Et In Arcadia Ego

Dear all. Today I saw a real child birth. And an autopsy. A whole bunch of autopsy.

They call that "in media res". The Greeks invented it. I do Classics.

The Avant Garde cinema course is proving to be terribly, terribly pretentious, but unlike Noir, it's supposed to be. I had to fight with claws to get onto it, and even though I feel a little worried about my essays - what am I to write? - every time a film starts, I'm overwhelmed by the sheer rightness of the experience. I am meant to be here, because I love the experience of watching those films. Which is quite the opposite to the palpable sense of "what am I doing here?" caused by noir.

The makeup of the class is also interesting. Over my three years at uni, I've felt a bit isolated in both my courses by other people. I suppose that's no one's fault, as I'm a ghost in both my departments. I feel a sense of hostility off them, and I in turn feel hostile, normally directed towards specific people who just piss me off merely by existing. Friend 2 is right: I have rage issues. In any case, there is a noticeable subset of the film department who are proto-academics. They always engage with the most roundabout and bonkers parts of the texts. They evidently adore Ginsburg, Niezche and Kerouac. hey have moleskines, or recycled notepads with a checker pattern instead of lines. Many have leather satchels. Several are Marxists. They wear unflattering huge glasses, and grandad-sweaters - and that's just the guys.

Something else links them - they're all in this class, and I suppose it's because if you are a pretentious hipster, the course with the highest dropoff rate in the university which requires you to watch frequently offensive/dull/inconsequential/guano shorts is the place you gotta be. To prove your hardcoreness if nothing else. The type of people who, when your lecturer offers a one-off screening of a 7-hour long avant garde movie, actually take the offer up. I know I did, and all this is making me worry that I fit their company too well. I mean, who am I to criticise the way anybody dresses at all? This morning, I was inspired by William Holden in The Wild Bunch, which isn't even a film I liked: quite cowboyish, but very red.

They call that context.

Anyway, I started getting worried today when the lecturer suggested the high number of absences were caused by those who had read the articles about the movies in advance. I had not done the reading. I'd like to nobly say it was because I hated to spoil the surprise, and this is indeed true. I'm also lazy. We were informed that the first time she showed it, half her class walked out and one hurled, and that we were not allowed to leave. Although I'm sure we could have, if necessary. Not that it was necesssary: we're the American Underground class! The Hardcore Pretentious Hipster club! Why would we?

Of course, they'd all done the reading, so I missed out on what everyone was talking around until just before the DVD began. It came with a handy warning that the following movie contained "actual autopsy footage" - which in itself was interesting. As if the fact it was real changed something. I mean, it obviously does - but if you're going to be chilly about it, it's all just image, and you could have replicated that all with effects. Would it have been as uncomfortable to watch had it been identical, but with the comfort it wasn't "actual"? At the end of the day, all we saw in the cinema was a mechanical reproduction - only the word "actual" made the difference to us. You could have convinced us it was fake.

Not that I thought that at the time - that occured to me some four minutes through. And it wasn't even "Jesu, pass me a bucket", because there are some contexts where I know I have nerves of steel, and this was one of them. It was something like this:

I have some very strong, very ancient views about art, and I've never had a chance to properly test them. Let me explain:

Oscar Wilde fried my brain very early, with the concept that "art is useless". From that, and associated ideas of the aesthetic movement, I formed my own opinions which I today discovered are actually a form of modernist thought. Art is something not put to use (hence my hatred of realism/"message" movies), so anything can be art when divorced from its context. Everyone complains about the screaming groans on the Bakerloo line. It sounds like music to me, because I decide "this is music", and then suddenly there are cadences and rhythm. And it's here that I find my love of terrible, atonal music. And in my mind, this is associated with children. You know, how a three year old will get hold of a fork, and it's suddenly the best thing ever. I suppose if you've never seen a fork before (or a hat, or a ball...), it must be pretty damn exciting, and that's the joy kids find in life: they can see this beauty everywhere. And so can we all, if you start appreciating a fork as art divorced from context - it's lines, shapes, colours, forms, light bouncing off metal and shining. There's nothing intrinsically separating the sparkle of a fork from the sparkle of a diamond. To get back to the Bakerloo line, the adult commuter hears the noise and itches for the WD-40, dismissing it as painful and annoying. That's only because they haven't abstracted it out of it's context.

