideratoque acquiescimus lecto?
hoc est quod unum est pro laboribus tantis.
salue, o uenusta Sirmio, atque ero gaude
gaudente, uosque, o Lydiae lacus undae,
ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum."

"Sirmio, bright little eye of peninsulas and islands, whatever ones either Neptune bears
in liquid lakes or in the vast sea. How willingly and happily I visit you, scarecely trusting myself that I have left Thynia and the Bithynian plains, and that I see you in safety!

Oh, what is more blessed that to put cares away, when the mind lays down its burden, and tired with the labor of travel, we come to our own home and rest on the bed we longed for.
This is the only thing that is worth such great toils.

Hello, charming Sirmio, rejoice in your happy master, and you, Lydian waves of the lake,
laugh whatever laughter there is in your home."

And on that note, good night and good morning.

Today I want to talk about shame, in the context of various things I've been mulling

And goodness - there are plenty of other family friendly places to take your children. But on a political one I object too, because what we're talking about Shame.

In today's issue: details of the transpeople workshop, review of Paris is Burning, a trip comic book hunting and today's unintentionally hilarious statement of the day.


Yesterday, Calypso invited Spirita and I to a workshop on Transpeople organised jointly by the feminists, LGBT soc and Kings Sexual Politics soc, for which they had invited the transpeople representative of the NUS. And I'm passing it on because it was excellent and that's what knowledge is there for, because it's important and because there's nothing else constructive I can think of doing for the community.

Last night we went to see Patrick Wolf play, wahey! Great excuse to wear my dress if nothing else. I had a nap, because last night's late night was very fun, but also (by definition) very late.

We tried to dump the spare ticket on virtually everyone, including one of the Light Side of the Kitchen who hadn't been able to get tickets. They're all going through a financial crisis over there, surviving on Basics range, and are therefore even more unwilling to accept charity than usual. Everyone's usually OK to borrow a bit of cheese, bit of sugar, except when it comes to the end of the month and the loans are running low when people will always refuse. Ah well. Luckily, Calypso's play ended early and Mr Wolf didn't come on till midnight. So we hung around the Halls of the Dude for a bit, and came up with another page of the Penatium mythology. What can I say, except that it's all getting very Heavenly Creatures, in the best possible use of that phrase? In the mean time, I had an OK smoothie - an apple, an orange, orange juice, grape juice and ice - although nothing terribly special. We finished off the pitta bread which yesterday I'd claimed would end up going to waste - Calypso and I had decided we needed to do Greek feast, so there were leftovers. Then we took some busses to get there and had a tense moment at the door because Vapilla didn't have any ID. The Security Guard was nice, though, on account of her being a Virgo, like him. She said she'll carry her passport in future, which is all well and good but if you're going to a nightclub, should they really be encouraging people to carry things like that? It's a bit like Camden itself - all of the stuff is really expensive, none of the shops take card, yet it's the last place in the world where you'd actually want to walk around with £100 in your pocket.

We came in a tiny bit late - we must have missed a song, maybe a song and a half. KOKO is a lovely, lovely venue - it's basically a converted Victorian theatre painted up in red, which means the views are actually excellent. We stood on the first tier stairs, and though I did worry that one of the myriad people coming up and down with drinks were going to soak my dress, all was well and we could see really well.

The first thing I should explain - Patrick Wolf is sex on legs, an undead Maxwell Demon, a Peter Pan made of electricity and strobe lighting. And I got the impression that I wasn't the only one - had he got much closer to the audience, they might have eaten him. In both senses of the word.


We discussed maybe kidnapping him, tying him up with silk ribbons and then the rest isn't work safe. What can I say, Patrick Wolf is maybe the only artist who brings out my inner-screaming-girlfan. And this was exacerbated by him spending the concert wearing nought but leather trousers and silver glitter-glue. I suppose it's more down to the bands I like - Genesis were fairly attractive, when they were young, but that was some time ago, and while all the members of the Guillemots are lovely, well...they're the Guillemots, and I'd feel strange doing anything beyond reading them a bedtime story and tucking them in with milk and a biscuit (oo-er!). But Mr Wolf is totally delectable, and especially in real life. I think it's something in the way he moves, perhaps.

