Et In Arcadia Ego

If you've known me for a while, you'll have heard the Pretentious Film Studies Class anecdote in which a lecturer asks:

"In this film, do you locate the 'fuck' as a phenomenon or an act?"

This morning it occurs to me that, with the passage of time, I've started taking the notion quite seriously.

We were studying experimental cinema - short movies made as Art. It's the greatest class I attended at Kings, and the only film class that got me trying to make movies. We saw *everything* in that class. Week 2, the lecturer noted that not many people had shown up, perhaps because they'd already read the essays. I hadn't read the essays. She also noted that people tended to vomit or walk out, but we weren't allowed to do either. Well now I'm terrified. So we watched an 8-minute silent video of real world autopsies. Followed by an amazingly tender video of a childbirth-in-close-up. If ever I tell you I don't want kids, you can hold Stan Brakhage to blame. Another notably wanky week was spent debating whether Sadie Benning - a young white dyke who didn't leave her bedroom for four years and made movies on this horribly cheap camera which couldn't be edited - was oppressing black people by recording music by black artists off the radio. My hunch is, she was a teenager just mucking around with music she liked...

We also had the Is It Art Or Is It Porn week, which was less awkward-boner-ific than you might expect, though I still kept a lot of my thoughts to myself. One of the films we watched was strange, made of disconnected body parts - though in a cuddly, not objectifying way. Which is when the famous comment was made. I guess because you didn't really get characters doing things, sex just kinda occurred between the frames.


Two months later, tuition fees were raised despite protests and violence, and our very depressed class tramped to the pub together. This afternoon was what uni was meant to be like. And they were talking about the violence, and though the same phrase wasn't used, the concept was the same.

They noted that in the papers, violence was a "phenomenon" - something that just spontaneously occured - instead of an "act", which implies an "actor" with motivation. No one was asking why people were doing violence, but violence "happened". A phenomenon, not an act.

The distinction is really powerful, and I now see it all the time. Been thinking about my brain recently, and what things in there are phenomena which are meaningless and random, and what things have motives, and reasons, and causes to blame.

Last night's New Year party was attended by a large, unusual clump of family - so large and unusual that Number Two created party games. I'm not good at late nights, and I think in the future I will eschew the wait until midnight, go to bed at a sensible time, and if not waking to see the sunrise, then waking fresh for the new year. And I don't even drink, so I'm not plagued by the New Year's hangover. I'd rather celebrate something new than something that is gone - and in the case of 2011, the celebrations universally seemed a wake where all the money-grabbing relatives are hanging around to make sure the old year is properly dead, fingering garden-shears and dainty perfume bottles of arsenic just in case.

But the games were fun. One of which was the Who Am I? game - a name is put on the forehead, and the player asks questions to work out who

I mainly like this game because, for a moment, I pretend that everyone is in some way transformed. I was Tigger; my glam sister Oceanic was Lady Gaga, my glam cousin was the Queen, and my science-expert grandfather was Sherlock Holmes, proving his qualification for the character through deduction guessing who he was first. Number Two was The Man in the Moon, a perennially difficult favourite of mine, the imagery appeals. In fact, I have an ATC dedicated to it.

It's also fun, sociologically speaking, seeing what questions do and do not get asked. Most people start with "Am I male?", with "I must therefore be female" assumed as the inverse. This is a safe bet for most mainstream games, if also problematic. Does it offer a window into the brain, I wonder, whereby people would box Gaga* and Garbo together as women more instinctively then they would group them with Sting or Gregory Peck into careers, or Rhianna and Frank Sinatra in eras of time. After all, you are flailing in the dark with your first question and knowing the gender doesn't narrow things down far; and yet I tend to ask it first too. It'd be fun to try and play the game without that question - if you've described "a fictional detective from the Victorian era" then asking the gender is immaterial, because there's one reasonable answer.

*When my sister asked, I was tempted to argue the toss here, but I'm not sure that Gaga has been explicit about how she feels about this.

When I asked for my gender - am I male - as Tigger, I got a murmer of discontented "yes-ish", because "am I male" isn't terribly specific. Does it mean "am I male gendered?" - yes - or "am I a human male?" - no.

Another interesting one was raised by my aunt: "Am I white?". Retrospectively, this should be a really good question, but it isn't because I can't remember ever playing a game of Who Am I featuring a non-white person. Because, y'know, mainstream dominant culture + white family. In fact, when my ten-year-old cousin, Santa, asked if he was white - and we all chorused an unthinking assent - I was also kinda impressed with my uncle for remembering to say "he might not be white". Sociological Images did a post on this recently establishing that without exception, Santa is percieved as a white chap on no evidence - rather similar to that other bearded deity of the Yultide, Jesus, who's typically white even with strong evidence to the contrary. So while that's a kinda unhelpful comment in the context of the game - the character of Santa is a white - there's no reason why he should be. They both go on my Christmas card list for this. My aunt and uncle live in New Zealand - that they both, to me at least, seemed a notch more race-aware than the rest of us is interesting. Are things different down there?

It wasn't all analysis, I promise. It's just that game gets through a lot of assumptions about humanity. The most memorable moment was my cousin, aged ten, as Santa, asking

"Am I real?"

Number Two reacted on reflex with "NO!", and the rest of us smattered "no" or "yes" as appropriate - I think my uncle said yes, I can't remember what I said. Followed by a hearty, guilty giggle from everyone, and a glare from my aunt.

"You'll have to ask your mum the answer to that question," Dad corrected.
"Not real," my aunt clarified.

Kept us in giggles for some time.


In other news. Today, Number Two and I looked through the magazines at the airport. The only magazine I read is the Fortean Times - a fun and smart tour through parapsychological phenomena, aliens, sasquatches, talking dogs, and Jesus on a pizza roll, all with a tone of scholarly enthusiasm but healthy skeptecism.

I mentioned that I found women's magazines very depressing. Cosmo has been on my mind recently. I've sort-of enjoyed reading Cosmopolitics - a sociological analysis of exactly what is so damn wrong with the magazine - and Cosmocking - the same thing, but with trolling (link NSFW. Or parents.). I say sort-of because even in the context of safe feminist anger/satire, Cosmo still makes me feel completely inadequate.

I dragged him over to the shelf and had a pint-sized rant, the way you do at 9 o'clock in the morning after a party that went on till 1. I pointed out the differences between Cosmo-style magazines, and the ones that my mum reads - Woman and Home, Essentials. Even though they make an awful lot of assumptions, and the clue is in the title with "Woman and Home", they are essentially good-natured and packed with articles about middle aged women beating cancer, feeling happy about their bodies, and starting their own businesses while caring for wonderful children. Mainstream, sure, but empowering and positive for those women who aspire to domestic ideals - and certainly not as mean-spirited. Cosmo October 2011 offers you "Times he wants you to be jealous", "50 things you should never stop doing in a relationship" and "shrink your inner thighs in six minutes a day" and "four words that seduce any man, any time". The scandal sheets are fun - "murdered to death in front of my childen by my lesbian ex-cousin on my wedding night: one honeymoon horror of bloody death and mayhem" - but neither reassuring, nor scary in a useful way.

For the young girl, I pointed out a magazine called "Pink". What's it about? I don't know. Girl things. It's pink. And Mizz magazine's new tagline is "style, gossip, boys". Because.

"At the same time," I noted, "there isn't really "men's magazines" in the same sense"

"Well I guess men read magazines dedicated to their interests. Men just have lots of different interests. Women when they get together can gossip about anything but men like to talk about things they're interested in.

It was sincerely meant, but also cut straight to the heart of the problem.

"Yes, because all women everywhere are exactly the same and are interested in whatever it is women talk about, but men are all individuals with an individual set of interesting hobbies and thoughts."

Then we both had a good giggle; Number 2 suggested magazines for teenage girls offering something smarter. I've thought this so many times, and in my heart I trust it would genuinely sell and sell well. Still - I think his comment is a really valuable one because it cuts right to the heart of the problem.

I helped an adorable French family on the Gatwick Express. Mum had one little girl in her arms, and another one on the way, and a harassed "I've been travelling on a plane with a four-year-old" expression. I beckoned her and dad over and mumbled an ugly "voulez vous assier ici?", because I'd monopolised the seats with the table - a perfect space for a planerestless four year old, or a Latin scholar mesmerised by the view - and most reasonable parents wouldn't, I think, have sat without an invitation. I listened to them chatter, the little girl dropping the odd bit of English into her babyFrench.

When I got off the train - metal cathedral, well known squeaks - I went straight to the bus shelter, my oyster card was out. I saw my bus driver wait as long as he could for me to get a ticket from the machine, but finally drove off. The machine was broken. I put in my £2.20 with a grimace - it's a difficult walk downstairs with a suitcase to the oyster-card readers - and the machine neither gave me a ticket nor refunded my money. I warned a lady standing nearby that it was not working.

Turns out there is now at least a ticket office above-ground. The door was blocked entirely by chattering smokers, their cigarettes pointed unfriendly and outward, brushing my legs as they ignored requests to move. The chap at the ticket office chattered kindly as he sold me a travelcard -

"Smart idea, they go up in price tomorrow. Where do you study?"
"Kings"
"Ah, smart. What do you study?"
"Classics and film."
"Classic films? Very good! What are you going to be after university?"
"Unemployed."
"Unemployed?"
"I want to be a director"
"A director of photography?"
"No, like of films."
"Like Steven Spielburg?"
"Exactly!"
"What kind of films are you going to make?"
"I like westerns, but I don't think they get made any more"
"I like westerns. When you're a director, you can make whatever you like. I'll tell you this - if you want something enough and dream big enough, nothing can stand in your way."

This from the man selling travel-cards at Victoria. He looked at my name on the oyster card, and I told him that once I was famous, if he got in contact, he'd have a ticket to the premiere. I have made a thousand such promises. But this one is blogged, so I'll remember.

On the way back to the bus stop, I heard a mumbled "cannahavesomechange" from a street-con in a knitted hat. You get to know your genuine homeless pretty quick - too proud or embarrassed to walk up and ask. I said "no" crossly, and on passing heard a quiet "bloodyhellmanIjustwant" following me. He seemed to do rather well later on in a different crowd, finding someone chatty if not charitable.