That's my position on art, in a nutshell, and I hope you followed it near enough. When I go around spouting things like "everything is beautiful", or "everyone is beautiful", it's not because I'm a big damn hippy. It's because 9 times out of 10, every time I see something my mind asks "is it art?", and then rearranges my thought until it is so.

I'd take this position to a pretty extreme extent. For my Sixth Form art project, I argued something similar and wanted to use images of 9/11 to prove my point. Not the black and white arty photos, just any photos. Clouds and fire are beautiful - its just the idea of what those photos are which is horrific. Understandibly, teacher didn't think that was such a good idea, and in the end, I did the same concept but on decaying buildings. A noncontrovertial version.

But you can't take an idea like that without pushing it far. And that brings me to the dog story, in which an artist chains up a dog in an art gallery and leaves it to starve to death "as art", the internet protests, and invites Unmutual to join a group expressing how much she protests. When viewing the inbox request, my gut reaction, my microresponse before anything logical kicked in, was "but...wow!" And then a sense of total horror, aimed mostly at myself and not the original artist. Felt dirty for days after that, but still did not join the Facebook group. This isn't a story I'm particularly proud of - it shows me in a very ugly light indeed. I only mention it to point out these beliefs are apparently innate. Or in any case, more innate than my hatred of animal cruelty.

So the question was: I'm about to watch some autopsies. How extreme can this position go? And if you're at all sensitive about hearing about said film, or me using my typical blase exaggerated cynical tone to discuss it, now is the time to click the little X in the top right and come back next time I write about kittens.

Answer: I need to watch some mondo. Because it turns out that yes, in the hands of a fantastic director, you can abstract the human body just like you can anything else. I feel strongly that, in his use of colour and close ups, he was trying to express just my position. So many of the shots you could not tell what they were at first - they were indeed just colour and shape. You couldn't even necessarily distinguish the live flesh of surgeon from the dead flesh. Turns out that yes, even here there is beauty. There was absolutely no context - no names, virtually no faces, certainly no politics or underlying ideas.

I also thought a lot about how else you could have shot the film - in order, from further away, with sound (what music could you possibly use?) or in detail like Channel Five's Celebrity Hysterectomy: Our Hands In Your Guts. I feel it was very carefully constructed so as not to be gross. As far as that's possible when you're watching a head reduced to a Gallifreyan skullcap made of actual skull. I noted that the first fewindividuals were old men. I would probably have naturally gone man, woman - the fact he didn't stood out. I think I would have felt differently about a woman - whether because I is one, or because female nudity is a bigger taboo (I've a feeling it would have suggested sexual violence automatically), or a white knight streak. And children go without saying. It also started with a body examination, which took me by surprise - I figured autopsies were gross-out scalpel affairs.

Turns out this was an act of genius, which eased you into the movie. Ultimately, there was all of the above, but I feel it got successively worse (according to my notes, men -> knives - > a child, but shot tastefully, from quite a distance - > women - > really unpleasant stuff you do not want to see, combined with faster editing). But even as it got worse, I felt you were better prepared to handle it - not desensitised, just calm about the process. I mean, is it really any worse to cut up a woman than a man, or a child? Not really. Does it really matter what it is they do? Again - not really.

Although there were some shots at the end which I do feel were too much - but was that the cumulation? And indeed, I felt the whole film was too long - it bothered me a bit to begin with, then not at all, but towards the end bothered me rather more. I felt more viscerally grossed out by the serial killer lecture - which I almost had to walk out of - even though there wasn't any remotely objectionable content. Perhaps because that asked you to consider death from an intellectual standpoint, and I feel here it was an impersonal artistic exercise. Interestingly, I'm having more of a reaction to it now as I write as I did while watching - my throat dries out, and then feels like it's coated with babybel - which suggests this is true.