Anyway, it was Bluebells first, then Accident and Emergency, and then Magic Position which got the biggest scream of the night for good reason - it's just so dancy-happy, and is also probably the most accessable of his songs:

Stylistically, I'd describe it as "crazy ghost gypsies who just discovered electricity", for which the technical term appears to be "folktronica". Broadly speaking, album 1 "Lycanthropy" is noises and scratching, and is absolutely terrifying (typified by Childcatcher, don't listen to it after dark), "Wind in the Wires" is cold and foggy (Ghost Song!), and "Magic Position" is a bit more relaxed and nature-based. The instruments attributed to him on the second album include Baritone and Soprano Ukuleles, Kantale, Mountain Dulcimer, Farfisa Transivox Electronic Accordion, and Reed Organ.

In terms of noise it was awesome - his voice is already an odd one, a bit like a counter-culture Rick Astley in it's unexpected depth. But they also had drums, a double bass, violin, keyboard and Moog on stage, and while the drums were too loud compared to the keyboard (sound balance wasn't phenomenal), the overall impression was ace. And there was much random-noise-making on stage, with a variety of electronic things. Most impressively, stretched on the stage curled up and crablike, as he strokes one such instrument to create the opening scream of Accident and Emergency. He really knows what to do with a stage.


After that, he left the stage for a long instrumental break - and then he returned, and until people start uploading their photos I can't really define the new costume, but it involved more glitter, more leather and a silver-glitter ram's head prop (I think this was the same outfit). That's what I love about him and his music - it's so instinctive, and he just wears what he likes on stage in the same way he plays what he likes, and I always love watching people content in themselves and he is nothing if not an Artist with capital A.

It would have been nice had they played Tristran, but it was only an hour long. I suppose it was a club night, and it was only £5 - but still, twas a shame. The good news is he's touring properly in a few months. Will we be going again? Oh yes we will!

You shouldn't feel guilty for good fortune, but I always do, and I wish Friend 2 could have been there. In any case it was disappointingly short so we hung around for a while afterwards to enjoy the atmosphere.


It was pleasantly friendly - we hung around in one of the royal boxes, and amazingly met loads of people we knew. Calypso bumped into a fellow feminist friend who she'd mentioned more than once early in the week, while I met Merula from Latin. Didn't exactly recognise her at first, except by this fantastic bird necklace she always wears and which I have been admiring for weeks. Apparently, there was at least one other Classicist there. She was accompanied by a nice young man introduced as Drake, who had the most perfect Number 6 blazer. Unfortunately, our conversation dried up entirely when he informed me he wasn't a Prisoner fan. Oh, I thought, and went back to watching the crowd bouncing non-committaly to some piece of nondescript noise.

I'm still not a fan of the party scene - I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of late nights, and alcohol makes me sulky, and that leaves me too self-conscious to dance (not that the music is inspiring anyway). But after last night, I do at least get it. In Guernsey, the atmosphere's OK - everyone's trying to have a great time - but the floors are sticky with spilt beer and desperation, and there are never quite enough people. Like everything else in Guernsey, they're living in imitation of something which doesn't quite work in minature - another great example of that is our disaster-zone government, which is pretending to be democratic but can't disguise the fact the island is too small to produce sufficiently talented politicians, and the abundance of white, conservative, Christian middle-class people makes mockery of choice, as we live in a virtually one-party state. Although arguably, most of the people they represent come into that catagory too, so maybe it's not the worst thing in the world. When we move to the Moon, they'll build geo-bubbles so we can have sidewalks, window-boxes and zebra crossings, just as Victorian Adventuresses travelled India and Africa without ever exposing their ankles. Forgetting that in a new world, the rules of the old one just don't apply.

In any case, we got back around 3 and listened to some terrifying Nick Cave country-and-western which made Johnny Cash sound like a boy scout, before toddling to the land of nod.

Lots of people appeared to be filming/photographing, so I'll do an update in a few days when it's all online - I love the internet!! But I probably won't blog over the weekend, as Friend 2 has somehow managed to win(?!) Snow Patrol tickets for the O2(?!), and I've offered her the use of my floor. This coincided nicely with Friend 4's end of term, so we're going to be doing London tourist stuff.

The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust...


Suprising confession: I'm an awful reader of poetry. For one thing, I'm a compulsive skim reader - of course, you can't skim read poetry or you miss the point. I also loathe intrusive Classical references ("like Niobe, all tears!") which a certain era of poetry cannot do without. I tend to regard a lot of it as pretentious, and finally (most importantly) I can't understand it. I usually have to have poems explained to me.


I mean, I like poetry in theory - a single idea, perfectly expressed. Oscar Wilde said poetry was idealised grammar, and it is true. But my appreciation of it is rooted in the fact it confuses me, because in my book, the greatest poets can get their point across even if you don't understand - T.S. Eliot, probably the best poet I've ever read, is a master at this. No, I don't get what he's going on about on a stanza, line or even word by word basis - but at the end, I have grasped the atmosphere and meaning in some intangible way.