I made an "out of order" sign and propped it up, badly, on the ticket machine - and took down the reference number because dammit, if I could put up a machine taking £2.20 from people for nothing all day, it'd be a pretty packet indeed. I was hunting through my pockets for my phone when the lady who I'd warned earlier came up and asked if I had enough money left to buy myself a ticket. I thanked her for the kindness. There was another old lady floating around it. "Is this where I get a ticket?" she asked me. I was beginning to explain, when a real homeless person came up to us. "Is it not working? They've been putting ringpulls in it - look." And he pulled a ring-pull, like from a coke can, out of the change slot. He gave the machine a hearty bash, and another few fell out. He tried fixing it for us, got nowhere, but we thanked him anyway. Tip for the future: check the change-slot for ringpulls before using a street ticket machine. I directed the old lady to the ticket office I'd just been to, and then my bus arrived.



People say the city is cold. It can be, and that's wonderful - you can sink into anonymity if you choose and be no-one, slip invisible through pavement cracks and sidestreets. It's an exhilirating feeling. But I'd been on the ground for all of 10 minutes, and already interacted with 7 groups or people, most of them kind and quick to help, and I helped in turn. The streets are what you make them.

I am trying to crank this creature back into life. To get back into the swing of being inappropriately personal on media owned by a corporation who will one day use this information against me, I present this year's playlist. A hobby I've kept up for a few years, as an invaluable aid to memory. These are the songs I was listening to, in chronological order; nothing else should be assumed.

1. Giddy Stratospheres (the Long Blondes)
2. And That's Why (Kenickie)
3. Affirmation (Savage Garden)
4. Wildflower (Cee Lo Green; or Brighter Lights; or Fuck You, it's all a great album)
5. Cold War (Janelle Monae)
6. The Only Hope for Me is You (My Chemical Romance; shutupshutupshutup...)
7. In The Rain (Sol Invictus)
8. Wire to Wire (Razorlight)
9. Never Gonna Dance (Fred Astaire)
10. Heavyweight Champion of the World (Reverend and the Makers)
11. My Body is a Cage (Peter Gabriel cover; turn the volume up)
12. The Glorious Land (PJ Harvey)
13. Glass (Bat for Lashes)
14. I'm Deranged (David Bowie)
15. The Revolution will Not be Televised (Gill Scott-Heron)

Listen

Previous years:
listen to 2009

listen to 2008

I don't know what happened to 2010. And in general, the fact I can't bear listening further back than four or five tracks, says everything to me.

I have taken a bizzarely Randian turn for the past few days, which is odd considering:

1. Rand is a nut
2. See one.

Nevertheless. It started on being at the docs today, and taking in quite how much resources and effort will have to go towards getting me healthy. In any other country or any other time - or with any other fortune - this wouldn't be possible. Do I deserve to be better; if I can't get better, do I deserve to live? This is more philosophical than pragmatic, but still - what am I contributing to society which justifies such input?

The thought continued while watching "Baby Animal Planet" for solace. Awwww, Lucy the baby lion being raised as if she was a kitty. The show ended with the narrator claiming that Nature wanted "the survival of all species". That's bunk - survival of the fittest, surely. And I got to thinking about endangered species, and how nice of us it is to save them, and how ultimately pointless. If you're an African Wader with a silly breeding strategy, of course you don't stand a chance. We forget: we wiped out our wildlife centuries ago, so as endearing as orangutans are should they not be cleared in the way of progress, as we did our black bears and native wolves? Let's invite the wolverines and wooly mammoths back while we're at it!

And finally, to language. Why do we save language? I'm divided, even as I collect zombie languages to learn. In the next 10 years, 90% of the world's languages shall die out - they will remained like stuffed animals, museum pieces. Of course, their contents must be preserved but...saving languages like Guernsey French is a happy-Tory, Green And Pleasant Land, home-jam-making sort of idea. Because it's so nice, and we can wheel it out once a year with the bonnets, and the weaving, and the beanjar and can-making; and forget that plastic is superior to copper milk cans, and that the bonnets are made from synthetic materials, and that nobody actually likes bean jar - it's just, y'know, traditional.

Part of me says that. Loudly. I can now say "hello, how are you doing?", in a language no one can reply to. Brilliant!

At the same time, words are the expression of a people. A book in translation is necessarily different from it's original. And Guernsey French has a word for a cat's fur, ruffled the wrong way; and a verb for "touching food with hands which might not necessarily be clean"; and one for a certain note in the song of a songthrush. Pointless. Priceless.

I'm excited by a future when everyone speaks the same language (especially if it's English, and i don't have to do any more work). We'll be able to exchange those ideas and concepts encoded in our national languages and achieve world peace. At the same time, how can we preserve those ideas at all if we do not have the words?

A la perchoine!

Music is different to the other arts.

You might feel a passion for Picasso, but at the end of the day the Guernica is on the wall of the Reina Sophia, and the best you're going to do is a postcard. Theatre is worse, only existing within 90 minutes of time before vanishing again into the darkness. And film, well - you can see the faces and the bodies of an iceberg's tip of those involved: you can see that film isn't yours.

And sure, there are films that have moved me, and my emotions on seeing Apollo and Daphne are going nowhere - but broadly, I know those experiences are also on loan. My love for Bernini is conditional on the Villa Borghesi continuing to exhibit his work. But music! What about "our song"? What about the "song of the summer"? What about that mix tape, or that radio request? We so often substitute music for our own words, or ideas, that it becomes part of us. Should I be paying off Virgin when I wake up humming Wannabie? Should I write a cheque to the Jackson estate if I want to sing Yellow Submarine in the shower? Do I owe Cliff Martinez a drink when, apropos of nothing, the soundtrack to Solaris compliments my day?

As Spotify puts it, everybody loves music.

Business have been struggling with this model for some time. It's familiar trivia that the Disney company owns "Happy Birthday" - not true either. It's owned by Time Warner, they make $5000 off it a day and will do until 2030. I'm sure, however, that you feel you too "own" Happy Birthday. You sing it at parties. If you sing it in any sort of public place, however - like a restaurant, say - you need a license.

At this point, we get into the tricky territory of what companies can and cannot own. As far as I'm concerned, Happy Birthday is part of world heritage. A bit like Facebook succeeding to copyright the word "face":

In August, the company sued Teachbook , arguing that "book" is a term associated with Facebook. Selecting "book" was a completely arbitrary choice and "pilfers a distinctive part of the Facebook," Facebook said. Travel site PlaceBook also changed its name to TripTrace after Facebook contacted the site and said its name was confusingly similar to its own.

Not to be vulgar, but FUCK OFF, I think you'll find the word BOOK is associated with BOOKS. Books, and libraries, and learning, and (say) teaching.

So copyright is often very counter-intuitive - you may think you have a right to use the word face, or sing Happy Birthday but actually think very, very carefully about how you do so, because you probably don't. There is something about those two cases which is fundamentally morally incorrect.

Music is different, of course - it is morally correct to repay the creators and performers, else they will die in a garret. But that's still counter intuitive - when I wake up humming "Wouldn't It Be Nice?", it's reminding me of the summer when I bought the CD; the New Zealand road trip; my school Speech Day; Tom Stoppard's "Rock and Roll", and how I fell in love while watching it; and Torchwood: Children of Earth: Day Five; and the fact that nowadays, I've listened to the Beach Boys so much to cheer me up that it actually triggers negative feelings. It does not remind me that in 1966, a group of guys got together in a recording studio to try and put a "vibration" on tape and that I should probably recompense them for all those memories.

Bullshit! Those memories are mine! They're just locked up inside the song, like giving a librarian rights to all the books in his library.

Spotify was the greatest, the best act ever performed against piracy. It combatted it by giving the pirates what they want - all the music, all the time - but used the model of a radio station to recoup profits. But it recently became clear that all was not well - Spotify seemed only to advertise itself. And now, the long-expected axe has fallen. From the start, I was suspicious it's perfection was merely that kindly free heroin sample given by your friendly neighbourhood dealer:

• you may each track for free up to a total of 5 times (that's forever, by the way)
• Additionally, total listening time for free users will be limited to 10 hours per month after the first 6 months. That’s equivalent to around 200 tracks or 20 albums.

Hrm. This vastly reduces Spotify's unique selling point - it's skill in actually replacing your music collection. Can't carry your cds around? They're on Spotty! Need to send an album to a friend? Just send them the link. Can't afford £120 a year? We can endure adverts. Spotify seemed to know what the market wanted, understand the pirate mindset and compensate for all its flaws.

What music execs seem to underestimate is the level of entitlement associated with music. It becomes part of our natures, our histories, our very souls. This doesn't excuse piracy, but an easy excuse. Copying technology has also threatened the very nature of posession. If I buy a book, I can give it to my friend, or to a charity shop. If I buy a song off the internet, they are suddenly wary because the same ability to give it to my friend (my posession, which I bought) also means I have the ability to share it with all my friends, and so forth.

And alas, I'm not going to pay £120. I don't buy CDs except very rarely, and then after having listened to them to the extent they become a necessity (and where would I do that?). It's the same way I buy everything, buying only necessities. My music budget is already blown on concert tickets.

Do I, therefore, renounce my right to listen to music? Am I to be separated from my memories?

Why are my dreams no longer on my side?

So I'm walking along with this "leutnant" and his Nazi band. I'm not a solider - for some reason I'm just along for the ride. I'm not with them, I don't approve, but bizzarely enough I am "with" this friend, who is protecting me and keeping me safe. Friend seems a strange word to use, but you'll see what I mean.

Anyway, we were travelling through this big, old Georgian area near a cliff-face. My friend peppering the building with some sort of mortar. He asked me what I thought. I told him that, if I didn't know what it signified, the formalism of the straight lines of windows shattering could even be beautiful. In the dream, that was a bit of a porky, and he looked dubious; but it sounds perfectly like something I would think. His band picking up any survivors and stragglers and loading them onto a train. You can see where this is going. Train wasn't the cattle-car of legend, it was actually more like the Bakerloo line, with all the shabby comfort that implies. In the carriage we were in, there was a spare seat - my friend was pointedly standing, in his awkward, squeakily-parodic SS leather trenchcoat, so I was standing too - totally on my best behavior. After all, I wasn't on the train so to speak; I was with the soldiers. One of the women asked why he didn't sit down - an older, crotchety woman. He sneered something about standards. Then she asked me. I looked around awkwardly, didn't want to seem to be copying, and then perched on the edge of the seat, hoping that hadn't blotted my copybook too far.