I also felt vegitarianism changed things. Several people mentioned the aspect of meat during the seminar, which I had also considered while watching. Part of becoming a veggie is breaking down that wall between "animal meat" and "living animal". Once you break that wall, it's hard to replace, and it's not much further to connect "animal meat" to "living human" - I'd say it was impossible to turn your back on that. Very much in my mind as I viewed, and I was in part amused by everyone else's responses. Yes. Yes, exactly. Chew on that.

Was I affected? Was I not affected? I think my emotions tend come out in strange ways, not always attached to their causes (Is this repression, psychopathy, depression, or passive aggression? Or overanalysis?) I think a bit of both - I feel the film was too long, because there was a level at which I could watch it as dispassionate art but not for very long, certainly not the whole running time. And I did need fresh air and a chocolate milk afterwards. I'm feeling less well now, than I did a few hours previous. And I'm interested to see how it affects me in the next few days - whether the imagery fades, whether it matters more or less.

In any case, he's an inspiration - or rather, he does things I've already thought of doing, but proves they can be done. I'd rather beat rush hour than write about Window Water Baby Moving - the childbirth one - right now, but it achieves something I've dreamed of doing. Catching the emotions of an event on screen, without narrative or anything else. And I feel I've absorbed aspects of his style - i.e, lots of close ups force colour harmony.

Because I'm not a pretentious hipster at all.

Also. I just saw a brain scooped out of a skull.

In todays issue: Shopping and Library trip; "Look to Windward" review; discussion of allegory; The Film Project Google Is Advertising Everywhere It Owns i.e. Everywhere; Update on B7 Updates

I - Shopping and Library trip

Went shopping this morning, and accidentally stumbled across a sale.

I should add I have been swamped with vanity all week. I've started doing victory rolls for my job; they require time and effort to both create and maintain. For the first time in my life, I've actually worried about my hair for more than ten minutes a day. It's a curious experience, and very irritating; but like all things, a nice place to visit, though you wouldn't want to live there.
I love my new hairstyle, and have been leaving the fringe roll in even while not at work.

Anyway, in a rare show of actually buying new clothes from a mainstream store, I got myself a brilliant white lace shirt, and am the happiest dandy in town; I'm amazed I hadn't done something like this sooner, considering the heavyweight of frilly gents in my memory. I also got a little knitted dress, which is close to my dream-dress as worn by Jo in The Three Doctors (sorry, no photos). Though now I think about it, and my penchant for adopting the style of whoever is most in my brain, and how plain and grey and 80s it is, and how ludicrously huge the sleeves are...

I wonder if I haven't just committed my first Avon-related fashion decision. I know I do this all the time for people I adore - this just seems especially low.

The highlight for me was the library. Going to the library fufils all the fun of shopping - the thrill of the chase, the joy of something new, the thrill of posession - with none of the burdens - i.e. spending, and wondering whether your house can handle the crap-tonneage. Consequently, I always max out my card allowance - which today was 12:

• "Appointment with Venus" (DVD) - interesting! All about the Occupation, filmed in Guernsey. David Niven stars - as does my grandfather, who was a College Cadet at the time and drafted in to play spare Nazis or something.
• "Stalag 17" (DVD) - POW movie, all about manly men, stoicism and betrayal. Slashy, so LJ tells me.
  
• "Solaris" (DVD) - the remake of this movie was one of the most incredible experiences. Technically interesting, haunting and emotional, thematically rich and hyperbole inducing. When I started frothing about it online, I was barraged by people saying - "oh, but that's nothing compared to the original!". If they're right, then I should be in for a favourites-list rearranging treat.
  
