Et In Arcadia Ego

A lot of my posts are very bitty, because my brain is a chaos of noise. So I've decided to save all my one off thought-lets into a single post, posted once a week. I want to keep track of these little thoughts, but you may be less interested.The hope is it will strengthen my posts which do have a point to them by not diluting them for rubbish, and also will keep most of the fanny musing out of your way. In other word, it's a compositied Twitter - one which doesn't delete your posts after a time.

This week, Emily has been thinking about...

1. Having noted that the death of Heracles in Metamorposes is rather like that of the Tenth Doctor, she has been wondering whether the Martin translation's use of the phrase "all-consuming fire" is a reference to, or the reference on which t'was based, the Doctor Who novel "The All Consuming Fire"? Having looked the book up, I can't be sure - but I want one! It's a Seventh Doctor/Sherlock Holmes/Lovecraft crossover. The investigation continues...

2. Have you heard what they did to BBC Robin Hood? Spirita and I were chatting about it, and apparently...well, it's certainly not what I expected. Having used the phrase "Robin Hood in space" often of late, about something otherwise unconnected, my insides are doing some nasty churns.

3. Apollo is my new fave Greek god. My heart breaks at the Leucothoe story! Even if those Greek deities need lessons in how to make a woman feel special...

4. I've gotten to love "Two Suns", but isn't Bat for Lashes basically the art-house Dido?

5. Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer getting married. GETTING MARRIED. They are going to have the most beautiful wedding, and make beautiful art about how happy they are unless they break up, in which case they will make beautiful art about how unhappy they are. Frankly, I don't know how anything in this situation can be bad.

My entire friendship circle seem to be both overjoyed for them, and envious that two of the eligable pretty people are wasting themselves on one another. Though they're both lovely, I'd go mad if I had to live with either. I couldn't stand a ludicrously successful author, and I can't stand other people playing the piano around me. I know this because I found myself getting twitchy during her last concert that she was playing and I was watching. But at least then we'd all know who killed Amanda Palmer...

6. The fact Richard Nixon is a fine pianist should not make him my favourite American president:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCsGSMze_6Q&feature=related

The fact Condileeza Rice is an exceptional pianist should also not endear me to her as much as it does. BUT IT DOES:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx3BwVakZ5o&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfSYwJuq3Vg

7. I just used the phrase "comparitively chaste" about Ovid. What is the world coming to?!

8. My bibliography contains three books entitled"Ovid Metamorphoses" and four "Ovid’s Metamorphoses". Those publication dates are sure coming in handy!

9. Suede is reforming, providing the unexpected delight of 2010. I say "unexpected" because Clash's reaction was one of surprise joy. Why surprise I'm not sure - ex-fave band or no, she's still listened to 1710 more of their tracks than any other band she's ever liked (source: internet gremlins). As someone who was glomped up into her love for them, I was also pleasantly surprised to find myself grinning like an idiot at the idea of getting to see them play live. Just listen to "Killing of a Flashboy" then tell me you're not excited!

10. Blake's 7 is turning out the most unhealthy and unwise thing I've ever obsessed about. I am such an idiot...

11. I think this is a far better system than what I had before.

Today’s issue: the Death of Cinema; An Unexpected About-turn; An Evenful Trip to Asda…

Part I: The Death of Cinema

It never looked like living, but at last it has succumbed to the terminal illness gnawing away at it. Cinema is dead. I base this decree on the trailers we saw while waiting for Sherlock Holmes (which I’ve now seen and loved a second time). For your entertainment:

“Robin Hood” – mostly OK, but hilariously there are fire arrows even in the trailer. I’m also rather disappointed to see the Merry Men fighting baddies in a battle on the beach instead of staying in the trees where their advantage is, exactly the same mistake that Sean Connery made in Robin and Marion. Will I see it? Maybe not: it looks a bit like Gladiator, the sequel, and I feel funny about Robin Hood at the moment.

“All About Steve” – I kid you not. It’s a kooky romantic comedy. This is the type of thing they snark about on imdb all the time, only it's real.

“Leap Year” – I Know Where I’m Going by Powell and Pressburger, but set in Ireland instead of Scotland.

“Edge of Darkness” – oh God, I’m not sure I can even define what’s so wrong about this if you haven’t seen the dour, understated 80s British miniseries on which this high-octane, Mel Gibson shooting-shit-up, kick-ass sub-A-team, trailer is based. If you have seen the original Edge of Darkness, then please do watch the trailer – it’ll be the best guffaw you’ve had all year. You can bet your pretty white tail Gibson won't turn into a tree either...

“Clash of the Titans”. The tagline is, wait for it:

TITANS. WILL. CLASH.”

Frankly, I’d be disappointed if they didn’t. You couldn’t bloody make it up…

Part II - an Unexpected About Turn

Today I started work on my British Cinema essay. I’m about 12 weeks early, but I do not want to be writing in a rush again. My lecturer thinks my topic is a great one – Jack the Ripper, “gaslight” Victoriana, London, cinema and where those four things meet – and put me in touch with the lecturers for Third Year module “European Crime Cinema: The Serial Killer” so I could borrow their reading list. They, kind in the extreme, then invited me to their lectures because they’re doing two weeks of Jack the Ripper and serial-ing in general. Which is why I found myself doing a voluntary extra four hours of lesson time this afternoon.

Bad move. Very bad move. I remember considering this course and being in two minds about whether I could take it. I’m glad I’m not on it, because the answer turns out to be no. It was fascinating stuff – not grotesque, you understand, just talking about the various ways the phenomenon has been interpreted. For example, it’s closely linked to development, although they’re not sure whether serial killings are facilitated by modern life (no one knows anyone, easy to be anonymous) or caused by them (depersonalisation et al). America is the most devloped nation, and it’s also the home of the serial killer – Jack, regarded as the “first”, started slaying during the Industrial Revolution – and apparently it doesn’t really happen in underdeveloped nations. Apparently, there is currently a rise in cases in China. When you cross-ref that with the fact they’re mostly white males between 20 and 30 – arguably the most successful strata of our society – well, it’s interesting. At another point, he discussed links with terrorism – very unlikely to happen, but posessing the public imagination because it could happen to anyone.

All well and good. But I’ve discovered – no, not discovered, become aware – that when engaging with, thinking about, listening to things related to serial killing I get an intense physical reaction, one I don’t get for any other form of human brutality. War, genocide, kiddymurder – there’s lots of nasty stuff out there, but I can take hearing about it the same way I can take watching Timelash. It’s not nice and these things upset me, but it’s an emotional reaction. I did know this, vaguely – it’s a reaction I’ve had several times before (most recently when researching my cards, but I recall it from news items, from books, from things I read when I was younger), but briefly and contained. It’s quite different being stuck for an entire hour in a situation which you cannot leave: it puts it into vivid definition. A bit like the choking sensation you get in a hot claustrophobic lift, combined with a light head, dry-but-stickiness at the back of my throat, and a hungry churning in my gut. I consumed about four feta wraps from this alone during the lecture and several cups of water, and none of it even touched the sides.

I don’t know what it means, if anything. Perhaps that I’m still human. I don’t know, it’s just strange. I’m certainly not ashamed – nausea is a pretty understandable reaction. But to crime scene photos, or details or statistics –surely not the topic on its own? And I feel like a bad wannabe Wildean dandy for making (basically) a moral judgement on an area of art. And there's a level at which I'm relieved - recently I've been worried about consuming violent entertainment, since writing about it over Christmas, and worried about the state of my mind and all sorts of things. It's nice to discover one has definite ethical boundaries, and to know where they are. Even though I'd like to be too cool for such things.

The second hour, which focused specifically on Mr Ripper esq. didn’t make me feel quite so queasy. He’s different after all, precicely because of the way he’s been appropriated by fantasy fiction - it's this which makes me want to explore the subject, and it's this which (presumably) has prevented me feeling uncomfortable before. But it’s a shame, because it’s put me in two minds about the essay I’ve been so excited about writing for a very long time. I’m not quite so sure – well, it’s not inappropriate because it’s talking about how something has been portrayed, exploring not condoning. But I don’t know if I’m comfortable writing about it.

I’m now considering writing about the way Jack and Sherlock Holmes overlap – earlier because I found some fascinating movies, paralells and arguments to explore – but now because I feel it might tone it down a bit. I don’t even know what would be “toned”, so to speak: any disrespect is on the people who made the movies, not on me seeing how they made the movies. On the other hand, it occurred to me that if I was going to write all about the way this topic has been fictionalised and “contained” in cinema, as a matter of respect almost, I should probably visit Whitechapel. A pilgrimage, if you like, but the only way I could think of engaging with the reality. And then I knew I couldn’t do it – which is stupid, it’s just a square mile like any other square mile of London – but I’d still feel realy uncomfortable going. And I don’t know what that means, if anything.