The train journey was magical. It lead us through the underbelly of a city, all neon and saturation - but high up, so we could see the dark streets both above and below. Beautiful. Then we came out at another cliff face, with another huge, forbidding castle, or more properly, concentration camp on it. If Auswitz had really been that glam, it might have been worth a four-star stay. My friend left me right next to the gates, with instructions to stay there. Then the regular grunts started loading people through, about eight at a time, and lining them up in a dark building. One of them was the love of my life. By this point I'd morphed into a simple village lad, with sleeves and a tattered waistcoat. So she was wearing a plain shift, and a black crochet shawl et al, and was beautiful in a natural, wholesome, "I want to sell you milk chocolates" sort of a way. A line of soldiers calmly shot them, and then brought the next group through.

At this point, I decided I didn't really trust my friend's agenda. Which was fair enough, as I still don't know why I was there, or why I was safe. I said something kickass, and before anyone could stop me, took a running jump over the cliff edge. Fell a very long way, close to the rocks, into the sea.

I'm not sure at that moment I really had a plan - swimming to safety and death both retrospectively seemed like good ideas. Bobbed around unconscious for a bit. And then there were people, ragged people helping me to shore. I'd been rescued by the resistance! I'm not sure how they knew I was there, or why they thought I was worth rescuing. Like the other dream, I was some sort of special which excused me from guilt. Perhaps I was undercover; or some sort of angelic agent monitoring both sides. They took me back to the city, and hid me with a false identity. I thought "yay! I get to explore the streets!", although like all things in dreams, it didn't make sense when seen close up. Instead, my mind filled it with contemporary Acton pawn shops. "well typical", I said in the dream. Which does create a bizzare set of kicks for you. I had enough autonomy in the dream to despair of a Jewish quarter made up of pawn shops as cliche, but not enough to build a better quarter.

After that, things just got increasingly pleasant. I was one of the people they were sneaking out before the soldiers targeted the city. We got out in a little boat, periodically going under the water. And then it turned out we were extras in a movie, albeit very traumatised ones - a young Natalie Portman was in tears, because it had all been so intense. We were heading to the set exit - which we found, eventually, although we had to travel a lot of dark streets to get there.

Well gee! Thanks brain! Boy, do I want to dream about Pol Pot tomorrow! Then I'll have the whole set! As I write it out, some elements make sense. All the same. I feel like the NAZI COLLABORATOR DREAM is a special, memorable event.

Friend 1 and I

Anyway, I was walking through a city and I came across a small student protest behind a little fence. A Libya protest - I explained I couldn't take part because it was too dangerous. I- and S- were among them - I gave them each a massive hug and a kiss on the cheek which was, retrospectively, a sensible thing to do. Kept walking. Came across another, smaller protest. Of all the people, Friend 7 was in this one. Kept walking through darker streets. All of a sudden, there were a small group of streetsoldiers running across the end of the street, who threw an "IED" in our direction.

So. Not London. And note for the military nerd - the thing my brain labelled "IED" looked like one of those long, pipe grenades, had a blast radius of about six metres and just about enough time for them to be outrun if you were paying attention. I screamed for the other people in the area to run also - I was safely out of the blast, they were a bit more Bond ("SLO MO JUMP!").

I kept going. Went through a tunnel. Came to a grassy valley, thinly lined on either side by protestors who meant business. The mood was far more Les Miserables down here, although I still recognised many of the protestors, including Samir who turned out to be quite the quantum boyfriend* in the dream. I gave him a hug and a I'm-Never-Going-To-See-You-Again kiss too. Oh dear me. I gave them some news - the newspapers up top were saying they weren't organised enough to win, so they really needed to organise. I don't know by what power I was just a floating rambler, but I guess I'd made the decision not to die. I don't know, though - everyone I met seemed to be aware and supportive of me not being heroically massacred. I carried on through a building where the coordinators were planning. They seemed really quite dour about their chances. They also informed me there was no way out this way, and that heading south was my only chance. So, back north the way I'd came, then south by a different route.

*had I a hundred billion lives, quantum boyfriends are people I'd quite like to date. As it stands, they are people I like a lot and am curious about the experience and what the rest of my life would look like. But not sufficiently in-love-with-and-attracted-to to actually be bothered with the trouble of asking in this life. Not so much because it'll be trouble for me, but trouble for them - it seems I feel bad dumping all my emotional issues on people I like unless they've explicitly asked me to. So the attraction remains more a cerebral one. Pity, though. As I'm sure I'll feel a tad mifffed if any of them ever found anyone else. I'm basically just posessive. And greedy.

When I got outside it was dark. I tried to stick to the deeper shadows back through the valley, but when I got to the tunnel there were lines of armed soldiers running towards the defenders in the valley. I nipped into an abandoned house. Became a camera for a while. In the cafe, the owners who had run away to avoid the fighting had returned a few days later, more in optimism I think although it was true - the fighting wasn't heavy here. More like mopping up. They discovered the dog they had abandoned was still alive, and feral - attempting to attack and eat them. Like any dream, they got several attempts to contain the dog before they were eaten. They failed, all three times - the mother got munched, but the little girl survived. What sort of survival is this, thought my camera eye? I floated up the side of the valley, where the protestors were in dugouts and being efficiently butchered by passing troops. One group was actually a tour group from the future whose bubble failed and was picked off with the rest of them (with an exception of one member, who was an archangel).

"I" returned, back where I'd started near the first protest. Near the river. OK, going south. I ran across the bridge - it was morning now - ignoring the rather large group of protestors posessing it. When I was nearing the end, another one of those "IED"'s struck, and I regret not doing the sensible thing - chucking it over into the water - instead of outrunning it to the other side again. It's quieter down here. So I move between buildings, all very Southbank. When I turn, the bridge has been destroyed - it's easing itself into the water, then crashing, and then a ridiculous amount of screaming as everyone falls, then flounders, then drowns.

Eventually, I get to an area which can not be passed. Lots of people bumbling around. We passed into more of a dreamstate again here. Fortunately, the Doctor was there to figure out how to traverse. He and Amy rigged up little rafts across the floor, to an area where there was supplies - joy of joys. I followed, so did a few others. We were trapped there. Oh, and one of our companions turned out to be Gadaffi's son, the poor wretch. I say "poor wretch", because being trapped with a bunch of angry escapees isn't anything an ex-evil-dictator wants, and some very PG-level, Doctor-approved torture took place with the items we had around - including eggs. Note to self - G jr. has a serious allergy to eggs. We persuaded him into releasing a regime-approved carriage and boat, with which we could escape from the building. The Doctor told Amy to drive with G jr. ahead in the carriage. Like, an expression of trust thing. The rest would follow through the canal to the river in the green boat.

Amy took the carriage out of the front. Well, yeah. The building was totally surrounded, as if for a state procession. Hundreds of joyful supporters cheered as it left the building. With that distraction, the Doctor and the other survivors slipped out carefully to the river. G jr. reached his own boat, but he had been so - wait for it - touched by the Doctor's kindness (egg-torture ignored?), and trust in leaving Amy with him that he allowed them to escape in the boat in exchange for releasing him. As his state boat sailed away, he was looking quizzicaly joygul in a totally implied change of heart sort of a way.

Which is the type of thing which happens when you let Doctor Who do real world events. Libya gets a happy ending.

There were some other bits, more unpleasant bits, including yet another my-house-is-under-attack dream. That was interesting by virtue of Steel being its central character - an angry Steel, whose Sapphire had gone missing, and was attacked in Horned hallway by two equally strong villains, who he despatched with great difficulty, firearms, and serious wounds afterwards. I can make sense of most of the fragments - the dog, the archangel, the whole shebang. But I'd rather just leave it for you as a fabulous little string-of-dream-sausages. Good morning, world!

I've a funny feeling that Ruby is going to be my little savior.

I think my medication is finally working, which is brilliant and awful in equal measure.

To be honest, it makes me think of Bevenita. She'd been on something similar for something like three years as they passed her around different docs and waiting lists. Now, she had some seriously impressive problems - I'm just a good ole' melancholic invert, while I gather she had the whole hog of voices and pyromania. Proper problems. She expressed frustration that her emotions were trapped, and she was just drugged up instead of being cured.

At this point, I can't tell whether it's the symptom or cure - depression causes a feeling of detachment and unenthusiasm; but the drugs are designed to numb everything down and limit extreme emotion. I feel like I'm trapped in a glass bubble about 2 metre in diameter, and because the sensation is new I'm guessing it's the dopey pills.

Depression saps your motivation and leaves you unable to do anything. The drugs have a similar effect. A good example would be eating. I eat pretty well, but on bad days I simply cannot be bothered to make food happen. If I'm sitting somewhere well, it'll have to wait - it's a very negative, rather petty bit of braincode that loops until I really am very hungry. Whereas the drugs are a bit more like pax or bliss (from Serenity and Doctor Who respectively), inducing a general feeling of wellbeing and contentment in which food is a rather academic possibility. Depression kills your memory and attention span. But I'm pretty sure it's the drugs which make other things seem so far away that attention is difficult, and so lacking in definition that they fall out of my brain.

I'm not complaining. Or at least, I am because it's an awful sensation, but only in a logical sense. I know that I am wrong, but I don't feel wrong. I am indifferent to people. I'm not really feeling enjoyment, or guilt, or anything much. My Cleggface has improved, because I can no longer effectively link up words and feelings. I've observed a beautiful ice-cold unthrillability - whether that to be to my sister swerving the car, or ridiculously huge stressful situations which I could put to one side as I might ignore the last few peas on a plate. For example, my flight back to Sarnia on Wednesday was scuppered by fog - we got all the way there, but couldn't land, and went all the way back. At Gatwick, we hung around for 20 minutes for our luggage, then some 45 for hotels to be booked, then at least another hour in the cold for a taxi, and then at 5am the next day we did it all again. Wasn't really bothered at any point. I know I'm customarily unflappable, but I also know that being stranded away from home and trying to do public transport are two of my big triggers, and all this with an inimicus scholarum as my only companion.

I've a lifetime of morality which is aware that this renders me effectively inhuman.

I feel OK. Not happy, but OK. Nice. All the adjectival thrust that the metatron of the English Tongue can conjure with the majestic word: nice. For example, today was mother's day and I didn't get a card.I forgot. Or rather, I had a marvellous idea for something at the beginning of the week, but time lapsed. Oceanic got her two bunches of flowers and a massive card in a box. I knew I felt awful, and I knew that I had hurt people's feelings and that this too made me feel awful - but a soap half glimpsed would have yanked my heartstrings more, and the only thing that really bothered me was the fact it wasn't really bothering me. It's still on my mind. But I'd be lying if I said I actually "felt" bad, in the strictest sense of the verb. I can still be sad, but it's a sadness inside the bubble - it condenses then drips back around my feet. I'm worried to overstate it as the effect of the happy pills, because I recognise this as similar to Mortimer's mental state and modus operandi. It feels different, though, to his, and I've not got the enthusiasm or his characteristic directness of purpose. I also feel like my reaction times have slowed. Or more strictly, my perception times - once I've percieved, my reactions are fine.