• The Brothers Karamasov (Fydor Dostoyevsky), England Made Me (Graham Greene), Mr Pye (Mervyn Peake). Going on holiday next week to a house in the south of France. It's in the middle of nowhere, and people keep assuring me it will be tedium inducing - hence me glomming up books. I'll probably take the first two - I've tried reading the last before, and it didn't stick. There's something nice and clear about old fashioned books that lends them well to the bittiness of holidays, which in their turn provide the sort of desperate atmosphere required to get to the end of any novel heavier than a chichiwawa. I read Crime and Punishment in a French caravan. Quite a mistake - that book is excellent and intense, and I remember feeling intensely queasy. Perhaps that's why the "holiday novel" is so appealing - they are deliberately bad, because reading good books are a distraction...
• Fifty Key Television Programmes - a media studies textbook of sorts, listing contexts and questions. I already have the impression that I'll already know everything it has to say about any show I'm a fan of (Doctor Who, The Prisoner, Queer as Folk, Brass Eye and Twin Peaks are among those listed). But maybe not, and it might give me some new ideas.
• Postmodernism - incredible. It's a little illustrated guide, and before it gets to postmodernism it's describing all the other art movements it is post-. I suddenly understand art of all kinds in a deeper way than I ever have. It's amazing how small a nudge I need to start thinking critically about painting. Vincent and the Doctor was enough to point out what Mr Gogh was trying to achieve; this book has done the same for every major art movement since 1900. Goodness knows why I picked it up, but I'm glad...
• The Indigo Children - oh yes! Because the longer I have it out, the longer other people can't. I'll update you with juicy extracts, just as I will for...
• How to Survive 2012: Tactics and Survival Places for the Coming Pole Shift. I'd ask "WHO ON EARTH FUNDS THESE NUTJOBS?", but it's clear the answer is: Guernsey Library. Case closed...
• And my new favourite book - A Hairdresser's Guide To Period Styles, with tutorials from Prehistory right up to 1990s-Rachel hair. My poor hair has had a pretty free ride so far; it's about to get the whole flush of teenage vanity in one or two frenetic weeks as I attempt a decade a day. I'm particularly excited about the French Aristocrat.
  

II -Look to Windward" review (spoiler-free)

I finished Look to Windward, but now I wonder (with my habit for forgetting blogs) if I ever told you about it in the first place? It's by Iain M. Banks, the man who wrote my once-favourite book Use of Weapons. I can't remember much about it, beside Staberinde, the chair, and enjoying it all very much. I never read one of his books since, because they are dense and I'm easily distracted. It was sheer force of will - and four days left to my own devices at work - which pulled me through.

Mr Banks is a sci-fi genius. He creates these technologically advanced worlds packed with ideas which are just part of the scenery. This one has behemothaus, which are kinda like starwhales with whole ecosystems living on their backs. Lesser authors would have written a book just about that. It makes his universe feel complete, and real; and I love the idea that for all these changes, human problems will stay the same - love, death. And his depiction of new social mores and expectations are just as thorough. His books are worth reading purely for the spaceship names, and, bless it, Wikipedia's got a list of the lot. Some favourites are Resistance is Character Forming, Very Little Gravitas Indeed and Nuisance Value.

I have some misgivings about the end, however. I read almost up to the climax, and I cared so darn intensely that I chose sleep over ending it. I had fantastic dreams in which I explored every possibility, watched it all go horribly wrong and then gave it a happy ending: I was that worried. It rather went pfut and fizzled when I read it again in the morning. Still, good up until the point I thought "...oh, that's it then?".

I'm still a little embarassed at my mind, however. The novel started in the first person, with a soldier in a battle trying to protect someone in a trench. On this basis, I assumed the narrator was male - including after the revelation that the second character was in fact the husband of the first. It was several chapters later, from the perspective of this wretched husband, that we established that actually our first narrator had been female - and I'd totally assumed it was a gay man.

I'm sure both parts of this suggest interest things about my priorities, prejudices and expectations.

Still, Banks will do that irritating modern novel thing of showing dialogue for ages but not clearly attributing it to any characters, so once you work out what's going on you have to go back and read it again with them in mind. Often, it's a deliberate point - and are there some convos in Windward which are never clearly attributed to anyone - but I hate it because then I get confused and make big, basic mistakes like the gender of key protagonists. And the worst thing is, I held it against Worosei for the rest of the darn novel.

Lesson of the day (facetious)
Never assume you know the gender of anyone real or imaginary unless clearly stated.