Am I going for the second week? Yes. Yes I am, I’m going to have to steel myself to walk into the classroom, but I am going to do it all the same.

Part III: An Eventful Trip to Asda

The mistake, I think, was smiling back at the Asda employee when he met my eye and smiled. We’ll call him Alec, because he bears no resemblence whatsoever to Lovely Doctor Alec who put poor Laura’s heart into a tailspin in Brief Encounter. At the time, however, this seemed like a good oppertunity to ask for help. After he pointed me in the direction of the tomato paste, he commented that I looked very fine and that he’d been watching me walk around for about half an hour. At the time, this seemed rather adorable – it was nowhere near as creepy as it comes across on paper. He asked “do you come here often?”, which was surreal considering we were standing over the Asda fish counter, then what I was doing tomorrow – oops, alas, I have friends over (thank you, Clash…), and then for my number (I felt rather guilty about this, but I genuinely don’t know what it is…). I pointed this out, but agreed to take his if he had a biro. He did. And that was that, with a bittersweet farewell and a friendly peck on the cheek (how do you stop people doing that, by the way? Or can’t you?), after which I was forced to go home without buying all those things I’d forgotten to get earlier which were in his general vicinity.

Obviously, my vanity is really quite flattered – a girl likes to feel special. And he did seem like a genuinely nice chap; and I don’t want to be one of those people who promise to call and don’t. At the same time, I’m not sure I want to date The Guy Behind The Asda Fish Counter, even if Spirita thinks he’s a Count in disguise. And that’s undeniably what it is, unfortunately. Besides, perhaps men deserve it at the point they don’t take the hint? I don’t even have time to spend time with people I like this term!

So, I give it over to you. It’s like reality TV, only the BBC don’t get sued when I fudge the results. Under the Recent Posts, and under the taglist I've added a poll - please vote, and then if you want to give me some food for thought, use the comments ;)

This issue: apologies; film studies starts; Imperial London; Jack the Ripper; the Kray twins; OK, nice Mr doctor, I'll get back in the van with the men in white suits now...

Firstly, I'm sorry for the continued mess this blog is in. Mending it is going to take some time, time I don't have until at least next week. It's horrible, but you'll have to live with it.

This blog is a long one, so I have split it into six parts. Parts I-III are film related, going from the anecdotal to the academic. Part IV details the arrival of my serial killer swap, Part V is a review of a movie, and Part VI goes back to the anecdotal again.

PART I - film studies!
Film started this morning, and its already a lot of fun. Our lecturer is the KCL Terry Jones - delightfully camp, infectiously enthusiastic and with one of those faces that would have better graced a chainmail and tabard. Do you know the type? Sometimes I see men (women too occasionally) whose faces seem to suggest another era. There's one in my class with a ruddy red beard, who looks strangely lost in indie-kid apparel: he deserves a hauberk and horn of mead.

This term I'm doing British National cinema - focusing in particular on London as a space, which sounds pretentious until you realise it's EXACTLY what I've been doing for the last year. Monthly visits to Butlers Wharf (because of Doctor Who). Plans to watch the sun come up from Tower Bridge (to confirm which direction). Taking off my hat as I pass the Marquis of Granby, taking five minute detours to walk via Henrietta Street instead of cutting straight across Covent Garden, grinning like an idiot on book-paradise-lane or Temple Bar. Not because Dirk Bogarde was there, but because Melvin Farr the character was. I've a fictional map laid over the actual city. If it ever gets sufficiently detailed, I may draw it.

I'm trying to wrestle it into a mythology - five or six primal forces which have shaped the city. I've got a handle on one or two, others I am aware of but don't "know" well enough to define. This course: all about that, and has already helped me with characterising Empress London (who is possibly the mother of the Prince of Dark London, the illegitimate child she won't admit to in public but one who is willing to blackmail her with the fact at any point. She pays him off to keep out of the way...). And it ends with a free-choice essay on any aspect of British cinema. Folks, I think my rant about Jack the Ripper as London is gonna see the light of day and get me some marks!

Today we played "getting to know you" - talking time, then you have to introduce your partner. Very funny, as we all droned "hi Mike..." in the conscious manner of a self-help group after introduction. Favourite British film? I pitched for Guns of Navarone, but hastily added Matter of Life and Death, Brief Encounter and The Third Man when I sensed I was being sneered at. And indeed, when my partner introduced me, he qualified "her favourite film is..." by adding I was a David Niven fan and suggesting some other more respectible entries. In a nice manner, I hasten to add, as if to save my pride in public - but it was still noteworthy. He liked Matter of Life and Death, so is obviously a sane individual. Why are you doing this module? We both agreed: mutual London obsessions. Preconceptions about British cinema? None for him - I, however, expressed my adoration for the stiff upper lip. And my gripping worry ever since the course had started that we'd end up doing dour kitchen sink dramas (no fear there: "they're awful!" pronounced our lecturer.) We also agreed that film was ideally escapism.

The highlight was Lecturer doing the register for the first time: Sarah Lea? It's Lee, not Leah. Mary Kate? I just go by Kate. So far, so normal. Tyler? "Present," the man himself replied, "I go by Jack."

Part of me really hopes this is part of an elaborate Fight Club devotion.

PART II - lecture one, cinematic London
Much of the first lecture was about "Empress London" and "Dark London" - those are my terms, he called them "Imperial London" and "London as Labyrinth", but it's clearly the same ideas. We talked about "cultural coordinates" - the East End was where the docks were, because London was built on a river, so that where the dock workers lived, so that's also where the poverty is. And Eastenders still evokes that working class mileu in a way Notting Hill, say, in West London doesn't. The city was revamped precicely because it was the heart of an Empire - in the 1870s, the Embankment was built to get rid of the smell, with the circle line built into it. It never occured to me that before, the Thames was a far wider river, starting from mudflats and shallows. That's why so many of the Kings waterfront buildings are a jumble of basements. Apparently, in the Savoy Guardens near Charing Cross there is an ancient river gate: I'm so going to find it.

The city's rebuilding was an act of imperial development, to represent the Empire and create literal public spaces remodelled specifically to be appropriate for ceremony. It's no surprise that this was the NeoClassical era - it reminds me of how the Romans laid out their cities. The Mall, Regents Street, Admiralty Arch were all built ahead of Edward VII's coronation precicely to create the backdrop of regality - it was also in this era that the English and the monarchy were thought of as closely interlinked. We talked about the symbolism of roads - Fleet Street and the Strand, for example, linking the economic "city" with Westminster and the political; or Nelson's column lining up with Big Ben down Whitehall. It all screams empire. Kingsway, my route to uni, is a huge avenue of trees and Georgian buildings with the gloriously regal Bush House, pictured. As if to confirm how Empress London attempts to brush the Dark Prince under the carpet, Bush House and Kingsway (oh, clue's in the name there...) stand on the site of Holywell Street - a poky , slummy alleyway famous for selling porn. It's very much what is being done to poor Soho as we speak - being redeveloped so London can show off during the Olympics.

PART III - Brit cinema academia
I've been enjoying the academia too. The first piece we read begins by trashing British Cinema with pithy quotes from everyone throughout time:

"I do not think the British are temperamentally equipped to make the best use of the movie camera" ~ great Indian director Satyajit Ray

"a certain incompatability between the terms "cinema" and Britain"" ~great French director Truffaut

"the English can write and they can act (or at least speak beautifully, which is enough to cripple us with admiration), but they can't direct movies...English films have always been a sad joke" ~ critic Pauline Kael

"The British douse their movies with close-ups the way people defective taste-buds use ketchup - they're not a very visual race" ~ Dwight Macdonald, American critic

"It is one of the curiosities of film history that American films, when they seem to change with the passing of years, become either better or worse; while on re-examination British films, if they change at all, only become worse" ~ David Shipman, academic

"its achievement is so limited and so much less interesting than that of other countries" ~ Wood, academic

"The British cinema is as dead as it was before. Perhaps it was never alive." ~ Perkins, critic

Oh. Bastards. The essay doesn't seek to refute the position, but instead explore why these ideas are around. One thing it picks up on is fascinating.