One good thing is that my imagination is still around. It takes a bit of serious concentration, and I'm even less likely to be producing anything concrete than usual. But I can still delve down to my clubhouse, and I've just written some very exciting scenes. Another interesting side effect is that my dreams make far more sense - more cause-and-effect. My dreams used to be notorious for starting an interesting plot, and then getting sidetracked.

As little as I like it, it's a really helpful support. I am fairly sure I'm safe now, which I haven't been for a while. That is good. But I know I'm not better. Like Bevenita did, I know I've just been put into hibernate mode. And while this gives me a very high-walled sandbox to throw my toys around in, it's almost like using that sandbox to figure out glass-blowing in. I feel like I'm cut off from the pain and misery which I'm actually going to need to be able to access. Which is why sportsmen shun painkillers.

Still, I'm not complaining too much for now. I'm cultivating patience instead. And learning Ruby which, as I said, may turn out to be my little savior.

Ruby is a programming language, chiefly popular for building web-things but it's also possible to build proper program-things in it as well. The learning curve is simultaneously shallow and steep. On the one hand, programming is pretty darn simple at it's most basic level. However, the amount of assumed knowledge is immense - for example, I downloaded the language then floundered for a few hours until I pieced together how you did anything with it. Now I can make it do very simple things, I'm floundering at finding a program which lets me create a pretty user interface. I am sure I am ultimately going to flounder a third time when I try to turn my code into an actual program. The information is out there, but not in one place. And I'm still using phrases like "web-things" and "program-things".

By some luck, I happen to have picked upon a programming language which is universally lauded as fun, clear, even beautiful. One of the most vocal proponants of the language is a mad genius, who created zine-style instruction leaflets filled with cartoon foxes, before mysteriously disappearing. Even better, the syntax seems to me very much like Latin in places - subjects, objects, verbs. Just the way you identify the parts of the sentence, and read what they are doing. Ruby, like Latin, has immense periods filled with innumerable parenthesis and subclauses. Cicero would be proud.

Why? Oh, I'm easily amused by learning random new skills I'll never follow through on. But it's making me happier than I expected. Like, smiling and everything. More than once! It's worse than Avon in series four. I'm having difficulty moving, motivating. I enjoyed not having the web because the web is the perfect outlet for what "I" crave - numb, vaguely involving nothingness. The internet is much like dreaming - pictures you don't have to focus on, and the dreamlike logic of links which chains one to TVTropes for hour upon hour. Programming is sedentry and fairly repetitive, so it actually performs the same task pretty well.

But unlike the web, it helps as well as hinders. What I need is my mind to be constantly stimulated. I find myself dozing and drifting during nonchallenging conversation. People have got to be asking questions, disagreeing, debating - if they're just conveying information then I find it hard to pay attention. Yeah I know, I always do that. But I'm trying extra hard to right now, and it still won't stick. Same goes with dull movies, music, whatever. And programming needs sharp thinkining as well as persistance. A perfect combination! It suckers my time lazily, while feeding my brain with pintacs. Plus, it's also really satisfying, because I'm smart and it's easy (at present) so it's nice getting the gratification. But not under pressure. It's different to the gratification of a good mark: the success is mine and mine alone, and for it's own sake.

What I've done so far is very minor. I'm able to program 1970s level computer games and that's it. I designed one based on the story of Echo and Narcissus, which I'm regarding more as art than anything else. You are Echo. And another one with the Prisoner startup spiel. Where am I? In the village! Basic nonsense, it's quite fun.

while Emily !=recovered
Ruby.learn
end

Recovery can wait.

I am so excited about real physics right now. I wasted my morning productively by looking up Mars on Wikipedia, and the various plans and ideas for a manned space mission. A subject it is actually satisfyingly thorough on.

Musings: I wonder what the rights issues are with planets? Have space-faring countries signed a deal, or is it the property of whoever gets there first? If a space mission colonised Mars, and sold minerals back to Earth, whose would the profit be? Earth corporations are evil and without conscience, and inherently exploitative. I don't know science, but I am a bleeding heart liberal and everyone is talking about the practical issues, and none the ethical/legal frameworks. A best case scenario would be if the minerals were the property of the colonists - the profits would be cost-covering, and they could use them to trade for supplies. That way an economny would get going. We would need to prevent a scenario where a single business had financial interest in the minerals, and exploited the settlers - as the settlers would depend on Earth supplies for maybe hundreds of generations, their priceless minerals could be effectively extorted in exchange for basic survival kit. (Doctor Who's brilliantly nasty Vengeance on Varos posits a similar situation, where Varos intensely rare natural mineral is bought for peanuts by an evil company, because the Varosians are unaware of its value, and so poor that they are forced to accept low prices)

Under whose jurusdiction would the people there be - would they have rights? There would have to be some sort of declaration of their civil rights - could they form a union, or strike? How would they get their voice heard on Earth? Looking far ahead, but would there be a project for their independance? Struggles for independance in our history have been bloody and vicious - Friend 4's dad is from Guyana, and what America and Britain did to that nation is appalling, fixing the independant elections so a dictator who would support our interests was in power, instead of a brilliant and politically savvy chap, crippling the country, y'know, ever since. Or the problems still faced by African nations. How would the world relate to an independant Mars - would it be like Guernsey in the Commonwealth, where we have our own government but are still closely linked to England both culturally and legally. Alice asks "would the Martians pay international uni fees?" Or more like America and England, where America is wholly separate nowadays but has a sort of shared interest and "special friendship" with England. Both of these strike me as bad.

We would have to have some sort of universal world government, like the Terran Federation in Star Trek or the UN, but an effective and non-rubbish UN,in which the Mars Colony had the same sort of voice as every other nation. For that to work, and for Mars not to be like a little chunk of whatever nation got their first, the Mars mission would have to be like the International Space Station - multinational and multicultural.

I also wondered about the plans they have to "terraform" Mars - making it enough like Earth to live there. Cool, but a bit evil? You are basically setting out to destroy a natural, totally unique enviroment with no idea of the consequences.If you're interested in whether Martian bacteria have rights, this article is excellent: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~mfogg/EthicsDTP.pdf

Actually, I've never been happier.

Media - movies, novels and "true life narratives" - give drugs a pretty bad rap. My favourite of them is probably Harvey, a charming fifties comedy about a woman whose attempts to marry off her ward well are continually scuppered by her mad alcoholic uncle and his invisible rabbit friend. Presumably the link between bohemians, depression and creation means that most creative enterprises would naturally champion an unhappy individuality over dull contentment.
Perhaps this is accurate - I've heard mixed reviews from real people too.

...the thing is, at present, I'm not really enjoying anything, I don't have the motivation to work either at uni or on my own projects and I keep feeling unmotivatedly tense and threatened when out with friends and family. All things I've experienced fairly more often than I'd like throughout my life, but over the past few months I've had all three at once and pretty constantly. Once you've got work, play and socialisation out of the window, then I'm willing to give anything a go regardless of what the cinema says. This is especially true when you think my antipathy towards chemical solutions extends as far as paracetemol.

I think the "talking treatment" is very useful, especially for me in particular whose main problem is being bad at talking to people - peverse, I know! Perhaps "bad at communicating" would be a more accurate, Personal Life Skills way of expressing it. The problem is, after a point all it can do is shift these horrific soul-destroying feelings onto someone you care about ("It is the fault of X and Y, because...") or at you personally ("I'm sorry, you simply can't cope with leaving the house because that's just what you're like.") Now, perhaps I'm an inherently useless person and all my friends and family are heinous harpies - but it doesn't seem likely. And even if that is the case, it's hardly a positive step in the right direction. Encouragingly, my GP also seemed to think that three years of counselling was too long without a practical boost as well.

So if you were to ask me when the last time I felt really, really happy I'd actually say recieving a nice shiney box of Citalopram yesterday afternoon. Which testifies to placebo power if nothing else - it's always easier to feel better about anything when you're working towards a solution. Hope is good enough, in the absence of Better.

Mind you, I'm having second thoughts since seeing the side effects list which, as my doctor warned me, is "as long as my arm". Not quite true. It's as long as my elbow to my fingertips, which is still pretty damn long.

In some cases, there's nothing to worry about. 1 in 10 patients experience:

• sleepiness, difficulty sleeping
• reduction in weight, gain in weight
• increased appetite, loss of appetite

Just so long as I get all six. Additionally, there is less than a 1 in 10 chance I will experience
menstrual pain. Impressively, there is also a 1 in 10 chance I will suffer impotence or erectile disfunction - frankly a miracle of modern science, as that's statistically far higher than me suffering either at present.

Of course, it's not all good news. There is only less than 1 in 100 chance that I will experience:

• a state of optimism, cheerfulness and well-being (euphoria)
  

and then only as a side effect, which is rather demoralising when you think about it. 1 in 100 people also experience a "general feeling of being unwell", although how that's not already covered by the previous six paragraphs of runny nose, fits and tics, ringing ears, slowing heartbeat, liver problems, coughing, muscle pain, allergic reaction, headache, dizziness, swearing, lethargy, weird dreams, memory loss e.t.c. I'm not sure.

On the rarest end of the spectrum - less than 1 in 10,000 - I may experience "loss of contact with my own personal reality". What that might do to me in particular I daren't speculate. Possibly relocate my own personal reality, profile stalk and invite it out for an awkward catchup coffee...

One of the coolest things about Christmas isn't aquiring loads of stuff, it's looking at it all at the same time and thinking "yes, this is who I am - all my different interests represented in one place". This is possibly even worse, as it suggests things about being trapped in a consumer society where it is pleasurable to define myself through material items. I don't know.

It was also kinda satisfying to be getting this stuff while my sister was aquiring new make-up brushes, perfume, and the rest, and feeling all smug about getting the best set of presents, which is of course what tends to happens when people have picked things for you in particular.

For posterity, here is a map of my stash. Very indulgent of me. But only self-indulgent people keep blogs anyway...