And I love beautiful poetry for the sake of the beautiful imagery or perfect phrasing alone, again because I don't always get the whole picture. My favourite poet is actually George Barker, who you probably haven't heard of. He's a contemporary of Eliot, and you can kinda tell - a mess of imagery and referencing, building up a grim and glum picture of life.


I picked a copy of his book up at a second hand book stall, and it's the only book I brought with me to university. I don't understand a damn word of it, and have no idea whether or not they are any good. But he writes so well, and I'm attracted to some cadance in the words. Take the climax of my favourite, Bamborough Castle:


There where no house is no home I stood,
Bamborough I - cracked and crowned with blood
Disfigured by the birds I knew were no birds
But the heart haunting human who kills with words


I mean, the rhythm of it, the picture. Maybe if I gave you the whole poem you could explain, but that's not the point. I genuinely find something moving in the way he arranges words. Or from Battersea Park:



How can I ever be at home here
Where Sorrow sings of Joy in my ear?
How can I here be happy, when I know
I can be happy only here and now?


Again, in the context of the poem I'm not sure exactly what he's getting at, but it's a beautiful phrase which often pops into my head. Actually, I think it's on my Facebook page.


Curiously, a month after being here, the meaning of one poem suddenly leapt into dazzling meaning. So there is one I understand now, though it could just be me overlaying my own angsts onto it. In another one of his lovely lines, it opens:


Time is not quick enough, space is not far enough
But I can hit it with the point of my hand...


I'm interested in reading his book The Dead Seagull, partly because I love his style, and partly because it's his account of his affair with writer Elizabeth Smart, who also novelised the dirty details in By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept. The pair are going to be fascinating to compare...


The best of the entire poems I've found online is O Who will speak from a Womb or a Cloud?

in case you feel like reading a whole one. I've always thought of it as a song about a miscarriage. And if you don't have time for the whole thing, I mean just look how gorgeous this stanza is:


O remember
How once the Lyrae dazzled and how the November
Smoked, so that blood burned, flashed its mica,
And that was life. Now if I dip my hand in your grave
Shall I find it bloody with autumn and bright with stars?



Now that, my friend, is breathtaking.


Strictly, Mr Barker should count as a Wonderful Thing all on his own, but lets expand this to "my favourite poetry" full stop. There's not very much of it - see above: I don't get the mass of poetry.


Oscar Wilde is obviously a topic I can't help but address. We all know how much I adore him, but to be honest I've always had the impression that really, his poetry isn't very good. It tries very, very hard indeed. I'm intensely fond of it, and some days in the mood for even the ones I regard as daft. But en masse, they're terribly pretensious. It works in his prose, but in poetry it sounds like he's trying too hard. I'd be curious to see how his poetry is regarded by someone who knows what they're talking about. I've never been able to get through The Sphynx, because I find it impossible to take seriously. I think it was the porphyrie stanza that did it. I find the lavish description glorious in Dorian Gray, and I'm even Salome's only fan. But these are in general too much for me.


But there are some I regard as truly perfect. Obviously, Ballad of Reading Gaol - another example of how an idea can be so perfectly expressed in poetry. Resquiescat, for his sister who died when he was very young, is so moving precicely for its simplicity. Helas! and Taedium Vitae are probably among the most interesting for scholars, looking to read the author into his poems. But The Harlot's House is my favourite, the imagery is very dark and desperate, with a surreally nightmarish feel, and there are some wonderful lines. It's worth reading in full for the buildup.



And there are other poems I like, though I'm going to bring them to mind very randomly. My favourite T.S. Eliots are Portrait of a Lady and La Figlia che Piange, particularly the latter which yet again I don't pretend to understand, but find very lovely.


I've recently discovered a new favourite via Poems on the Underground, Francis Cornford's Parting in Wartime. Again a simple idea, simply expressed, combined with a pummeling-emotional-gut-kick, copied here in full:


How long ago Hector took off his plume,
Not wanting that his little son should cry,
Then kissed his sad Andromache goodbye
-And now we three in Euston waiting-room.


The damned Canada expedition will recieve little praise from me, but it's left me with an enduring love of Laurence Binyon's epic classic, "they shall not grow old as we that are left grow old", and John Magee's High Flight. So maybe it wasn't a wholly wasted experience.