"the camera forces one to face facts, to probe, to reveal, to get close to people and things; while the British nature inclines to the opposite; to stay aloof, to cloak harsh truths with innuendoes. You cannot make great films if you suffer from constricting inhibitions of this sort."

That's Satyajit Ray again, and he is right, dammit, so g'darn right. I'm not sure I should be supporting ideas like "national temperament", but suddenly a lot of things have fallen into place. I assumed this stoicism wasn't general - just the ones I hunted down because fictional repression floats my boat. But it explains lots of other things: like sarcasm, the British humour, which consists of an absence. When Avon drawls:

"Law breakers, law makers - let's fight them all. Why not."

What he's actually saying is "oh God, I want to go home". In other words, sarcasm is an act of drawing attention to something not said. And maybe this also explains the British attraction to social realism. I studied it last year, and one of its tropes (both narrative and stylistic) is "proximity, not sympathy". Most films give you a hero - This is Bob. Bob is your hero, and a Good Guy. Sympathise with Bob. Hope he wins - while social realism presents characters instead: Bob is a plumber on the dole. Watch Bob as he goes around his daily life. What do you think about him? And this is backed by the style: Classical Hollywood cinema uses a lot of close ups, while social realism prefers handheld tracking shots that follow the characters but don't focus on them. In other words, natural for a repressed cinema which avoids sympathy. Later in the essay, the author suggests the British turned to documentary as "part of a legitimate process of dehumanisation", and that wartime cinema did so well precicely because it "validated...those qualities of restraint and stoicism which might previously have appeared insipied". Another critic mentions that "while British films avoid erotic themes, many of them deal very movingly wiht its frustration, or tepidity or absence".

Ray continues:

"What is more, the placidity and monotony of habit patterns that mark the British way of life are the exact opposite of what consitutes real meat for the cinema. The cinema revels in contrasts and clashes - however small and subtle. The calm has to be ruffled, the patterns disturbed and tensions created - and these have to be revealed in audible speech and visible action, to provide the basic raw material for the director to work upon. They were lacking in the British scene."

I agree with this less; rather, while I agree with it, I don't apply it to British cinema. The contrasts and clashes are there, and more powerful for being imperceptable. All drama consists of breaking predictable patterns, and with the exception of kitchen sink's soggy flannel meandering, British cinema does this very well. For example, the essay lists five classic war movies in which "choking back or snapping out of grief for the dath of a loved one becomes a central and very moving motif". The fact these characters don't react when we know they should draws attention to depth of emotion. It does not tally with our own understainding of grief, and the unexpectedness of the reaction draws more attention to it. Like what they always say about Ozu.

And anyway, "the moment when the mask cracks" perhaps defines what I love in cinema more than anything else. That only works if the character has been unimpeachably stoic beforehand (i.e. Victim <3). style="font-style: italic;">A Matter of Life and Death as opposites with Brief Encounter - one as realism, one as magical. Which I suppose is true, but I've always carried them in the same box, watching them in turns as so not to watch either to death. And the essay actually discusses Carrington VC, a forgettable film I'm now glad I've seen. After all, it's OK really: it had David Niven in it...

PART IV - serial killer swap

While talking about "Saucy Jack", I got my cards for the Serial Killer swap. The letter sent with them is a swap-bot classic. It's decorated with birds and flowers, and written with a loopy girly handwriting, with circles over the "i"s instead of dots.

Hi! I hope you enjoy these cards for the ATC SERIAL KILLER SWAP.
Jack the Ripper! [double underlined - exclamation mark - then a cute smiley face]
I had so much fun making them!
Thanks
[big happy heart] [name of sender]

Inside were some craft papers in pretty colours, and a sticker sheet with cuddly monsters on it. I'm not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved. I'm definitely amused, which was perhaps the aim of the game - and the cards are nice, though I feel a little dirty for having them about.

PART V - "The Krays"(1990) - review

Mind you, while we're talking bad taste, lets talk about the Kray brothers. Spirita has friends with fantastic stories all over the place, including a guard who used to know the Krays. I get third hand anecdotes every now and then, which supplements the wealth of Kray knowledge I've gained, um, purely from the Monty Python parody (Dinsdale!)

I pointed out that I had a copy of The Krays on video, which I'd bought in a flurry at the end of last term - along with An Affair to Remember, Yellow Submarine and From Hell. They covered all my potential bases - something classic, something daft, something Victorian and something with elegantly suited chaps getting covered in gore. We watched it with some enthusiasm, and it frankly wasn't very good.

What was with the pseudomysticism? The film begins and ends with a "mysterious dream" from the protagonists' mom. Another moment sees them chorus "last night we had the same dream" in creepy kid-twin voices, before revealing something cod-significant. Crocodiles are used as a metaphor for something - when Lovestruck!Kray gives a crocodile brooch to the future Mrs Kray, the dialogue runs as follows:

"I don't like it! What if it hurts me?"
"It'll never hurt you."

Um. OK. Get that juicy metaphor! Mum spends the first half saying things like "oh, my little monsters!" in a supposed-to-be-ironic way. I know they liked their ole' mum, but she was an irritating stock character: the hardworn battleaxe, who does all the work while all the men are layabouts, dishing out wisdom and "I raised them I did! I've always tried to my best for them!" home-manufactured lines." When they grow up, the plot remains interrupted by kitchen sink digressions focusing on the world of women. Here is one character's misty-eyed eulogy, just before she dies out of the blue for no discernable reason:

"I was on the bus the other day. And some old toerag was boasting about all he'd suffered during the war. Stupid old... I tell you, they don't know. It was the women who had the war - the real war. The women were left at home in the shit, not sitting in some sparkling plane or gleaming tank. There's no glamour for us...Men! Mum's right. They stay kids all their f-g lives. And they end up heroes - or monsters. Either way they win. Women have to grow up. If they stay children, they become victims. "

*dies*

There's nothing wrong with putting the Krays in a social context - in fact, it lifts the film out of being a cheap gangster romp - but only if it actually contributed to psychological depth. As it stands, it's as if the dull bits of Eastenders were intercut with amateur theatre's Reservoir Dogs. It is honestly not because social realism bores me and I wanted to get back to the killing. It felt very disjointed, a little like when Homer stops talking about a battle to go on a one-page simile about how a hero hits someone ("like a boar who...") which is a set piece in its own right. It was rather like interrupting Hamlet so that Falstaff could speak. Modern cinema does not do soliloquies, and when it does, please make it relevant..?

And that's just one instance of disjointed-ness. Characters drift in and out on the assumption we know who they are (what did Jack the Hat do again...?); the scene in which the brothers ultimately kill a named character on screen is presented as a watershed moment (as if Chelsea smiles and multiple mutilations are "OK"...); the psychological depth is more like a puddle. In the army they meet someone who says "did you know some people threaten other people for cash?", and then bam when they come out, they're criminal.

In fact it's appalling, but that's fine - I didn't buy it for art. I have different needs, and one of them is occasionally cold bloody brutality. Most of the time I genuinely enjoy films, which just happen to have violent themes as a byproduct, but sometimes I do just need a fix. The Krays was at times unwatcheably vicious, which I suppose is appropriate, so I was pretty satisfied.

And there were some good bits. It was cute when Mum!Kray interrupted one of their business meetings to bring up tea, and ask who'd trod mud into the house, and all their gangster mates suddenly fawned and checked their shoes. I also liked the moment the brothers got threatened by a bunch of unsuspecting heavies in a club, and whipped out swords. Now that's style...

And trivia: the leads were played by the Kemp brothers from Spandau Ballet.

PART VI - Gangflat terror

Both Spirita and I have come to worry about the fact we're not very threatening, so we've decided to take some management tips from the Krays. She's going to be Reggie, and I'm going to be Robbie, and we're going to try it out this evening when we meet our prospective new housemate.

We've decided that when Calypso opens the door and welcomes him in, we are goung to saunter threateningly down the stairs and intimidate him over the bannisters. I'm going to be chewing gum, and she's going to tread on a cigarette Clint-style. We've been practicing our cold, dead gangster eyes, twinchronicity, and how to shake someone's hand in a gangster-ly manner; also, we had a go at a "hit" - which was marvellous fun. That's the last time any of the kitchenware dares disrespect us like that loaf of bread did...it's sleeping with the recyclable egg cartons. Spirita's new nickname is "Eve the Hat", because she doesn't wear hats. We don't dress quite dapper enough, however we are going to try for Kray-hair.