The Gathering (Doctor Who audio play, woo, with Five and Tegan)

"Conspiracy Theories" (Jamie King) - A short paperback encyclopedia with all the famous theories broadly stroked in two short pages. Especially satisfying watching them dodge potential libel claims ("A certain Japanese animated children's show caused epileptic fits when a major animal character emitted electricity..."). Not thorough, but a nice interest-piquer that keeps tempting me towards the web for - snort - proper indepth research

An "Emily" car-style plate - I'm sure I'll find a use for it somewhere. For now, I'm mostly interested that both mine and Oceanic's are pink. One wonders, had we been named Dylan and Boris, whether they would have been blue...

The Indispensable Book of Practical Life Skills - oh hahahahahahhahaha. Ha. Ironically, the tips on getting heat stains out of wood have already mentally come in handy for the mess on the Acton dining room table. I also find the baby-care chapter encouraging: the models are both male and female. Incidentally, not to sound like a Livejournal polemic or anything, but the only public place I've ever found with baby-change facilities in the men's toilets is the V&A.

Origami to Astonish and Amuse - a.k.a. the book I haven't shut up about since borrowing last month. I'm loving my very own copy :)

A hat - not just any hat. A multicoloured neon rasta-hat. Oh yeah. You're all going to be begging me to appear in public with you with this hat.

A kinder-egg santa - who's actually still in his wrapping because he got a bit crushed in the sleigh.

Total Film - all worth it for two tiny promo-pictures that confirm yes, Holmes 2 is a go. Well, one tiny promo picture repeated twice. Sucker Punch is on the cover, and I once again have to wrestle with conflicting emotions about it. A young girl in the 50s is trying to escape an asylum before she is lobotomised, with the help of four friends, an overactive imagination and buckets of carnage. I love films about all those things, and particularly ones which trouble the fantasy/reality line. Unfortunately, the central cast look like this:...which makes me hope it won't be as potentially misogynistic as it looks. Director Zack Snyder, of Watchmen and 300, isn't known for his progressive gender relations. And my feminist objectivity is a bit complicated by the cast - Carla Gugino, Jena Malone and Emily Browning playing ("Babydoll"), hell, even Vanessa Hutchens...in short, skimpy objectification couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of actresses. I'll wait for the first reviews, I think.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept (Elizabeth Smart) - George Barker was married, he had an affair with Elizabeth Smart. It went horribly wrong, and they both wrote novels about it. Marvellous literary bitch-off! It's looking pretty pretentious, and is encouragingly short :)

Doctors 9, 10, 11 and the Master in metal miniature - I have all the Doctors for my game now! Charmingly, they also popped a drumstick lollypop into the box.

The Picture of Dorian Gray - in English, but from South Africa.

Classical Film Violence - A great, great book. I borrowed it from the Maughan, but I like having my own copy for reference. I have problems reading the spoilery sections, so I can go back to it as I watch through the films.

Woodwork Jet Fighter - punishment, I think, for trying to get the equipment to carve a dragon after reading a beginner's-guide. Looks awesome! The box claims that age 5-7 "I may need some help!" but 8-12 "I can do it!". I wonder what tips they have for 21?

Adam Adamant Lives! - Victorian Adventurer Revived Fights Crime In The 60s. Nuff said. Probably a disaster waiting to happen, as just so much of it is missing as 1960s television tends to be. It's like actually presenting your heart to be broken. But...he has a sword cane <3

As for the rest:

Grandma - slippers (Servalan style), scarf and hat + a contribution to the piano fund

Grandad - one of those electronic photo-frames. I've always wanted one, but never quite enough to get one so having the excuse is wonderful. I'm thinking of ripping some avant-garde and looping it, as it also plays music and film. Plus a Lord of the Rings, at long last my own copy, in lieu for my birthday.

Oceanic - a harmonica! She has expressed a worry that everyone else is going to hate her now, which could be correct - I love playing it, and have nowhere to practice. Unsurprisingly as even good harmonica players sound like noise. Even better: it's a C-major harmonica, which for the non-music-savvy, means it can't play anything sinister, sad or the Stella Artois theme tune i.e. anything with a bit of subtelty or tact. No, it's major songs only - pop goes the weasel, anything by Bob Dylan. Jaunty, chirpy, irritating noise. I love it! Can already play The Times They Are A Changing, Three Blind Mice, Blowin' in the Wind and, my fave, Dixie. Also a box of "tiddly dark choc reindeers", as she accurately mentioned I like dark chocolate, but only in very small doses.

Parents - a bum bag. Laugh all you like, but I've wanted one for ages. Shall be packing it with essentials - a London map, a spoon ("Make you look like a heroin addict," mum has commented). Plus a donation to the piano fund, which stands at:

50 (parents)
41 (aunts birthday)
60 (grandma birthday and xmas)
= 150, towards aquiring, moving and tuning a piano. I especially love the actual voucher itself -the silhouetted pianist looks just like me - swooping hair, and a natty jacket complete with huge ruffles.

Boif - a pack of lindor chocolates-with-chocolate. He provided the present of the day, probably, in a huge teddy for Oceanic.

Wonderful year!

Best Hamlet ever.

I mean, he's not "my Hamlet", not wholly. If I could act, and the stage was mine, then my Hamlet would be ruthlessly intelligent, incisive, cruel, a scholar out of his depth in events he couldn't rationalise, and always, the only person laughing at his own jokes. And also, a pretty, gangly indie-boy of some sort. I'm not sure Rory Kinnear would obviously tick any of those boxes - he doesn't even find his jokes funny - and perhaps that's indicative of the differences between how Hamlet is percieved as a character, and how he is on the page.

I've just been to the National Theatre, within spitting-distance of the stage, and am about to give a nauseatingly positive review. I'm also about to try and defend that statement above, which wasn't true until I started writing, and discovered it absolutley was.

Often in Hamlet, an individual scene will fail because it just doesn't gel with the actor's interpretation. They'll be subtle, upset, cold - the early scenes offer an almost unlimited range. Unfortunately, that's not true of the second act, so you'll get them suddenly ramping up to 200MPH because the script seems to demand anger - the nunnery, the closet, and the crocodile scenes particularly. It seems jarring and forced in comparison to what has come before.

The graveside most of all: Hamlet has just come back from England in disguise and stumbled on Ophelia's funeral. He abandons his secrecy to pick a fight with Laertes, her brother, because he's pissed off that Laertes is sad. It's inconsiderate - of course Laertes is unhappy that his sister is dead. It's unmotivated - who exactly is he angry at here? It doesn't necessarily tally with the information we've been given - like, no other evidence at all that he cares for Ophelia at all. It's unforgiveably rude - Hamlet has killed Laertes' father, and also been the two chief factors in Ophelia's death. Plus, it's a weird scene which involves the two leads leaping into a grave and playing tug-o-war over a body, with one of them claiming he could eat a crocodile like it's the biggest boast of manliness instead of just a bizzare mental image.

In short, it always makes Hamlet look like a shit and it always comes off as out of character and weird. And that's the problem with gangly indie-boys - unless that's already a note in their character, they seem out of it. Not Kinnear. He's just so unhappy and angry, pain and supressed rage all the way through, that for the first time ever, this scene hasn't seemed terrible in every way. Instead, Laertes just becomes a cathexis for his misdirected rage, just as Polonius, Ophelia and Gertrude have in those other awkward scenes. And they all work so well because those other, early scenes in which others have depicted him struggling to cope merely with despair, he was trying to find a way to bear his anger. Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that the soliloquies were for once the weak spots, compared to how wonderful the ensemble scenes were. Even "oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!", where it is textual fact that Hamlet flies into a rage at himself, and then is ashamed of his inability to control his emotions, too often comes off as the exception (I'm suddenly ANGRY! And now normal service has been resumed) instead of the rule (I'M ANGRY I'M ANGRY, AND SUDDENLY I'M SO ANGRY I CAN'T COPE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA CALM - I'M JUST ANGRY).

This doesn't make it in any way one-note, I mean this is a properly awesome and subtle rage that works alongside the character's melancholy, and intelligence, and humour, but that also works textually without having to jettison anything as part of a perfect character. And that makes the show as a whole more downbeat, because you are never in any doubt of just how much pain he is in. He has the most wonderful fake smile that's almost worse: the humour is properly humourless. A few people tried laughing at the gravediggers' scene, but only because they thought they should.

It's also the first time in some time I've seen a properly cracky Hamlet, and this also works. I like subtle Hamlets, but it's always too obvious that they are calculating and sane - the jokes too funny, the audience too in cahoots in comparison with the oblivious fellow characters. Many Hamlets are just too civilised to "go full retard"; and also, to be properly evil. I rarely believe it when he coldly sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern off to their deaths, but this production in particular he's unreasonable enough that I understand why it would seem reasonable.

With all that seething anger, you'd wonder how he managed to stretch revenge out to 3-hours-30, so it's time to introduce this production's other ace: the design. Aaaah, beautiful - almost chronologically, I've seen more and more emphasis put on the paranoia of Elsinore, and this is the best I've ever seen. A band of suited security men haunt the stage; in the background during soliloquies, hanging about when Hamlet is trying to talk plans with friends. He is constantly being watched, guarded or followed, and the same is true of the Ophelia and everyone else. The stark sets were topped off with CCTV cameras. The oft-cut scene where Polonius engages Reynaldo to go to France and spy on his son seemed suddenly at home in this horrific context. It's clearly impossible for Hamlet to get anywhere near Claudius.

In fact, this production seems to have addressed my usual quibbles with an almost terrifying accuracy. In the second act, they pack Hamlet off stage for about eight scenes. He's such a driving force, and the scenes he's absent for are so...unspecial, that I never really enjoy Act II as much. Laertes returns and shouts, Ophelia spends two awful scenes going mad, Gertrude delivers an overly-famous speech which always seems forced, and then there's the crocodile scene.

It zipped by! That was helped by the most perfect, wonderful Laertes - a character who too often defaults to "prat", and is then an irritating companion the entire time our hero is out of the way. I can't put my finger on what was so special about this one. Perhaps because Hamlet was so angry, Laertes couldn't be, I don't know. He came across as very sincere, properly sympathetic - a nice, straightforward guy who's completely gullible. A perfect Laertes went some way towards diminishing my Act II boredom.

The same can almost be said of Ophelia, almost. She was one of the best I have ever seen - not sanctimonious, and realistically cowed into misery by the oppressive castle atmosphere. I am now entirely convinced, however, that Ophelia is unplayable and the weakest element of an otherwise watertight play. She has no development, she's very difficult for any sane feminist to approach and totally lacks psychological realism. The relationship between her and Hamlet is a textual black hole, and we have to believe she goes properly nuts just because all her male authority figures have been taken away.