Lesson of the day (serious)
On the planet Chel, the name "Worosei" is feminine.

III- discussion of allegory

It also irked me during a big exposition chapter, where my mind glued what it was telling me about terrorism, vengeance and advanced cultures meddling with "underdeveloped" ones for their own good, to the dedication "For Gulf War Veterans". And I thought, "bastard - it's an Iraq allegory!"

Oh, how I loathe allegory, and hated getting trapped in one. I know its a sci fi staple, but I can't stand them. It's an position, not the position, and it lies in my specific literature uprbinging or whatever.

Deconstructing allegory was meant to be the whole point of this post; I've got kinda distracted, and now it's 12:30 in the morning. But in brief. If you approach both fiction and art from my perspective, then allegory has to be anathema.

My feelings on fiction are that it is real, or as good as real, if you are truly involved in it. This governs my attitudes towards how I consume it - I don't like eating while viewing, I don't like people talking, I'm not interested in continuity errors, blooper reels, or actors, I hate spoilers. And also governs my responses to it: it closely influences my real world views, and I tend to have emotional breakdowns when things inevitably get wrong, as they tend to do with a greater frequency in drama, because I'm always too darn involved. An interesting byproduct of this - I don't really enjoy parody, I can't help but take them deathly seriously. I'm like the bloody Thermians off Galaxy Quest.

As for art, well - Oscar Wilde got me young, and his philosophy I can't shake. Art for art's sake alone - not to push a point, not to describe life as it is but life as it should be - to be beautiful. I like my fiction wholly escapist - social realism is a dirty phrase. And while I'm interested in media representation, to be honest I'd rather oppression of minorities than oppression of artists. Yes, any or all of them; even the one(s) I count under. I rather wish I didn't; logically I don't. But in my heart, in response to say Disney's refusal to release Song of the South, I'm always with the product over the people. My justification is that these things are fascinating because of their offense value, and in context they are important historical documents. Maybe that's honest, I don't know. It's interesting that by undertaking a movement which believes morality has no place in art, you are taking perhaps the strongest moral stance of all.

You may disagree with both of these. Often, I do. Certainly I don't believe I'm "right" - although I am right for me. Allegory hampers enjoyment of both fiction and art for it's own sake. I love Animal Farm. It's my favourite book about farmyard creatures.

The irony of this whole thing is that Look to Windward was written a whole year before "our" Gulf War, before 9/11, before Afghanistan, the lot. Which isn't to say he couldn't have been inspired by similar activities in Gulf War One and Two, and creepy foreign policy pre-2001; but it did mean that the very specific meaning I saw in it was all in my own mind. I created the allegory. I think I hate it all the more for that.

IV - The Film Project Google Is Advertising Everywhere It Owns i.e. Everywhere

I meant to take part in this, and I feel less of a wannabie filmmaker for not having done so. The premise: film your day, upload it to the 'Tube and then real filmmakers will edit it together into a documentary of this day in history.

Call me pretentious, but I couldn't possibly think of portraying something in film until I've considered what it is I have to shoot. Cinema conveys what you see through indirect means. You see, say, two happy people - but the camera will be close to their smiles, the light will be bright. You can't make decisions like that on the fly.

And I've been thinking a lot about realism too - and the artifice of documentary. Did we have to prepare a special day, worth filming? What if I went overboard, and did something unusual - is that OK? Or overcompensated and made my day unusually dull? Is it possible to just film everything that happens - the camera's presence would itself make a difference to it's realism.
I know everyone feels their life is ordinary, but mine is not of itself worthy of cinema. I'm not struggling; I'm also not about to propose to my girlfriend, or give birth to my first child, or bungee jump for charity. Nothing outstanding, and easy to shoot. I feel my perception, my imaginative life, and my friends are the two things in my life which are truly extraordinary, and may be of interest to others; but that's not easy to convey on camera.

Now I've spent my day (but not recorded it), I know how I would have done so. I may still undertake it as a project, but it'd require a lot of patience from friends and family, more than I think any of them could give on an idea that may not ultimately work.