When my sister was here for interviews, she flew into a panic one morning about having the wrong hair gel, phoned me up then woke Spirita to let her out of the house so she could go buy something better. Net result: an unwanted tub of man's hair gel in my cupboard (apparently, man gel is just "different"; I'm a little dubious about this). This actually makes me ludicrously happy - a surprising number of my style icons/lust objects have slicked back hair:

(or is it just suits? Also, I sort of want to see this show now. Cooper and Newandyke Investigate? Makes most logical sense, but it's not so much fun if Michael's the bad guy. Dale is the uptight one, Freddie's the bad boy and ladies' man, and maybe Michael is the uncompromising boss. Hey, I've got it! Maybe they're working for him, but increasingly start investigating him too as his true agenda comes clear...? Also, I am really overthinking this. I'll just crawl back to Livejournal now...)

In fact, perhaps we should get Calypso to pay us "protection" in case, y'know, her bedroom should be "accidentally" destroyed? Though maybe she should bring us tea and biscuits instead.

Why no, this is not tasteless in the least...

Richard Dawkins should be saying greatful prayers that the Greek deities are no longer about.

I'm studying the Metamorphoses this week, and understanding it better for having read the whole thing. It's a story anothology written in verse by Ovid, loosely connected by the theme of "transformation". All the famous Greek myths are here, in a chaos one after another - people being turned into plants and vegitable matter, or animals. They're almost all romantic - don't read it if you're unhappy in love, chances are it has the peversion for you. Among the more conventional tales, we have a maid in love with her brother, one in love with her father, a bit of lezzing and much bestiality. I hasten to add its never distasteful, only tragic. For all the frolicking about, there are some moments of sheer horror. Scylla turning from a maid into a monster is almost unreadable. She goes for a paddle in the water, and notices teeth. She begins to run, but then she realises she was looking at herself - her legs and limbs are turning into hundreds of gnashing dogs heads. Ovid, I've a David Cronenberg on the phone for you?

Mind you, I've learnt some things:

1. Don't diss the gods. DON'T DISS THE GODS. Or they will go Samuel L. Jackson on your ass, and before you know it your own relatives will be eating you (Itys, Actaeon), tearing you to shreds (Pentheus); you'll be turned into an island (Latona), a bear (Calisto) or a plant (Menthe) if you're very lucky. If you're unlucky, the gods might just contrive to have you explode (Semele), or massacre all fourteen of your children within half a minute then watch as you turn to stone. If you're very very naughty, Jove might decide he's sick of the Earth and flood it on a whim.

2. Don't fall in love. It'll end badly. Frankly, I'm not even going to find examples for this, because I'd need to paraphrase the whole thing.

3. Yes. You will be raped. The only way you can possibly get out of it is by ceasing to be human - Philomela to Nightingale, Daphne to bush, Hermaphroditus to a mecha-nymph-zoid. Baby Bacchus was a special case - he turned his would-be assaulters into dolphins.

4. Don't name your kids Cygnus or Cycnus. There are three of them in the Metamorphoses, and all three of them turn into swans...

In other news, why not waste some time today:

http://us.akinator.com/#

Tried for the Doctor first - an easy one. ("Does your character really exist?" "Well....!)
Then, I thought, Jack the Ripper might fox it - but it got him within twenty questions too!

Is Blake's 7 too obscure, I wonder? Resounding no. Despite my moment of agony when asked "Is your character good?" (I pitched for "sort of"), it can get Blake. When I tried for Avon it first gave me Jayne from Firefly instead - which isn't correct, but if you know both shows, is certainly interesting. And then it got it right. WTF?! Which is exactly what Calypso said when I got Anne of Green Gables when thinking about Denethor...

What about obscure Doctor Who characters? It got Davros very quickly, as did it the Master. Rose? Yes. Sarah Jane? Yes. Jo Grant? No, it gave me Rose again. The A-Team - Hannibal in 16 questions; same for B.A. Has it watched Twin Peaks? Yup, it knows Laura Palmer. Agent Cooper? I thought I'd derailed it when it asked me "is your character cute?" and I answered yes, but apparently it can't be fooled. I wonder what would happen if I tried for Diane?

OK, lets try real people. Hitchcock? Too easy. Tarantino? Couldn't guess it. What about something more abstract - can it get God? At this point, I couldn't help but laugh at some of the questions:

"Are you hoping to get with your character?" (not sure this refers to bliss in heaven...)
"Is your character bad?" (not sure the philosophers have answered that one yet...!)
"Is your character real?" (oh goodness sakes!)

It did however get it right, despite my pedantic "I don't knows!", and I was rewarded with a lovely picture of a galaxy. My sister, who also tried, got the following questions:

"Is it a woman?" I don't know
"Does he wear a cap" I don't know
"Does he have long hair" I don't know
....
"Is he famous for having created the world?"

It also managed to get "my shadow" and "your mum". Can it get my roleplay character? Yes - "your own character".What about pets? It asks "Is your character human?" No. "Is your character a cat?" No. "Does your character play multiple musical instruments?" WTF?! It did, however, get it eventually. In the daft questions line, when I was trying for Jesus:

"Is your character the son of God?" (YES we're getting somewhere, I think)
"Does your character bite like a rabid dog?" (eeeerm...o-kay then)

If you click randomly, it answers "Someone who answers randomly". IT'S INSIDE MY HEAD.

Both Calypso and I managed to get Dorian Gray. It asked me "Does your character especially appeal to children?" when heading for Oscar Wilde, thought about it for a bit, and then tried "is your character a homosexual"?. It's a clue to how it works, though - there are plenty of 20th century gay writers with law trouble, but he's the obvious one. It hit Poseidon when I was trying for Aphrodite. It can get obvious Doctor Who characters, but gets confused when I try for obscure ones. For example, when I did the A-Team, I got the same eight or nine questions narrowing the show down, and then individual ones to work out who.

Still - what a lot of fun! Let me know how you got along in the comments

Senate House Library was Orwell's inspiration for the Ministry of Truth, where Winston works. I can see why, beautiful building. Hitler was going to make his HQ when he invaded, and it's been used as Gotham architecture in Batman Begins. So after I finished working, I went for a snoop to find Room 101. Yes, Rm 101 is in Miniluv, not Minitru, and yes the room the Room was based on was in a different building altogether. It was still fun though.

I guessed it would be on floor one, got into the lift (ugh - the Disney Tower of Terror has given me the jitters about them. I can still ride them, it's not like it's a disabling phobia, but still ugh) and got out on an empty marble floor. The room was opposite the lift. Locked, and with blacked out windows. The area felt like a set, or maybe a computer game level - a mezzanine above stairs, randomly placed cabinets and columns, completely deserted. I went for a look around, found a gorgeous map, some fine views, an interesting vase. And two Steinway grand pianos.

Mmmmm.

There's something satistfying about flirting with flames, don't you think? Room 101 is meant to be the worst thing in the world. Is there some big, evil masterplan going on? Because ironically, I've just discovered the best thing in the world because of it.


In other news? I'm working hard on Ovid's Metamorphoses - not what I wanted to write about, but most expedient under the circumstances. It's a marvellous book. Book IX and the death of Heracles reminded me very much of the Doctor - both in character, in facts and in epic scope. The hero gets killed off by a very small thing, an unknowing act of treachery by a friend - his wife gives him a garment which, unbeknown to both, is soaked in poison:

"incaluit vis illa mali, resolutaque flammis
Herculeos abiit late dilapsa per artus.
dum potuit, solita gemitum virtute repressit."

[The power of the poison, strengthened from the fire, slowly coursed through the limbs of Hercules. When he could, he suppressed his groans due to his accustomed heroism.]

The actual imagery of Heracles frying is far more vivid than anything Doctor Who will produce, and we can be thankful for that. Yet for all his heroism, the big H doesn't take it very well crying:

"ergo ego foedantem peregrino templa cruore
Busirin domui? saevoque alimenta parentis
Antaeo eripui? nec me pastoris Hiberi
forma triplex, nec forma triplex tua, Cerbere, movit?
vosne, manus, validi pressistis cornua tauri?
vestrum opus Elis habet, vestrum Stymphalides undae,
Partheniumque nemus?"

[Was it for this I mastered Busirus, who stained his temples with foreign blood? For this that I snatched cruel Antaeo from his sustaining homeland. For this I faced, unflinching, the triple-bodied monsters of the Spanish shepherd, or you Cerberus? Are these not the hands that conquered the horns of the mighty bull? That aided the work of Eli, the waters of Stymphalida, the groves of Parthenium.]