One of the remarkeable things about Shakespeare is how sophisticated and universal his writing is. His dialogue actually contains psychological depth, centuries before the actor's method was invented. Ophelia is a big exception to this: the pathos of the virgin maid singing bawdy pastorals is a 16th century sort of understanding of the human brain. When Hamlet explains:

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not me.

I'm sure we've all had days like that. And it struck me now, more than ever, how perfect so many of Hamlet's descriptions of despair are. I've never seen someone express mental illness through tragic, accusing folk tunes before - the scenes are awkward to play because they're awkwardly written, and Ophelia is treated like some sort of reverent, knowing symbol of something throughout. No, the sound of a sweet voice singing is not enough to bring me to tears. Or move me. Or anything. "Here, have a metaphor!"

Which is why I'm kinda glad they neutralised the stomach-turning description of the world's most beautiful suicide by having Ophelia secretly dragged off by security guards, and Gertrude aware that Claudius arranged to have her done away with. It was fun to see Claudius played as a downright villain again - I like him sympathetic, but this was a nice change. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern too where pretty nasty pieces of work - this too made sense in context. Gertrude was the modern performance you recognise of a frazzled career woman clutching a red wine - very good. I particularly enjoyed the closet scene - she becomes hysterical at the moment Polonius is killed and remains so for that reason because that's what murders to do people. It's so easy for the actors to forget the corpse...and I now think, in contrast with Ophelia, Polonius is impossible to play badly, perhaps because it's always the most experienced actor on stage taking on a pretty easy role. Downsides? Horatio. Wasn't special, and delivered the lines as if they were Sha-hakes-speah, but you can't win them all.

Onto the specifics: the ghost scenes are just splended! Very creepy - the actor sounded like he had reverb or something, but I knew he didn't. And spoke very quietly, but seemed to boom at the same time - most special. Hamlet's small shadow, as he slumped at the corner of the stage, dwarfed by his father's huge one. Hamlet just crying, as well you might, while the Ghost explained the circumstances of his death. And actually, every time the Ghost walked across stage, and you could see him there white against the darkness, before the lights acknowledged he was there: creepy! I've already mentioned Ophelia's unusual death; I also enjoyed the opening scene with her family, which got the level of tenderness just right - her laugh at Laertes' awkward chastity speech, Polonius pausing uncomfortably as he extols the virtues of truth. And I loved Hamlet discovering a mike hidden inside her book, and dictating to it. The closet scene featured Gertrude able to see the ghost, but lying about it: what a wonderful choice!

In fact, there's only one bad thing about this one, and that's a pretty crass attempt to sell T-shirts half way through. But let's not think about that.

Instead, let's focus on the fact that I may just have seen a perfect Hamlet. So many of my quibbles were addressed, and the tedium of the second half almost totally evaporated. Any criticism I could have left should be aimed at the play itself. Which I've fallen in love with, all over again, with a funny feeling that Mr Kinnear has just fundamentally altered the way I see it...

I've just got a great text from Friend 2 regarding today's protests. She's been watching along on the telly, but could not have expressed the afternoon better if she'd actually been there:

Good...[regarding the fact I would refuse to protest with that lot after dark] the atmosphere seemed a bit too...tense/expectant/charged on tv. Like they were all waiting for something. And there were too many police.
~24/11/2010 17:15

Because before the protest even started on the Strand, I could hear the three helicopters overhead, and saw riot vans crossing the city, and two policemen taking up post outside the uni.

I probably had better things to do that walk about in the cold with no gloves, with people I don't respect, put myself in possible mortal peril, and make no difference whatsoever - but then I get so pissed off at people who think that's a good enough excuse. I've probably got Blake to blame for that, and for the record unlike me, he is obviously a big fan of violent civil disobedience. He'd have thought Millbank was great, but would probably have been a little more efficient about trashing the place. (The Doctor doesn't need a political stance because he can bring down a government in six words or less.) And it's interesting, because I would argue Blake's stance is justified on the grounds that he has no other means of protesting. Freedom of speech, fair trial and rights to assembly - peaceful methods, in other words - are totally impossible for him, making his violence his only option. But then...isn't violence our only option? Working on the basis that the government were never going to reverse the cuts, no matter how many flower children designed witty banners and danced...

I'd been to the previous protest, which was a beautiful fun day ruined by mayhem I totally missed. I figured Protest #2 could go one of two ways - either the pacifists would come out in force to disassociate the student movement from the Millbank mess. Or, as appears to have happened, the troublemakers would redouble their prescence, and the disillusioned pacifists wouldn't bother to show up at all. I could tell at once this was not a protest I wanted to walk with - but I did have my camera with me (been trying to shoot an avant-garde movie, and my ideas require sunlight and Central London), so had a bash at documentary.

One of the things you'll note from the film is my interest not in the protestors, but the police prescence. I couldn't quite take in how darn many there were - somebody was overcompensating. That too bloodied the atmosphere. Being trailed by six riot vans is never going to make a crowd happy. I moved between being just at the back, in front of the police line, and just behind them. Met a guy dressed as the Joker, I guess - he had a bowler hat, clown face paint and a funny manner of speaking and walking, although he had not adopted the purples and greens

"Your card is the - Jack of hearts!" he guessed raspily on noticing my hat. I'm not kidding - to get ahead in the world, wear a splendid hat. Interesting, artistic, millinary-appreciating people feel the need to compliment it, and you can then have conversations with them. He was accompanied by a really pretty chap (I think; retrospectively, could have been female; really pretty in either case) dressed as Edward Scissorhands.

The protest came to a halt in Parliament Square, simply because those at the front stopped moving. I imagine, corralled by police vans at the other end. The atmosphere was not nice. Two separate groups had brought loudspeakers rigged up to dance music, but not the positive euphoric sort. The exciting, ugly sort which is fun if you're pretending to be a post-apocalyptic biopunk at a rave, but is a bit too appropriate to hordes of angry youth. A group had already climbed on top of a bus shelter, with one of the speakers, and a mini-rave had begun.

On the opposite side of the square, a line of people were standing on the sandbags, piled against a temporary railing that kept the protest off an open drain - I joined them for a better perspective, and made a classic mistake. A few minutes later, a sort of stampede toppeled the distant end of the railing, and that dragged the whole thing down section by section. My first instinct was to jump off the sandbags and get away from the trouble - retrospectively, my first instinct should have been to stay there and keep recording. Not a mistake I will make again!

In the middle, a police van was overrun by enemy forces - slogans had been sharpied all over it, an Anarchy banner erected on top, by three revellers who had scaled the sides. One wearing the iconic V mask. I love how the iconography of V for Vendetta has been adopted by real life - it's the kind of reality bending I really enjoy. The despair was new - I've never felt that at a protest before. I think a sense of severe disillusionment was what made it all so nasty, as if everyone were to say "Who cares if a few buildings get trashed? Or if I get jailed? You're not going to listen anyway - I'd rather take out my hate than petition for my hope". After the governmental double-cross, and the miserable end to the last demo, the only people who would bother protesting a third time would have to be the last stand mad-spitfires.

I didn't feel comfortable at all, so stayed to the outskirts where there was still quite a lot of space. I kept shooting until my battery ran out, then went to leave. No such luck - the three police lines were preventing exit on all sides. The chaps I spoke to were all very pleasant about it, suprisingly present considering they were paid today to stand and wait to be beaten up. I would have expected them to be more tense. The man I spoke to on each side helpfully redirected me to the next side, where maybe people were being allowed to leave. In fact, no one on any side could get out unless they had a pass proving - I couldn't work out what, but some businessmen and photographers managed. I found a quiet corner and grumpily ate my pasta - I was quite cold by this point, bereft of the fun of filming, and getting increasingly late for a meeting with people I wanted to impress. Rather stressed about the crowds too - I hung around the police line and watched a lot of people turned away, even though they were still letting people in through a one-person gap at the back.

It increasingly felt like a tragedy in waiting, as different smokes rose from the very front, and someone let off a firework. Moderate people of various sorts had apparently made the same decision as me - this was not a protest they wanted to be at any more, and they wanted to be out before trouble, but were being prevented from. This included many of the reasonably dressed older women, spooked teenage girls and several bands of young kids. This bothered me a lot, because if trouble was on the cards, then surely diffusing the crowds in a controlled manner before it started would have cut down on chaos.

I'll be interested to hear how the situation was resolved in Parliament Square, because it seemed the easiest way of causing a riot/stampede that could have been designed. I attempted exit by all three sides multiple times, and while doing so a huge surge of people swarmed into the quiet space. At the time, I thought "well this is it then!" - I'd known there was no exit for about 15 minutes at this point, well long enough for it to filter through the crowd. I made a break for one of the shops lining the route (poor proprietors! Poor holidaymakers trapped in the cafes!) and got chatting with an older woman from just inside, as we watched people continue to move outside. Nothing kicked off, it was just spontaneous movement. I tried the three sides again, and finally decided to try and break out in the corner where people were entering. There were apparently people trying to exit, and I could see some succeeding.

No. 2, my dad, has an oft-repeated anecdote about getting a great view of a Genesis concert by following a really fat chap all the way to the front - well, I found a pair of overweight older women. They were let through just ahead of me, and then the gap closed leaving me face to face with a brick of a cop. After a moment, he asked "Tourist?". I brandished mny camera, nodded innocently, and tried to look Welsh. It worked, so thank goodness for blonde hair and general panic, because if he'd stopped to think about it, he'd have noticed I was dressed like the studentiest student who had ever studied.

Tadah! Freedom! At which point I allowed myself to be really damned unhappy about how the morning had turned out. Adrenaline does wonders in the moment, but then life crashes. In the ghostly empty street behind the protest, I met a group of school kids who had broken out of their school - literally, headmistress tried to keep them in, they smashed down the gates, to get to the protest. They all praised my hat (see?) and warned me about the corral, and seemed to be warning other latecomers.

I struggled back to my meeting, rather late, and was afterwards so tired that I found an abandoned room in the Strand and napped on a sofa for two hours before I felt able to walk to the Tube. Good day. Depressing and desperate, but no experience is intrinsically worthless, especially one you walk away from, and I'm now going to edit everything together for you folks at home. Catch you later!

I look forward to Halloween all year, but never ever do a costume in time. This year, the pressure is on: I am attending the Antichrist Halloween party, and there are some fabulously dressed people there, so I really have to compete!