V - Update on B7 Updates

My Blake's 7 comments are itching towards spoiler territory. Or rather, anyone is who is interested enough to want to know how I feel about it, will not want me to talk about the things I need to say. Anyone who doesn't care still won't care. So I am saving them all in one post, which I will publish eventually, and then you can decide to read them or not as you will. Of course, when it's all over and done - and it will be, they all are eventually - with I'll be to embarassed by my old obsession to let them to the light of day. I'm keeping it with the sentence-long fic fragments, another two of which popped into existence today. It's such a bizzare unintended project. I wonder how long I've been having them for, and not noticing?

Or if I've ever had this before? This is the first time I've had my obsessive process under such close observation. I'm sure this will ultimately serve a purpose. I've got all the recogniseable stages down on paper. I wonder if I could force an obsession into existance? Or keep one going? Or make one die?

And now for serious stuff. Race isn't something I really know how to talk about, having grown up in a monoculture. I've never had to consider it except as an abstract until moving over here. I've been thinking a lot about media presentations over the weekend.

I am concerned about the dehumanising effects of world media. I'm sick of seeing folks from abroad portrayed as victims. Now of course, if nothing interesting were happening in the country it wouldn't be news, and thus not being reported. But I am still starting to worry that it damages race relations by distorting our perceptions of foreign cultures. To take Iraq as an example, the only images we are given of Iraq are:

• Shakey camerawork of families wailing beside rubble
  
• Blurry, distant insurgents
• Crowds shouting in a disorientating language I don't understand
  

And if you want to see all of that in one go, definitely give Black Hawk Down a shot. Though it's about Mogadishu, Somalia, and I firmly believe the depiction of "the enemy" as an inhuman mass is a conscious stylistic choice to better give audiences the experience of being in a streetfight, nevertheless it goes through that list like a tickchart.

Journalists don't report Iraqi kids doing homework, because it's really boring. But even though I know, both logically and emotionally, that everyday stuff is going on, it's hard to keep that slippery fact in mind because they're not media images we are being given. Those three images are also purely emotional, visceral shots - and combined with a language barrier which makes the people we see unintelligable, it's hard to assign equal intelligence to them. Because of course I know, vaguely, or at least I'm pretty sure and it makes sense, that in Iraq there is as wide a variety of people as recogniseable from our streets: chav girls, bully boys, sensitive artistic souls, those who'll start an argument for no reason, or keep a debate going for the sheer delight of communicating. But that is only a very good guess, because the media has never given me any evidence for this. We are never shown a modern country evolved from an ancient culture, but a rabble of weeping, shouting folks in funny clothes.

One of the hardest hitting things for me during the Iran protests was photos of a shelled university dorm, because of course there universities in Iran, but it'd never consciously occured to me. Because Iran had never been introduced to me as anything but a potential nuke threat.

Everything gets boiled down to tropes. Until very recently, Doctor Who meant:

• man in a long scarf
• wobbly sets and rubbish monsters

...and as I have often pointed out, "Jack the Ripper" means:

• gentleman in top hat
• fog

But that arguably doesn't matter, because neither are real. Clash pointed out to me the way "Africa" is used as a country, not a continent containing countries; I think similar is true of "Arabia". I'd outline the media-Africa as:

• starving, potbellied children with flies (sometimes with celebs/aid workers)
  
• aparthite
• traditional dancing and singing
• Lions and giraffes
• rich white folk living in heavily protected walled zones vs. widespread criminal chaos
  

Again, note the total lack of intelligence: starvation, oppression, dancing and crime are all visceral, emotional sensations.

I also think language is part of the problem. One of the reasons I always preferred English/American holidays a choice terror of being unable to communicate. I always intend to learn enough to get by, but then never have the courage to try speaking it. Instead, I spend the week scrutinising street-signs as if I could lap it up. Being unable to speak is a serious handicap, and being abroad transforms us into mutes. The Hurt Locker - a less good film than Black Hawk Down, and I think overall quite a thin one - depicts this very well. How can an army communicate with people if they cannot speak the language? We're all used to the image, whether from movies or the news, of hundreds of "towelheads" running and rioting while depending on the period, either firing at nothing or waving scimitars - and crucially - shouting in a language, which to us sounds like guttural nonsense. As would any tongue we don't understand. When interviews are not translated, they are spoken in the understandably broken English of one for whom it is a second language. Yet in everyday life, we interpret people who speak slowly or pause while speaking as less able, and nevermind how many languages we can speak, it's hard not to box such images like that.