That's the abbreviated version - he goes on far longer, and I'm sorry the translation is ugly but I should really be working instead of blogging.

"hac caelum cervice tuli. defessa iubendo est
saeva Iovis coniunx: ego sum indefessus agendo.
sed nova pestis adest, cui nec virtute resisti
nec telis armisque potest. pulmonibus errat
ignis edax imis, perque omnes pascitur artus."

[I have carried the sky on my back! The savage wife of Jove was tired of ordering me about - because I was tireless in completing her challenges. But now a new threat is here, which no strength can resist, nor weapons or arms ovecome. Gnawing fire plucks the depths of my lungs, feeding on all my limbs]

Heracles does not die, though. He causes his own death by building a pyre (Planet of Fire references?), but the gods rescue him and raise him to the stars. In other words, regeneration. The difference is, the Doctor is sympathetic, whereas Heracles is obnoxious...

And I'm in love with my newest fashion item. Someone got my dad a jewelry making kit (or maybe mum? Memories hazy), but in any case, it was never really used. So dad made a badge with the Star Trek Federation crest on, and because it was an ugly sticky thing, no one ever wore it. This was probably a decadde back. Flash forward to a few days ago, and I stumbled across it accidentally in an old jewelry box. Of course, I didn't see this but this, and am now gleefully wearing it around as a hair-grip. If I'd made a Federation badge all on my own, it'd be a little creepy and sad, but having found one I figure it's OK. And I actually like it more for being repurposed - somehow, it seems suitable. The joke is, of course, entirely intentional - the latter crest being the "far-right" version of the former...

The dream didn't really go away - it lingered painfully, stung everything with its colour. Irritating things. It juxtaposed two unfortunate recent events in my life, ones I had been taking rather well, in such a way that now both ache constantly.

Ironically, for a day I spent feeling so sore about cruel endings and dystopian futures, I stumbled across a copy of 1984 in a second hand store. My first ever favourite book! I remember when I picked it up, a heavy foggy day, and I also remember dropping it and screaming on reaching the final page. I never actually owned one, though. It's place got taken by Tolkien, then by Wilde. And I always held out a faint notion that I could steal the copy I had read at school.

OK. I am a moral individual, except when it comes to books, especially those I know I will love more than their owners. Something about that situation overwrites anything I ever learnt about theft.

And this was a battered old paperback which will one day be junked as it's falling to pieces, so I always intended to. At some point, though, I lost track of where it was in the school - probably thrown away. Cursed, cursed ethics. Apart from the sentimentality factor, the thing which really drew me to it was Goldstein's book. There's a point where our hero sits down to read a book, and the books content actually occupies about a chapter. This copy was in three pieces - the first half, the second half - and in the middle, Goldstien's book fell out like a pamphlet, exactly aligned with the section of copied text. It was like finding something hidden. Curses.

Rereading it on the bus home reminded me why I loved it, and rather calmed me down too though I don't know why. Possibly because I'm only three chapters in. Just at the right time, really. I was starting to cave on the "don't watch movies of favourite books" rule. This was the first book to which that rule ever applied, but how could I resist the movie adaptation made in 1984 itself. John Hurt as Winston. Richard Burton as O'Brien. Two actors I adore beyond adoring to begin with, not to mention that they are perfect for their parts. Burton in particular ("no one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that human affairs were being scrutinised from the timeless worlds of space") has a voice for which I would do anything.

In other news, I should be back tomorrow at around 4 o'clock. I say "should", because - well, you know. Rain of frogs, candyfloss hurricanes and coconut snow. I usually post my thoughts on passing over from one state of being to the other - I've thought long and hard this time, and actually the best I could do was this:

I don't need anyone taking this the wrong way, but I could, I think, handle about another week here. Never mind. See you all soon!

My dreams define my days. Yesterday, I dreamed I was in Italy and woke up with an indefineable sense of peace. This morning, I had a dream so calculated in its cruelty that I refuse to believe it wasn't deliberate. I don't know what Morpheus is playing at, but I want him to know that it really isn't fair. Uuuuugh.

The barstools at Guernsey Post don't think they'll be able to deliver the post today because of the weather. Goodness knows what Gsy would do if we got proper snow. Right now, we've been frosted white by the most incompetant airbrusher ever - barely a scattering - and the whole island's gone to pieces. But what of my sister, and everyone else on the island, whose Cambridge letters are due today? Unfair much!

The good news is, you could ask them to email you. The very good news is: she's got an offer :D thus breaking the family curse. None of us have ever gone - I bet generations of Victorians, Tudors and Bretons are grinning with pride. Or possibly embarassment, that we couldn't find her a nice husband instead.

Work on my essay is almost complete. I've decided to go without stabilisers on this one and write 3,000 words of my opinion, using footnotes only when totally necessary. According to my marks, I have never done a great film essay anyway, so at worst this will be a disasterous experiment. I've put my current draft through Wordle, and the result is pretty funny:



Note: this is actually what my brain looks like right now. But howcome I've used the word "Lil" less than the word "Ze", when his name is Lil Ze and I've only ever used the phrase in one piece?

I'm listening to Patrick Wolf's concept album "The Bachelor", about young warrior in a sort of spiritual, metaphorical battle against homophobia, racism and the rest. You can see why this would appeal to me - it's just one Magnu-the-horse-with-the-golden-mane away from being Warriors at the Edge of Time. Bachelor explores all different aspects of what goes on in war, and has a lovely sense of character, and this morning (of all mornings) I find myself rather itchy for Part II (yes! Tell me it's not prog! There are even flowy cloaks!), "The Conqueror", its sequel. If only to find out what happens at the end.


Thought of the day: the name Spielberg, as in Steven Spielberg, is probably not a German portmanteau meaning "story-mountain." But perhaps it ought to be?

I'd a feeling for some time that Blake's 7 would become an increasingly inaccurate title. Now that it's true, I feel a bit sick.

At the same time, I'm still in awe of it's glorious nastiness. I wish they wouldn't kill off a dearly beloved major character without warning, unfairly, out of the blue mid-season; and I wish our heroes would have some success, instead of feeling it all turn to ashes for the nth time, but as a serious student of cinema I'm pretty chuffed all the same. Chuffed and, to use a Latin phrase, suffering a sort of "gnawing" grief somewhere in my guts. I'm not sure normal, sane people with a sense of proportion and grasp of the deliniation between "real" and "not real" can understand the inappropriate sorrow that can accompany television tragedies.

Season 2 continues to be sweet and super-ace. I love that it has these layers and multipliciies to it, and that they are genuinely part of the text. In the first season, it was interesting because the crew was so cautious, suspicious and ordinary every time Blake attempted to do something stupidly brave. Yet he was still primarily painted as heroic by the show. Now, the emphasis is shifting. The crew are still objecting, but the show is increasingly agreeing with them and happily criticising its central character - fanatic, bullying, manipulative, ruthless and delusional. And best of all, none of these qualities are new. They've been there from the start, but in small ways. As time's passed, he's finding he can't afford princples, and we are being given more and more stories which show them from a bad light. How marvellous.

The only other show I can think of to come close is Galactica, and it failed by flipfloppering around too much. They'd be a shock reveal for every character in every episode, one ignored by next week. There was not a sense of slow progression. Some worked - Gaius, Gaeta, Starbuck and Laura, I think, were both pretty consistant and fascinating - but others never did. Adama didn't change, Lee was interesting but didn't make sense on the grand scale. Tigh and Ellen were messes, though I loved them all the same. Buma? Walking crisis and psychoanalysts nightmare. In fact, every single cylon didn't really hang together if you look at their acts across the series. I feel that show often used and manipulated characters for maximum effect, not because it was consistant. I suppose recent Doctor Who has gone pretty far in criticising it's hero, but that's only in comparison to what you would expect. And it still hasn't delivered the ton-of-bricks payoff the Doctor deserves for Waters of Mars. DW: Season 21 had a bash, as did Season 28, but never wholly succeeded.