Costume has more than a small element of shamanism to it - the idea that, by wearing the pelt of a bear you become a bear. You don't get hundreds of chaps old enough to know better dressing up as Colin Baker to show off their tailoring skillz. So I've some ideas - since learning pincurls, I considered doing Undead/Robotic Jane Austen. I've a wedding dress; or a 60s dress. But really, I'd like to take advantage of the liberal atmosphere to dress how I feel. I presume that's why the clothing gets so wacky at fetish clubs - the idea is you dress how you imagine yourself, and then become them. Queen of the vampires? Fine. Pin up? Definitely. Post-apocalyptic warrior? Why not.

Previously, I dressed up as Leda - which felt like safety in a way - and Deadeye Monaghan, Dandy of the High Seas - my Skypirate alter-ego. I put the Deadeye costume together in about ten minutes, complete with a broken spoon for an eyepatch, and it was excellent - and I felt excellent. The only way to top that feeling? TBCINM. As there were some elements of Blake-the-spaceship-captain in my Deadeye-the-skycaptain costume anyway. I have wanted to do this costume so very very much. I could do Jenna or Soolin. But - meh. And I've a sneaking suspicion it will look terrible, so what better place to testrun it than an environment where people will be wearing duct-tape?

I originally planned to make the huge iconic sleeves, but as that was made of green leather, I decided to tone it down the brown version - as it was still huge and swooshy, but in a more manageable fabric. Plus, this costume was featured in some of my very favourite scenes, so it made sense. About this time, got paranoid about sizes and shapes, so did some sketches. Which confirmed and crystalised what I had already, on some level, worked out. These costumes had been designed to flatter a rectangular person, and a rather stocky one at that. They would just look like sacks on me: back to the drawing board.

Shook the urge to wear something in poor taste. My third or fourth favourite costume is known as "the Robin Hood", and it could charitably be called a tunic, and less so, a mini-dress-over-leggins. Definitely achieveable, quite easy, and girl shaped.

So at 11 today, I dashed off in hunt of a simple green tunic to build the costume on top of. Bumped into the shooting for X-Men First Class, but they wouldn't let me have a look at filming. Still, I can inform you there is a scene on a balcony with a greenscreen background, featuring a lot of world war 2 soldiers. Walked up to the nearest Oxfam, on Drury Lane, which I had discovered when the washing machine broke and I was badly out of clothes. Consider buying a coat of the appropriate colour for conversion, but decided my sewing wasn't that good. I hate modern brand charity shops. Fair enough, they want to make money for their causes - but if I'm shopping at a charity, I don't want to spend more than a fiver on anything. Hence today, I wanted a cheap dress for a costume but kept encountering things in the £8-£20 range. Across the road to a vintage store - goddamn those places are even more depressing - all overpriced, but all uniform in what they sell. Did have some nice Fifth Doctor pullovers, though. I gave up on getting one of those about a year ago, as it's so totally unflattering. It didn't do Peter Davison any favours either: it coalesces with my blonde hair and sweet expression to make me look like a total wimp. Discover a third charity shop, which was properly cheap - but nothing suitable.

But I got my second recommendation of the day for Goodge Street, so off I toddled and took the Tube. Got lost in Tottenham Court a bit. But en route, I discovered Jackson's Toy Shop and Museum - which was an excellent emporium of stuff you'd never know how to find if you needed, like bouncy balls and Victorian scraps. And a massive Paperchase, which I shall definitely return to. Goodge Street had three rather upmarket charity shops and a vintage store. In Oxfam no. 2, I found a lime green silk dress which had the perfect shape to it - but was so obviously the incorrect colour that I couldn't justify it. Still, found some rather cool slides (overpriced!) of the planets and moon landings.

Was getting pretty peckish at this point, so I bussed down Oxford Street - resorting to mainstream stores. After all, charity shops had proved equally expensive. The problem with mainstream? If something isn't in, it isn't in - and I couldn't find any shop which would even attest to the existence of the colour I had in mind! Popped gloomily into John Lewis, as the only haberdashery I know of in London. Looked at patterns for a bit, but that was obviously beyond my talents - or at least, under the present circumstances. Considered Primark. Had a pizza slice.

The only other charity nub I knew of in London was West Hampsted, with it's road of ten in a row, so I took a train up to my old grounds and had a mosey around there. I shot through all ten in as many minutes - it was 4 by this point, and I was aware that closing was going to happen soon. No luck. I bewailed my sad situation to the final checkout assistant, who recommended I go to Kilburn. Bus! Kilburn! Nasty area, and it took me some time to find the charity shops she had meant. Traid - charity shop number 17 - was unhelpful. By this point, I abandoned the idea of adding black panels to a green dress - I would add green panels to the ubiquitous (?) black dress, and to this end went into the cheap-and-nasty shop next door. Perfect! Found it in minutes - my size, the fit I wanted, everything. I think it's a bit short, but who's counting. And next door, a cheap Cancer Research provided a lovely, lovely skirt in the perfect shade of green.

Then I staggered home and slept. Five hours, five hours of shopping - but at least I didn't need to resort to my last case ideas: dressmaking from scratch, or visiting fetish shops (from which Blake's 7 notoriously bought their original costumes). Still, there is quite a to-do list, which I type for my own benefit in order of priority:

Tuesday: vital stuff

• Record mp3 of Greek verbs, so they can be played ad nauseam.
• Go to Tescos - buy a tin of water chestnuts and a cereal multi-pack. Eat cereal, fold out boxes and work out size. Plus milk.
• Make pattern of the front and back panels on dress
• Decide how closely to adhere to the triangular design of the original
  
• Make pattern for shoulder pads. Work out how much felt and ribbon you need, not forgetting the trim.
  
• Go to Greenford Hobbycraft for:

Black felt + ribbons + stiffening something or other (shoulder pads)
black ribbons (costume trim)
brown and gold paint/tape/something (teleport bracelet)
embellishments (teleport bracelet)
serious duty glue (ray gun)
white felt x 2 (power packs)
felt for other projects
polystyrine ball? for the base of the ray gun.

• Get home without getting into trouble. Get over supersticious dislike of Greenford based on previous visit. Coo while passing Perivale.
  
• Cut skirt into desired shape, carefully because it's an inconvenient material.
• Attach skirt to dress. Somehow.
• Prance around happily in front of a mirror.
• Make and add shoulder pads (probably felt squares + ribbon, or maybe some of Bevenita's black tape?)
• Remember ribbon around the neckline Have stir fry for tea.
• Start work on whatever you can from tomorrow, today.
  
• start thinking NOW about Halloween next year...

Wednesday

• Cereal for breakfast - if necessary, cereal with water chestnuts. Style 1920s hair.
  
• Early morning Greek. Lose the will to live.
  
• Go to Soho for sleeve material if there was nothing suitable in Greenford, but don't waste too much time - it's too vital a part of the costume to screw up.
• Return to campus and style hair of companions for Bloomsbury High Tea
• Go to Bloomsbury Tea (3-5). Relax.
  
• Assemble ray gun
• build teleport bracelet
  
• Look lovingly at the original undershirt, and reflect that it is probably too warm to wear to a club even if you did have time to make it. Which you don't.
  
• Badger friends about lending you something with a huge collar anyway, to compensate...
• Consider, ruefully, that there is no way to incorporate fake blood into the costume. Consider doing it anyway.
  
• Email mum about making said undershirt for the future...
  

Thursday

• Meet Friend 2. Go to Manics concert. Do some work.
• SWAPBOT.
• Library books. Make decision about Poggius script.
  
• Have shower and curl hair overnight

Friday

• pincurl hair
  
• use any skirt scraps as ribbons in hair
  
• combine with eyepatch and add a Federation logo with facepaint, just because I look good in an eyepatch and facepaint.
• Die
• Enjoy party.
  

Sure - 2010 isn't over yet. But I have so, so many awesome corkers already that I thought I'd start this term afresh.

So come one! Come all! Marvel at tautologous dialectic debate! Gasp at speculative heuristic modalities! Speculate as to exactly what academics are compensating for! You've seen it on your television screens, you've heard it on the news - now live for one night only, the one, the only:


Junior Division: prizes for individual words.

Academic Puns
Calypso notes that the use of puns are "pretty much the only fun academics have". This year's most popular word:

"DissemiNation" - about diaspora from Nation and Narration

"Nation, Space and Politics" from last year's champion, Terry Nation. See what they did there? The sub headings are even better: "Nation-wide influence"; "The blurring of Nations"; "the birth and death of a Nation"; "a Nation divided: geographical and social space"; "Microcosmic, allegorical Nations"; "Binary Nations"; "dystopian Nations" e.t.c...

On this model, here are some suggested titles for future Doctor Who essays:

"Little Miss Moffat: Fairytale Stylings and the Dream Landscape In Season Five"
"What's On and Holmes: Reimagining the Gaslight Detection Narrative Under Hinchcliffe*"
"Masterplan or CartMelodrama? Developing the character of Ace."

*I know jokes aren't funny once explained, but this is funnier if you know the Hinchcliffe era was script-edited by Robert Holmes, packed with gothic horror and and once featured the Doctor in a deerstalker...

Made Up Words
"The Gothicity of Slime" - I presume gothicity means "gothic-ness"

A repeated word in a poem was described as an example of "geminisation"

"Hauntology" - investigation suggests this (broadly) means "nostalgia"; Calypso simplifies things by explaining "it's the study of queer spectrality"

"Fraudomy" - I suspect the pronounciation ought to be something like "fraud-oh-mee" - but who knows? Or cares? Let's call it "Frodd-om-mee"! Logic suggests it means: "I thought I was a sodomist - but it's OK, just kidding!". But having googled the book in question, the author himself can explain:

I propose to read sodomy in a way that has less to do with revealing a particular "truth" (or "truths") than with thinking about sodomy as a mode of knowledge, a way of reading the articulations between these various forms.

So now you know.

"Phallologists" - people who examine queer philology. Ignoring it's Just-A-Minute ring, I don't even like this as a concept. Why would queer philology have to be all about phalluses anyway? Can't we have Rainbologists or something?

Junior Division 2: Phrases

The "Water is Wet Except When It Isn't" award: Saturday Morning Censorship

"Censorship both prohibits and produces meanings"

The Stephen Fry Goblet For Using Twelve Words When Two Would Do - forgot to cite the source for this, but I think it's "Terry Nation" again.

"Very frequently, linear narratives and parallel montage are combined, creating dramatic structures emphasising repeating patterns of character separation and reunification"

Translation:

"The Doctor and companions are split up. All the time."

The Doctor Seuss prize for Prose: Just Gaming (JF Lyotard); pg 41

"As narrator she is narrated as well. And in a way she is already told, and what she herself is telling will not undo that somewhere else she is told."