I remember a time when I loved The Raven (Poe) and "To see a world in a grain of sand" (Blake) most. And lets not forget the Romans. I adore Virgil and the Aeneid, and Catallus. Both of those have actually had me in tears before. And Ovid is the wonderfuls. I'll talk more about them at some point, but I want to wrap up and do some actual Latin now. So I'll leave you with a favourite drawn from poetry classes five years ago, picked by a teacher interestingly named Mr Hill. It's The Hill by Rupert Brooke, and it's content and style will suprise nobody from the poetry appreciation in the poetry above.



BREATHLESS, we flung us on the windy hill,
Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

You said, “Through glory and ecstasy we pass;
Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,
When we are old, are old.…” “And when we die
All’s over that is ours; and life burns on
through other lovers, other lips,” said I,
—“Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!”

“We are Earth’s best, that learnt her lesson here.
Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!” we said;
“We shall go down with unreluctant tread
Rose-crowned into the darkness!”… Proud we were,
And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.
—And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

In this issue: cuddly Rorschach nears completion, a new smoothie, a rationalisation of some filthy late nights, why socialism isn't for me, the joys of possession and a mythology for Hampstead Campus.

• 2 apples (green ones)
• 1 reasonable box of blackberries
• about 2 cups of grape juice to help it blend
• 1 or 2 ice cubes
• no compromises

What I worry might happen if my plushie is left alone with my plastic figure of the universe's most committed bleeding-heart liberal. And now I promise to shut up about Watchmen for a few paragraphs.




All this I discovered at some godawful hour. The problem with all our weird timetables is that really, you have to pounce on oppertunities to spend time with people, because you've no idea when you'll get a chance. Seriously, I could be dead for several weeks before any Denzins of the Dude noticed anything out of the ordinary. Everyone else would just presume, as I do when I don't see them for a bit, that I just keep missing them.

This tends to lead to some quite weird hours, and the problem of the incompatable timetables is exacerbated by them. The "light side of the kitchen" are fond of clubbing, which means they are frequently seen having breakfast when any sane Victorian would be eating their tea. Angelicus has this theory man can survive on five hours of sleep a night, and is apparently getting good results from the tests he's been doing on this. Vapilla sometimes seems to become almost nocturnal. And everyone can be found on occasion, making cereal or toast in the small hours of the morning. It's having a 24 hour Sainsburies that does it, and a 24 hour bus route down the road.

It's my friends fault, really, firstly for keeping different hours to me (I'm not claiming mine aren't equally inconvenient), and secondly for having interesting things to say. If only they were boring! So Day 1 ended with me and Angelicus talking religion, gay rights and the Fireman Sam theme tune until something like 3. It was late enough that attempting to talk about what happened to Oscar Wilde made me embarrassingly teary and choked up. It's no secret that it's a subject I feel intensely strongly about, but all the same I normally manage to express it more eloquently. Though i do enjoy the lateness in a way, because the inaccurate dawn chorus actually happens at that time, so when I fall into bed I'm carried away by birdsong. It's gorgeous - pity living those hours makes life quite tricky, because it's truly lovely. And Day 2 wasn't much better, with Sustenus and Vapilla discussing I can't remember what. I say Day 1 and 2 because I've lost track of the days - Monday, surely, I read Watchmen then had an early night (or did I go for a snack after that...?), but if Angelicus was Tuesday then that makes S+V Wednesday. Which is an odd temporal conundrum, because that means it's still in my future. Couldn't we loop in an extra 24 hours sometime in the first half of the week?



It is Wednesday today...isn't it?

In other news, the alarmingly radical group who spearheaded the Gaza protest are running for the Student Union. I never thought I'd vote for the darn thing, but I am purely to ensure they don't get in. Now the Gaza protest scared me, mostly because of its politics. They claimed several times it was merely a humanitarian thing, but everyone knew it wasn't true. Take the Jewish society who really objected to the anti-Israel subject matter. Their manifesto states that they will involve the Student Union further in campaigning for rights, not only for students but for everyone, and rides on the back of the protest. The Kings Student Union does not have a duty to be involved in politics/campaigning; quite the reverse, it should be apolitical to better represent the whole of the student body.

I can't put my finger on what I don't like about Socialism, but I suspect it's the same reason you don't find many out-people hanging around the Church. Why would you want to spend time with a group which (and I'm generalising now) cannot stand you or anything you represent? I've spend my entire life in a tax haven, which makes its money from tourism and rich crooks on the dodge. My mum's a merchant banker. I went to a private school. You can appreciate why I find
the concept of socialism a little hard to take, because when they're talking about smashing the system and crushing the advantaged, well...that's me, the place I live and the people I know. Even if the basic ideas are solid and just, you can see why I don't feel represented by the Socialist Workers party. It's also the word "revolution" - meant to be stirring and dramatic, and I respond with the appropriate alarm. There is no such thing as a bloodless revolution. And I thought Marx thought communism would evolve naturally, not be enforced by idealists?