Similarly, it has the courage to challenge the show's entire premise. Our heroes are freedom fighters trying to bring down the Federation - except, do we really want them to? It'd break my other heart if they were captured, but I think their success would be worse. Imagine the chaos, the civil wars that would follow. Regime change is a mess when applied to a single country (remember Russia, or England, or America, or anywhere which isn't currently under a feudal system) - apply it to thousands of planets, and we're talking billions of deaths. They'd be widespread bloody vengeance towards the old rulers and controllers, but in a universe where everyone is complicit, they'd also be snitching and old feuds coming out of the woodwork. The tightly controlled Federation systems would collapse like a card tower and have to be rebuilt from scratch - bam, there goes your infrastructure. If Blake was lucky enough to control all the rebel factions, he'd try and impose democracy. But like Kerensky in Russia, it'd be weak - and in any case, he'd soon start overruling them and making his own decisions (a la Laura in Galactica) as he already does on the supposedly democratic ship. At some point he'd lose control of the army, or be knocked out of power by another rebel faction or his own scheming sidekicks, or at worst, go thoroughly to the bad and become a corrupt Stalin type. And so the cycle would continue.

And then in about fifty years time, there would be peace and democracy. The end.

This is all my own extrapolations. But they are rooted in the characters as presented to us: I wouldn't want those seven people six people (must get used to saying six...god, what a nightmare...) to attempt to run a galaxy. It'd be like leaving the Clan in charge. And there are Federation characters who explain what a force for good it is, and you cannot wholly disagree with them.



Incidentally, me and Friend 4 had a go at bringing the Federation down ourselves, and we've a sort of plan based on the years spent studying Russia and Ireland in history. I hesitate to add that this is based on Blake's midset, which is pretty ruthless and crusader-y at present, and requires our heroes to remain uncaught for at least a decade.

We figure that the benefits brought by the Federation outweigh the negatives for most ordinary people, much like Russia for the entire period, or Ireland at the end of the century. In general, public opinion was against revolution - particularly, in Ireland. What would happen is every few years, a straggly band of would-be heroes would have a poorly organised armed revolt in the expectation of mass public support. This would never happen, and ultimately all died in pain. But the British always responded with extreme brutality, which would peversely result in more public support. The Easter Rising is a good example: about 1,000 people tried to take control of Dublin. The British responded by bringing in the big guns, and after about a week of nasty street fighting they were cornered in the post office and taken in. At this point, Dubliner support was actually aligned with the British army for supressing the trouble which disrupted their daily life, destroyed their homes and killed many innocents. However, the army then made some huge mistakes by rushing them through a shoddy and secretive show-trial and swiftly sentencing 90 to death, then executing them by firing squad. Nasty enough, but then stories started leaking out about what had gone on. Patrick Pearse's brother was executed seemingly only for being the brother of the rebel leader; John MacBride hadn't been involved at all, but was bad eggs for other reasons. Most infamously, the already heavily wounded Connelly was tied upright in a chair so he could then be shot. While the latter in particular is purely a matter of sqeamishness (you're gonna shoot him, so does it really matter if he's already dying?), you can see why stories like this would swing opinions. Yet at a trickling rate, it took some 50 years until there were enough ordinary voices to bring about change.

This seems to me very close to the situation with the Federation. At the end of the day, most regular Irish folk cared more about their homes and families than what their rulers were up to. It took a lot of foolish heroes (and two nasty famines) for them to realise the Brits probably weren't the most reliable custodians. The Federation is undeniably brutal, but it has also imposed peace which has allowed technology to flourish and eliminated day to day problems for the 99% willing to live in ignorance. And it is a fairly blissful ignorance - it's not freedom, but who wants freedom if they are warm, happy, fed and safe?

Blake will never be able to rely on widespread popular support. In his position, then, I would be aiming to imitate the situation pre-Russian revolution. I would start by gaining a huge network of underground resistance, and put them into intensive training and preperation but (for now) actively stop causing trouble. I'd institute a rule like Battle of Algiers - if captured, an agent has to resist for a set amount of time to give the others a chance to change the passwords, plans and meeting points. I'd base this length of time on their most powerful truth drug. And do that thing whereby everyone only knows two other people in the organisation, to root out traitors.

In the meanwhile, I'd tempt the Federation into a war with The System - a massively powerful force from an earlier episode. I'd do this by using Orac, the supercomputer, to mimic the effects of attacks on both sides - faking logs and black boxes, making both think the other was attacking them. It'd take time but I think both sides are stupid, proud and violent enough to fall for it. Might have to do some pretty devious and underhand stuff at this point, but all for a good cause.

Hopefully, this would duplicate the effects World War I had on Russia - draining, demoralising and extremely distracting. They would have to pull troops from all over the place. Once they were fully engaged in my fake war, I'd then set all my primed resistance groups off into toppling the outer planets simultaneously. Some would fail, some would succeed - it wouldn't exactly matter. It'd create chaos, and spread Federation forces even further. The atrocities would be catastrophic - in some cases, they'd have no choice but to wipe out whole continents. With so much going on, some of this would doubtless get back to Earth and create discontent.

But in general, people don't care about injustice. If we did, no one would shop at Primark, eat at Macdonalds and we'd all be taking the next plane down to North Korea to effect us some regime change. So about two years before the final attack, I would start interrupting supply ships to Earth on a regular basis. Nothing riles up a population quicker than hunger, as the Russian revolution showed.

Orac - the supercomputer - would have spent maybe the last decade working out exactly where all the Federation command centres are. My minions would use the teleport to go in and out and quickly mine all the important bits of the hierarchy, then blow them up simultaneously. At the same time, others would take control of the crucial bits we would want intact. This is mimicking Trotsky's takeover of Moscow.

At this point, all we'd have to do is wait for the rest to collapse. The people of Earth are fed suppressant drugs by the Federation, so we'd keep them dosed up until they got used to us being in charge. And then we'd take the wicked structures apart AND THE GALAXY WOULD BE FREE. Then see above.

Dog haters: leave now.

Last night, there was a fab program on the telly about dogs which, I think, made everyone in the world decide to get one. Apparently, dogs communicate with humans better than chimps, and as well as than two year old children. Stroking a dog releases the same hormone rush in both human and animal as breastfeeding does; dog owners can recognise the meaning of barks exceptionally well, while dogs respond to the emotions of humans in the same manner as fellow humans do. Humans respond to dogs just as they do to babies. Dog owners are 3/4 less likely to get heart attacks, and 3/4 less likely to die from them if they do.

In other words, it turns out that everything dog owners ever claimed is unfortunately correct - "What do you mean little Bill's boy is trapped in the fallen down well with a fractured fibia, Lassie?". There was a moment when I wondered whether there's some canine masterplan going on - parasitic creatures, imitaing our children, worming into our families and then evolving, and finally replacing us. After all, destroying a species ability to reproduce is the first step towards genocide. There's a dog in Austria with a 300 word vocabulary

But this musing turned into a less fruitful endevour: musing, to Castellane, over the phone about what dog breeds the various Doctors are most like. One of the daftest conversations EVER. I'm considering doing a comic strip version, with all ten in a big pack of strays. The Daleks are dogcatchers from the pound, and the Master is an eeeevil black cat. I'm toying with making the other Timelords into walruses, sea lions and the rest, if only to make a joke about the "Seal of Rassilon". The companions will be played by a series of "lady" dogs (i.e. like Lady and the Tramp) - Romana will be a white poodle (Romana II will be pink), Martha will be a St Bernard's puppy.

This took time, and I'm lazy, so I haven't done all ten yet. Also, I can envisage the Seventh Doctor dog but can't think of the breed name. Watch this space though:

3 - The Third Doctor was famous for speeding around - in vintage cars, planes, spaceships, motorbikes, speedboats...so what else than a greyhound, zippy and alert? Like the Doctor, this canine counterpart values his appearance - so will be seen in a variety of smart coats and neckties.


4 - Castellanne informs me that Dalmatians are pretty daft dogs, so complete with a big scarf (possibly wrapping around his whole body and one of his legs) and a hat, this will be our Fourth Doctor:



6 - a big, camp German Shepherd. German Shepherds have the sort of stocky indomitability that the Sixth Doctor has, and I think their history as guard dogs, and also of being a violent breed, is suitable too. But he insists he's a cat on the inside. Our character will wear the same blue bow as the Sixth Doctor does, and if I'm feeling silly, I might make his patches multi-coloured too:

8 - a spaniel! Bouncy, golden, gorgeous and loveable. Just wants to be your friend! Disarmingly adorable, this one...


9 - A tetchy little bulldog. Like the Doctor, he will be wearing a leather jacket and a scowl, and leap at enemies of any size without even thinking. I've got an AMAZING sketch of this.


10 - Finally, the Tenth Doctor: baby border collie! Enthusiastic, needs lots of walks and has a ten minute attention span. However, they are also very smart. My version will have brown patches instead of black.

Missing: 1, 2, 5 and the Valeyard. I'll do them laaaateeer.