Especially because, even if England means:

• the Queen
• Upper class toffs playing cricket
• Tea. Butlers.
• Big Ben
• Emotional frigidity
• Shakespeare
  

...they nevertheless speak a language which "everyone" can understand, so those conceptions are easy to change with a three minute conversation. Similarly with America; and Europe is sufficiently boring, in news terms, that it isn't portrayed as a site of constant chaos. And it's not just the non-white world; the Cold War is very over, yet I can't remember the last time a news story broke about Russia that didn't involve them being sneaky and underhand.

This all came out in a bit of a flood. I've been very concerned about the state of THE ENTIRE WORLD, no doubt demoralised by heroes who can save the world in 50 minutes plus ad breaks. It occured to me that Whitechapel of the 1880s has merely been outsourced. In the Victorian period, nobody cared about industrial abuse because it was all going on in an East End no decent person visited. The rookeries got cleaned up in the aftermath of the killings, and we got legal representation and stuff; but modern sweatshops operate exactly the same way. Like Whitechapel, they're out of sight and mind to consumers.

In trying to come up with a way to resolve the world's inequalities, it occured to me that I was basically thinking of a significant proportion of the world as victims. Ever since then, I've found it hard to find a form of charity which does not seem to be covertly depicting people who need our help, as a bit too useless to take care of themselves. Reliant on generous Western handouts, but otherwise helpless, and a bit like animals: unable to communicate properly, propelled purely by hate, fear and hunger, and incapable of reasoning.

That might be overstating it. And I'm sure people in trouble would prefer my cash than vague liberal guilt. But I'm concerned that all this has only just concretely occured to me now, and it's reminded me how insidious popular media imagery can be.

It's certainly screwed some of my gender ideas up, in a way too complex to ever tackle via blog right now. But in short, I'm increasingly aware of being somehow deeply misogynistic, and it's something to do with the interminable portrayal of women in cinema. I wonder what else it's affecting? It is only with about a year of conscious effort that I've convinced myself that fruit is nice, and chocolate isn't. But I've got to really think about it, and unlearn everything television ever taught me; and I still choose chocolate on reflex.

On the other hand, perhaps I'm just very, very susceptible to television. At least, I know I'm susceptible to television; but I wonder how universal this is. More so than most people happily admit to, I would guess. I definitely think this TV-trained-racism is partly responsible for the total "hearts and minds" failure going on in Iraq and Afghanistan as we speak; although that is a bit different, because you have to dehumanise "the enemy" to sucessfully fight a war.

If you could believe the people you were shooting at were as human as your next door neighbour, you couldn't do it.

Further viewing:

Planet of the Arabs
I can't get enough of this short! It's a rock music montage of Arabian stereotypes from movies. Features crazy-towelhead-rioting, "all I want is to KILL AMERICANS!", "there's nothing to stop them going anywhere in the US!", "you American imperialist pig!" - it's hypnotic, hilarious, and as Polonius would put it, "tis true: 'tis true 'tis pity; And pity 'tis 'tis true"

"Born Free" - MIA
This music video just got banned, understandibly for violence, although it's turned into a bit of a censorship cause celebre. It is like the happy answer to everything I've wittered about today, using a genius idea which ahem I developed for a school assembly once...but don't think I hold a grudge, because it is an artistic masterpiece - gorgeously shot - and is definitely worth nine minutes of your time. I can't explain why without spoilers, so just see it y'know? Note how the American setting is codified with the now familiar tropes of the dust-war movie...

And now some thoughts:

• Do you agree? Disagree?
• How do you think we could improve representation?
• What is your favourite crazy-Arab movie? I was thinking maybe The Mummy, that's got some delicious stereotypes.
  