Besides, I like my stuff. I'm not exactly materialistic, but I am sentimental. Tyler Durden might say "You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet", and while it's true to an extent, Tyler Durden is also a dangerous nutcase and I'm not sure we should take anything he says too seriously. And neither does my friend Harvey.



I mean, did I ever tell you about Planet of Fire? It's one of my favourite episodes of Doctor Who, and it's also the one with which I have perhaps the most intense relationship (if you can call it that). I planned far in advance that I was going to order this episode, because it featured Turlough and I'd taken a liking to him. The problem was, I started expecting it to arrive before I'd ordered it. Kinda like seeing the post and thinking "hmmm, there's something I have to remember about the post - oh wait, haven't ordered it yet". I was a bit of a mess after ordering it. The problem started when it arrived, and I'd got into the habit of waiting for it so hard that even now when I flick through the post at home, I frequently expect it to show up.



So even discounting the contents of the episode, which are explosive enough on their own, it's a very special tape; and I'm overjoyed that I'll be able to get it signed by both Nicola Bryant and Mark Strickson in the next few months if they don't pull out of the various signings.





Yessir, I love my possessions. It'll explain why my room is such a tip, because everything turns into a souveneer. Even my sheets and lecture notes - the doodles and musings in the margin will tell you which week, sometimes the day exactly it was used, because it'll reflect my interests at the time. And that goes for many things: the value of my jewellry isn't rooted in it's worth, but in who gave it to me, or when I got it for myself. Sentimental, supersticious almost - I do tend to wear jewellry to recall a certain time over any other reason.



So I didn't feel too bad about impulse-buying Watchmen with a birthday book token on Monday, just as I happened to pass a Waterstones at which it was on offer. I'm so sorely tempted to go and see it again at the cinema, which is daft because we'll get it on DVD ultimately. And in 4 hour edition at that. So I decided the comic was a better investment - I've wanted it for a very, very long time now, and I've been putting it off the way I always put off things I want. Possession is a beautiful thing. It's mine, actually mine. I'm starting to wonder whether possession might be an important aspect of love for real people, in the same way it is for objects. It would explain jealousy to begin with. I can only define my reaction to having my copy of Watchmen as an intense and crazy crush, and I carried it around for the rest of the day beaming. Even Sustenus got the distinction - I bumped into him halfway down the Strand, and his first comment was "is that your copy", with the emphasis on the your. To be honest, I was just overjoyed someone else got the distinction.

I'm also happy to announce hitting my fourtieth copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I was reading my new edition up the road on the bus, and it is still the second most beautiful thing in creation.





Finally, I'm coming up with a mythos for the Hampstead Penates. The word "penates" is Latin, and represents the household gods. It's nothing out of the ordinary. Lord Cameron and Lady Chapman are at the head of the pyramid, obviously father and mother archetypes. They preside over the other penates, he representing order, justice and severity, she representing whatever it is mother goddesses do. It's harder to define somehow - nurturing, I suppose. Both represent order in their own way, in the way Hera sanctifies the institution of marriage. I see Lord Cameron in red, having a nice sandy beard.





They are the parents to Rosalind Frankin, who's a maiden archetype, all youth and beauty. Maynard and the Dude are rival brothers, and represent her suitors, though it's Maynard who is her obvious opposite as the "young man", all fire and action and passion, in the same way she's passive and quietly powerful. You'd want to invoke Maynard for war, or more proverbially, sport. The Dude himself is more of a trickster archetype - I think of him somewhat like Clint Eastwood's "Man with no Name". Silent, sulky, and intensely cool. I've been asked whether the Dude can be black, to which the answer is yes, certainly if I ever develop them enough to be able to do a full portrait. Though right now, I can only see him as a shadow under a brown hat, in the same way Cameron is only a beard and Maynard only a bad temper. Rosalind and Chapman need work, because I can't see them at all, which is probably a symptom of only having a vague image of their role in the structre.



The final two Penates (you'll note that Hampstead Campus conveniently has 7 buildings, which is perfect for mythology building) are Chesney (f) and Ellison (m), the twins. They represent intellect, academia, and artistic pursuits. I'm not sure which of the two is the artist and which the thinker, and as I haven't had any clear ideas it's posible the roles are interchangeable. I can only see her as golden light, and him as pale blue-silver light.

More details as I figure them out. You heard it here first, folks.