My cousin is really into Pokemon cards so, for her birthday, I've looked through my old box and picked out some of my best for her. It is, in theory, a nice idea to think that these things which meant the world to me can now mean the world to someone else.

The problem, it turns out, is they still mean the world to me.

It's horrible how bloody manipulative trading games are, I mean these are little pieces of paper and for the last year they've been sitting in a box. I never would even have thought of getting them out if not for this. I wasn't even a big fan of the game or series at the time. And because they're cute little animals as well. It's the worst damn feeling in the world, even gifting away the "swaps" I have duplicates of, not to mentions the rest. Twelve year old me just died inside. For the modern child, this is virtually a primal urge drummed into us. Capitalism from a young age. Having a shiney Dragonite is the equivalent of being a swish City Lawyer. The horrible thing is despite the fact I'm 20, I'm still affected this deeply by having to surrender some. Why do I even need to blog this?

There's an additional - problem isn't he right word. But there's an angle. My Pokemon collection is huge, but I only ever bought two packs in my life. That's because Friend 1 collected like crazy, but was generous with her swaps. When I say generous, I mean she literally let me have carrier bags filled with spare cards - which in ten year old terms made her the coolest person in the universe. It's hard to then be selfish of posessions which were never really yours. Recently, Friend 1 got back into collecting and I reminded her of this, and effectively "returned" an awful lot. Which hurt, and I'm not sure I could have done it without that knowledge. Terribly pathetic.

So I've found her all of my cooler swaps, and then taken a long hard look at my rare shineys - but not my Jolteon, or on reflection, my Flareon. Jolteon because that one really is mine, and I still love that card (love!) as much as the first time I saw it. Flareon because, well...I then spent about half an hour shuffling through the ones I had chosen but, unfortunately, by this stage I'd already written in her card that I was going to give her some. So I was committed, though I didn't specify what - but it feels a little bit dishonest to take a card I had considered as a gift, and then withdraw it. And plus, once you decide you have to keep one - it goes like dominoes. My dad makes it worse when he realises that I haven't got my box out merely to copy the drawings for an increasingly elaborate decorated envelope. "What, really?" he comments with a sort of despair which reveals the same primal terror doesn't go away as you get older. But then having said it, I can't really turn back - and you probably think I'm exaggerating.

At the last moment, with a lump in my throat and genuine tears in my eyes, rescued my Dark Dugtrio. I'm keeping that one. I then licked the envelope shut very quickly, and have been suffering a lingering horror ever since. What if she already has them? What if it's the gameboy game she plays, not the card game? Should I put a note in there instructing that, when she gets bored of them, she should return them to me instead of dumping or selling them on herself? WHY DOES THIS STILL MATTER? Is this what it feels like when your children leave home for the first time?

Parents: don't let your kids collect trading cards. It'll screws them up for life.

A few odd thoughts:

My chillblains are killing me. Tiny little itches all over my feet. It's now pretty painful to walk, especially upstairs. Ugh.

"Shit in the grass" is the greatest drink ever - 50% creme de menthe, 50% Baileys, 100% yummy. It looks just like it sounds, one floating on top of the other, and tastes like the liquid liquor version of Mint Cornetto. As my mum commented, it's probably better than either drink is individually, and I may just track down some Creme to top off my Baileys hoard.

And I'm in love with Stevie Wonder. Do yourself a favour and look some up - lovely warm sound, makes you want to sing straight along. To put me in the mood for writing about Blaxploitation cinema and Tarantino, I've been working through the classic funk. So I've not been having such a bad time of it - cheery music cheers you up under most circumstances, and indeed that's part my essay. The soundtrack of City of God is really far too upbeat. I'm particularly in love with "As", "Black Man", "Signed, Sealed, Delivered", and in particular, "As". What a marvellous song! It's taking all my effort not to listen it to death. I'm also surprised by just how "proggy" it is - some sections reminding me of Steve Hackett.

My essay is sort of OK, and sort of not. It's 1000 words over, and I haven't quoted any academics yet. Some serious trimming will have to happen...

I hate the internet, the promise of community and communication. In the past, you could easily go days without getting in contact with anyone. Now with the web, contact is instant and whenever you like. It's a horrible feeling that anyone could get in contact with you, but are just choosing not to. This isn't aimed at anyone in particular, so don't send me guiltstricken emails. It's just very lonely looking at the web late at night and knowing there are billions of people out there

And I hate the snow for coming late, and not stranding Friend 5 here.

And I've just found a Livejournal of a talented photoartist whose interests in Doctor Who and, um, Jack the Ripper converge to cause some lovely wallpapers of the Master in a top hat...see you in a week...

The Sunday Times had confirmed what we always secretly knew - Spotify is a bit crooked underneath, and too good to be true. Apparently, artists get betweet 0.01p and nothing at all per play, which isn't really surprising. And record companies have shares in the company, so it's in their best interest also to overlook the wrong being done to artists. What a surprise. Spotify is like every other big company in the world. Plus ca change. I'm tempted to believe the whole thing is a racket anyway - offer it for free, then force everyone to switch to premium, by which time listeners are too addicted not to.

But on a personal level, I'm not sure this matters. If I listened to Spotify instead of buying CDs, then I would stop. But the fact remains that I've never bought CDs regularly, and nothing would induce me to do so, so all my boycott would achieve would be me listening to less music. Having a source of browseable free music, on the other hand, has encouraged me to start listening to all sorts of bands in a way I never would have before. Including, ultimately, getting around to CDs. An act I usually commit about two years after feeling the itch to do so (see: every single CD I own). And I do support artists I like in other ways - seeing them live, and buying sheet music. Short of actually buying them lunch, it's hard to get proceeds to artists.

Word of the day: "klavier-tiger" a German portmanteau of the words "piano" and, er, "tiger".

After a year stuck in journals, I've found some real corkers. Let's start at the beginning, with the prize (this year awarded jointly) for my favourite essay titles:

"Crying over the Melodramatic Penis: Melodrama and Male Nudity in Films of the 90s"

"Videographies of Navigating Geobodies"

Spectators are reminded there is a contest running in the foyer, for anyone who thinks they know what the latter title actually referrs to.

Lets not forget their propensity for making words up. This year I was particularly fond of
"Folkloric" and "telegrammatic", but nothing could challenge the hegemony of this year's winner "being-looked-at-ness".

The best essay of the year is definitely "Murder's tongue: identity, death and the city in film noir"

As well as being utterly incomprehensible, it wins extra bonus points for:

• A title following the familiar pattern: "Arty pretention: W, X and Y in Z"
• Starting with an otherwise irrelevant Hamlet quote
• every single line being underlined by an enthusiastic biro fiend

I give you some quotes:

"an initial contention is that different types of commercial films mobilise legible, empirically quantifyable consturctions of physical brutality and death. by this view the loosely held terrain of film noir - in both old and new versions - is haunted by a spectral semiotics or textual ecology of mayhem understood as separate from idioms develiped for horror, gangster, Western or combat narratives, with a proviso for obvious instances of generic overlap and hybridization[...]"

Translation: Film Noir has its own style of showing violence which is different from other films, although sometimes it is the same. Particularly fond of "combat narratives, which I think is what the rest of us call "war movies".

"That is, regardless of the lack of a shared vocabulary for describing modalities of violence, there exists a heuristic horizon of expectation around how this category generates, ramifies and resolves its lethal dramas - thus we believe we know it when we see it. What is it that we see, who does what to whom, where and under what circumstances?"

Translation: the best thing about this sentence is that it apparently seeks to qualify and further explain the previous one...loving the "riddle me riddle me" rhythm of that tautological nightmare at the end.

"Perpetrators may be known at the very outset, or revealed in a following scene, or figure only marginally, or not at all in the ensuing action."

Translation: his coat was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn and lilac and gold and chocolate and mauve and cream and crimson and silver and rose and azure and lemon and russet and grey and purple and white and pink and orange and blue. In other words, colourful.

Alternately: different films are different.

"At risk of oversimplifying a rich spectrum of critical initiatives, the display of violence was cast as an ancillary figure in a textual system whose primary loci of signification were maooed according to formal, narratalogical, or metaphorical coordinates"

Translation: is offered in the next sentence by the author, making one wonder why he didn't just say this in the first place: "thus why characters commit criminal acts, what they think they know about their predicaments and what remains unspoken, superceded analysis of how or where criminal infractions occur". Particularly moved by his worry that he might "oversimplify".

But this was only the winner in a very fierce contest. What of Critical Approaches to World Cinema?