Ah, but who is telling you, Baloo? Have you told about them too? Ah! Let's talk as we walk to the zoo!

Runners up:
"Patriotic, atavistic temporality of Traditionalism" -Nation and Narration (pg 300)

Senior Division One: Titles

Lovecraft Memorial Goblet: Syllables Will Eat Your Soul
"The Darwinian law of competitive Devolution versus the Kropotkinian law of symbiotic Evolution & its Metaphysical Manichaeian Division"

In some alternate world, surely this is Saturday Morning TV show - "Oh no! Kropotkinian is destroying the city with his tenticles! When trouble strikes: call up the Manichaeian Division!"

Most Arresting Title:
"The Masturbating Venuses of Raphael, Giorgione, Titian, Ovid, Martial, and Poliziano"

Some academics will do anything for a grant. This chap seems to have hit jackpot by getting all serious about the world's favourite topic. Incidentally, the paintings under discussion are this one and this one

Runner up; and winner of the Words Prize for Using Words

"Pure Resistance: Queer Virginity in Early Modern English Drama"

...so, Queer Virginity, eh? What does that mean, when not being eyecatching?

The "Surely This Is A Parody" Fiji Mermaid Statue

"Stripping the Public Bare: Theorising the Politics of In/Equality from Nudist Encounters"

This has it all, ladies and gents: it scores four shots on the academic title bingo. The focus of the paper is on, broadly speaking, Nudist Equality as compared to race, gender and sexuality struggles. You'd think this was fairly easy to answer, as three of these four activities is a quirk of birth, and the other a one-way track to hypothermia. But nothing can ever be that simple, as the abstract explains:

"Equality here gets read away from its calculative, distributive modality, to focus instead on textured, touch-based equality fantasies."

So now you know.

Runners up:

'Commodities and Culture in the Colonial World 1851-1914' is hosting a roundtable discussion on 'Global Theory; 'Theory' in/of Motion'

Senior Division 2: Special Interest Awards

The Cold Fish Trophy for Academic Missing The Point

"...the refusal to accept norms of behaviour or social constraints is an advantage that allows Blake to pursue his visions of a better world, but it also makes him somewhat ruthless and uncompromising."

The key here is "somewhat". Blake's transformation from Generic Hero Guy to very flawed and surprisingly nasty is a brilliant and uncomfortable turn of events. Dismissing it as "somewhat", to my mind, suggests they just weren't watching properly.

For those operating at the other end of the spectrum, we have the Taking It Too Seriously Memorial Garland: http://www.hermit.org/Blakes7/Essays/neil-A-B.html

"That the Blake/Avon relationship is not only the most developed and most significant relationship in the series, but also one between *two men*, means there is no attractive female role offered to the female viewer. She must therefore insinuate one into the inter-male relationship by ascribing traditionally female role qualities to one of the male characters..."

"I propose, therefore, that Avon is asked to fill, simultaneously, the roles of Man, Woman and Child, and things naturally get confusing. Hence Avon's relationship with Blake, operating in all three spheres, is likewise confused."

Ripperologist of the Year
This new award is dedicated to "experts" in a specific field. This was an especially competitive field, with casual, amateur lunatics fighting to distinguish themselves from professional fruitcakes. Some of my faves:

"Connecting the Dots: Were the Ripper Crime Scenes Chosen to Form a Pattern?"

What do you think?

Most Respectful Ripper Memorial:
http://www.amazon.com/Young-Witches-Vol-Babylon-Graphic/dp/1560972416/ref=cm_cr_pr_sims_t

Oh yes. Well, there would be porn. Words...defy me...

The Award for Academic Thoroughness: Jack the Ripper: A New Theory (William Stewart)

"Could a Jack the Ripper today evade the police as easily as 1888? If Jack the Ripper was the sort of person I imagine there can only be one answer: yes"

This statement's vagueness is rivalled only by it's pointlessness. "If Oliver Cromwell's pancake making skills were as formidable as I suspect, he would undoubtedly singlehandedly bring peace to the Congo."

Senior Division 3: Personalities

Department of the Year
"Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence" Sussex

You just know they all lounge around wearing nothing but Venetian masks and expensive slippers, and write all their essays using the backs of recently-debauched maidens in place of desks, while pages dressed as Cupid bring them strange fruit, and wine in curious jade goblets fashioned in crude forms. I'd love to listen in on their dissertation proposal day...

Runner up:

Could the London Intercollegiate Network for Comparative Studies get any more vague?

Study of the Year
It is vital to correctly reference all academic works. Luckily, there's the "Study on Empathy for pain in Couples":

This project investigates empathy for pain (that is, how an ‘observer’ understands the pain of a ‘sufferer') in people who are in a romantic relationship. Please note that this study DOES NOT involve fMRI.

Oh really?

Male participants will experience mild to moderate heat pain during the study (e.g., like that of touching a hot cup or plate) in regular brief intervals, and will be asked to rate their pain experience. Their partners will be either in the same room or in a separate room, and will be asked to rate their level of empathy for their partner. Both participants will also have to complete some questionnaires on personality traits where they are asked to indicate their level of agreement with a series of statements concerning: anxiety (e.g., "I feel calm/tense"); mood (e.g., "I feel content/unhappy"); romantic attachment (e.g., "I feel comfortable/uncomfortable depending on romantic partners"); and pain attitudes and beliefs (e.g. "I find it easy/difficult to ignore the pain"). The device used to create pain (i.e., a small stimulator attached to the arm), is safe and it will not cause damage to the skin. Also, participants will get to sample the experience of pain at the beginning of the study and the amount of pain will not exceed the levels agreed by them at anytime during the study.

Gee, thank goodness! I'd been worrying how I'd substantiate the outlandish claim that "my other half gets upset when I am in pain"...on a more pedantic note, I'm interested by their use of "couples" and then the assumption that one member of this couple will be male...but I suppose that would necessitate a special study to establish that queer couples empathise just like regular sized ones do. Darned academic rigour!

Scholar of the year
A translation of Petrarch's sonnets in Senate House Library bears the following frontispiece quote:

"In the resurrection of science, Italy was the first that cast away her shroud and the eloquent Petrarch, by his lessons and his example, may justly be applauded as the first harbinger of day" - GIBBON

Beneath, a later reader has added in pencil:

"Likewise Ms. Wollaston's translation might justly be derided as the harbinger of new Barbarianism"

As much as the destruction of books chills me, I am always cheered by the appearance of satiric pencil notes. In my perfect world, readers would be encouraged to write margin-commentaries in library books for the next reader to discover. The world of academia would be much improved. In other places, he points out a "non sequitur", adds a Latin quote "parva sed apta mihi", and underlines paragraphs which - at first - I thought were those most relevant to his reading, but am now convinced highlight its worst excesses. He has also counted and made note that Ms W's whinging introduction runs to 68 words:

"It is not without a feeling of anxiety and diffidence, that I submit my poetical translation of "One hundred sonnets of Francesco Petrarca" to the world of critics, when I reflect how vast is the ordeal to which I have voluntarily exposed myself, in having undertaken a task none have thought fit to accomplish before me, whilst my sovereigns in intellect have not hesitated to acknowledge its difficulty"

Because there's nothing like modesty. And having flicked through the book, her introduction is indeed pants. My favourite passage is this piece of incisive and rigorous scholarship:

"The cord of life which had bound Petraca in union with so many friends had so unexpectedly snapped, that he looked fearfully round upon those still in existence, and fancied he heard the fatal shears contracting still more his narrowing circle, whilst one torturing vision clung night and day to his mind - it was a presentiment of his Laura's death. It was not long before his fatal foreboding was verified; intelligence reached him at Verona that she too had sunk a victim to the plague. We will not pause to describe the poet's feelings on this severest of bereavements...

But she does:

"...Who that has enshrined every hope and happiness in the existence of one loved object will not feel how complete must have been the wreck of both to Petraca in this his loss. Death had robbed him of his sweetest and tenderest tie, his only golden link to life - now his heart was widowed, his hope elsewhere. But did religion permit his noble mind to remain a darkening void, busy only with distorted images of despondency and gloom? No! once more he roused himself and found consolation in projecting schemes for his suffering country."

e.t.c. e.t.c., and this is before you even get to the poetry.

A runner up in this category commented on the introduction of Barsby's Ovid. He describes a poet whose women are no more than beautiful, silent stautes as having fantastic insight into the female mind. Our later pencil-bearing reader added:

"Really, Mr Barsby?"

Book of the Year:

Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of CS Lewis

Is to academia what aura reading is to a CAT scan, and is apparently the results of a professor's bet that anything can get published: "what about theorising that each book of the Narnia series was deliberatly based on the Copernican model of the universe?"

I recommend visiting his website - the Independant calls his theory "sensible", the Heythrop Journal "extremely convincing", and the Slime O' The Grot Express "Oh God Just Return The Children, I'll Say Anything." It also slyly quotes endorsement from the author of "The Da Vinci Hoax". Convinced? It's certainly true that, however marvellous, the Narnia books are a slightly mad inconsistent mess. So have a go now, and see which planets you would relate to which. I now quote Wikipedia, quoting Ward:

"In The Lion [the Pevensie children] become monarchs under sovereign Jove; in The Dawn Treader they drink light under searching Sol; in Prince Caspian they harden under strong Mars; in The Silver Chair they learn obedience under subordinate Luna; in The Horse and His Boy they come to love poetry under eloquent Mercury; in The Magician's Nephew they gain life-giving fruit under fertile Venus; and in The Last Battle they suffer and die under chilling Saturn."

How did you do? For my next trick, I shall relate each of the Care Bears to a Tarot trump...

Linguist of the Year: our very own Calypso!

We stumbled across this arcane passage in a book which we were increasingly sure was the lost tome Diacritics, by that elusive alchaemist Judith Butler. For fourty days and fourty nights, we poured over the occult text, trying to make the smallest sense of the strange characters and inhumanly contorted syntax.

“The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony, in which power relations are subject to repetition convergence, and rearticulation, brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

It was in no small part my rigourous study of the Ancients contributed to our success, and together we mapped out the structure of a vital fragment by identifying subject, object, verb, and linking antecedants with subclauses e.t.c:

“The move from a structuralist account
(in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways)

to a view of hegemony
(in which power relations are subject to repetition convergence, and rearticulation)

brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure //

and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory
(that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects)

to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony
as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.”

Yet Calypso provided the final, elegant translation: "Structure is being rethought because power isn't as simple as we thought"