"It is important, however, to note that Anserson employed the term "imagined" and not "imaginary". "imaginary signifies absence, or nothingness, while "imagined" foregrounds a nice balance between the real and not the real."

Also notable because it refutes the term "World Cinema" and "Third Cinema" in the first paragraph, and is thereafter forced to say "Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America" every single time instead. And what of fierce contender "Situating World Cinema as a Theoretical Problem":

"What we will attempt to do below, therefore, is not so much to provide an answer to the question "what is world cinema?" but to trace the processes by which it has been discussed and conceptualised, to examine how these conceptualisations work and where they come from, to account for their embedded contradictions and tensions, and perhaps, most importantly, to underscore the situatedness of each discourse in its specific context, including that of our own"

The worst argument award is still a matter of fierce debate - the panel despute whether our own Reservoir Dogs as Menstruation Metaphor counts. Nevertheless, when that is resolved, it will have to face stiff competition with "Power Rangers as Metaphor for Transnational Film Production".

The final award is for "worst book", an easy victory for "Terry Nation" - a book which spends chapter after chapter drawing academic attention to statements such as "the Doctor and the companion separate and get into trouble", or "Doctor Who has a mystery which is solved at the end". Particularly notable for spending ten pages writing about how cliffhangers work, all the while referring to them as "suspended enigmas". Best quote:

"We believe that the work credited to Nation as creator and/or writer fails to fit some of the traditional criteria of 'quality'. It is largely in familiar generic forms, was made on a comparativelyt low budgets, and is addressed to a mass audience. As Bernadette Casey et al (2002:209)"

We now turn to the VOTER'S CHOICE awards. In the comments, nominate the worst essay titles, quotes, words and books you've waded through!

I've just got my partner for the serial killer swap! Unfortunately, she's asked for nasty ones. I was sort of hoping she'd let me choose, and then I could pick someone tame. She's a hippy and a Disney fan, and her faves are Ed Gein and Andrei Chikatilo, which requires some research:

Ed Gein was inspiration for Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He was only convicted for killing one person, so isn't technically a serial killer, except for his peculiar decorating habits as discovered by the cops:

Four noses
Bone fragments
Nine death masks
A bowl made from a skull
Ten female heads with the tops sawed off
Human skin covering several chair seats
Pieces of salted genitalia in a box
Skulls on his bedposts
Organs in the refrigerator
A pair of lips on a string

What a charmer. Unsuprisingly, the abusive mother was to blame. He spent ten years in an institution to determine if he was sane, then spent the rest of his life in jail. Ironically, the doctors noted he was model patient, especially for the interest he took in handicrafts...My favourite part is about his car - which, after his imprisonment, was sold to a sideshow for $760 - who then charged 25 cents for people to have a ride. My partner refers to him as "Eddie" and claims "repurposing" is one of her interests.

Andrei, on the other hand, is known as "The Rostov Ripper" - and wikipedia enthusiastically informs me he not only killed 53 women and children, but was also a "sex offender, child molester and paedophile". What a charmer. Much like "Eddie", he was a victim of child abuse and grew up in Russia during World War II under horrible circumstances. He was ultimately caught and given 52 death sentences, one of which was carried out.

Frankly, I'm still very confused about this swap, but am looking forward to designing something nontheless. Possibly based on Gein's art projects which, as a crafty soul, do strike me as interesting (if not appealing). Or maybe a fake estate agent advert for his hand-crafted pad. I wouldn't touch Chikatilo with a bargepole - it strikes me as far far too distasteful. Gein was a bit creepy, but at the end of the day, only ever killed one person -the rest of the parts were the result of graverobbery. The card being sent to me is from a Twilight mom who I've swapped with before, who seemed sorta normal at the time; but I discover her fave is Henry someone or other, who at 360 confirmed kills, is America's most prolific serial killer of all time.

In short, I feel a bit sick - a real sticky feeling in my throat. And I'm still confused.

The Doctor is dead. Long live the Doctor.

I found the most incredible story, about a journalist who befriends a murderer after the murderer goes on the run with his name. Now on death row, the pair have exchanged letters for over a decade.

It's a fascinating read, though it made me feel pretty bad about the relish with which I'd been listening to "Murder Ballads" yesterday. One of the things they always highlight about serial killers is how ordinary they seemed - which, as an ordinary person, worries me a lot. Jailbirds get hundreds of fan letters, in a manner I find pretty creepy. I have considered becoming a prisoner penpal, mostly because it must be inconcievably nasty to be stuck in jail and feeling guilty, or worse, not feeling guilty but knowing you should. The isolation must be total. Now while killing someone violates my prime directive - "if no one is hurt, then I don't see the problem with it", my secondary directive probably boils down to "everyone is sort-of right". Let me try and explain what I mean. Believing is a case of an individual weighing up the evidence and making a judgement. Once someone has done that and the proof has convinced them, they go on to live their life as if their belief were reality. As far as I'm concerned, if it's as good as true to another human being, then on some level it must be true. Because in their percepetions, it is true. So why shouldn't it be?

Making sense? A lot of people disagree with me about this level of subjectivity - "but surely some things are absolutely right or wrong?" Maybe. I don't know - we're talking about my beliefs here after all. But this is very important to me, because it seems to be the root of understanding other people - the attempt to see from their perspective fully. To take this to its furthest logical conclusion, I still believe in Father Christmas despite strong evidence to the contrary. I do this because I like the idea and choose to believe, and am fully capable of convincing myself without any proof at all.

Knowledge can't be absolute. For thousands of years, people were perfectly content with "knowing" that Poseidon ruled the waves and that the sun went around the Earth; that leeches or exorcism could cure what Calpol cures today; that lonely women were witches, and that "popular" women were shameful, and that we could pick and choose "lesser" races as slaves". We've thought better of all of that since. Our current age must be similarly packed with horrors which men of the future will look back at and wince. The moment you commit to something being "right", you are barring a whole lot of understanding. Remember Charles Fort?

"skeptical of scientific explanations, observing how scientists argued accoring to their own beliefs rather than the rules of evidence, and that inconvenient data was ignored, suppresed, discredited or explained away".

I believe and disbelieve, in more or less equal measure, most religions, most scientists, most spiritual or ethical viewpoints. Intellectually at least, if not in practice. I think you've got to have a heart of stone to not convert (if only for a moment) in the last verse of "In the Bleak Midwinter", but I'd say the same about an excruciatingly beautiful Koran, or a splended natural phenomenon, or a physicist showing me Mercury through a telescope. They all reveal the wonder of something, and yet I think it's pretentious to claim that any one system can explain it all fully. That's sheer human egotism. It's all far too big and diverse. I also believe Gallifrey is a real planet, and I take off my hat when I pass the Marquis of Granby in Cambridge Circus for a man who never existed.

There are some I don't. But I think it's important to try, if only as a tourist, to see what other people see in it. Now on the whole, murder is not OK (except in war...or self defence...or to punish criminals...or because the patient is in great pain...or in revenge...or because he's the baddie and that's how a Bond has to end...or in a thousand other exceptions man has found across the years. Add some of your own.) Most normal people will never consider it, even more never do it - because it's nasty, sinful, againtst the law e.t.c. A thousand different reasons because of which people, on the whole, don't go around killing. And then one or two reasons which impell one or two people who do. Something, somewhere happened to "them" which never happened to "us". Maybe it was something they saw as a kid, something someone did, or maybe their brains were just put together "wrongly", but for some strange reason we're safe, and they're not. So I imagine being a murderer must be something like being a Colin Baker fan - very lonely, because you understand something which everyone else disagrees with. And one of the things that struck me in that article was the way the fella couldn't feel remorse for killing his entire family, even though he knew he should be.

You can see why that would strike me as a scary thought.

On a happier note, I will leave you with some Charles Fort quotes. He was a bit of a nut, but when it comes down to it, he does have some very pithy statements which explain far better (or at least, quicker) what I was trying to say:

"Venus de Milo. To a child she is ugly. When a mind adjusts to thinking of her as a completeness, even though, by physiologic standards, incomplete, she is beautiful. "

"My own notion is that it is very unsportsmanlike to ever mention fraud. Accept anything. Then explain it your way."

"There will be data."

"The outrageous is the reasonable, if introduced politely."

"The fate of all explanation is to close one door only to have another fly wide open."

"Witchcraft always has a hard time, until it becomes established and changes its name (i.e. to science)"

"I conceive of nothing, in religion, science, or philosophy, that is more than the proper thing to wear, for a while"

"I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. "