• And what do you think is the best representation of foreign cultures as equally human?
  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There will be data."

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

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

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

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

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

Sunday was a lazy day. Calypso read me quite a lot of Pope - Magister loved Pope, for the way he seems to roll off the tongue completely naturally despite the rhyme and meter - and Rochester, made more famous recently by the film The Libertine. I read up on the Indian concept of rasas, in the first academic essay I have ever loved. It explains me to myself - the way I enjoy fiction and the way I write it, I discover, originates in India. Who knew? If I have time I'll explain it to you.

I'm becoming disillusioned with Swap Bot. Getting parcels from all over the world will always be fun. The whole point of art cards is they involve art, surely? But so far all I have received is craft. As a good disciple of Wilde, I believe things should be beautiful for their own sake - art alone, art without message, and accordingly I get quite irritable at Galactica's "War In Iraq" season. And yet totally meaningless is just as bad. And that's what I keep getting - art without feeling, images which do not invoke any emotion at all. It's rather a shame, and I'm starting to look elsewhere for swap sources.

I'm devouring films as quickly as possible, alarmed by only being at 40 for the whole year. I know I've missed some - I always do - and I know I went through miserable no-film stretches, and had Doctor Who demanding my time - but this still seems very low. I want to beat Rob's total for this year, even if he no longer blogs and therefore I won't know what it is.

Finally, a question for you. I read in the paper that there are movements underfoot to prevent BNP members from becoming teachers. It's a sticky issue and one that has been mulling in my mind. Please comment and help me figure it out.

On principle, I don't think anyone should be barred on account of their beliefs - but I still don't want them anywhere near my children. Which of course, is exactly what BNP parents would say on hearing a black man was to be made teacher of their kids.

I think taking one group of people and saying "they are wrong, period" is a dangerous thing to do - because it bars understanding. No human act is wholly irrational - it comes from somewhere. I think its giving them too much credit to say that goodness or genius can be understood, but that bad behaviour cannot be. Look at these two statements:

"That is a wicked child"

"That child is misbehaving because his mother used to spoil him"

I know why the second child is bad, so I know how to help him behave - I also know how to bring up a third child more successfully. To compare: "That racist is wrong" is a position I'm uncomfortable having. I'd much rather know why she holds those beliefs, what in her upbringing or mindset has differed from mine. Because understanding offers solutions. And this further: I know had I had that upbringing, or a different combo of chemicals in my brain, I might feel that way too.

Are the racists right? No, bear with me a moment. I'm liberal but for the grace of growing up under liberal parents. Had I grown up, say, in the Bible belt, as a Muslim, in a hippy commune, in Jersey - my conception of right and wrong would be fundamentally different. One of the issues philosopher's get themselves in a twist about is whether there is an absolute morality. If there is, I actually think discrimination is one of the things that can never be right - even worse than things like murder, which can be justified as self defence. Judging an entire group of people on account of their biology can be understood but not excused.

Yet this line of thought genuinely creeps me out. Of course, maybe alt-me would have broken away from her limiting background and bravely stand up to the opinions of her peers - but I doubt it. My core beliefs have been drummed into me since birth. Just as, say, the kids of racist parents will grow up with a distinct suspicion towards whatever they're not. It's not their fault, it's just genetic bad luck, and it frequently makes me wonder whether the principles I hold most dear are being judged by others around me, or incorrect by the standards of everyone else. Am I right? By my own morality, yes, but if there is an absolute morality, can I work out where I stand in relation to it?

With all this in mind, does it even matter? Political correctness, personal freedom, civil liberties - when our children are at stake? After the bomb trouble, there was institutionalised racism in the British police force because there was a 99% chance new threats arising would be from the Muslim population. Grossly unfair to the 98% of British Muslims who didn't want to hurt anyone and thought the whole matter was appalling, but their sensibilities were subsumed to the cause judged as greater - preventing any more explosions. Similarly, here we are judging between fairness to a disreputable group of people and fairness to our children. Surely if there is a reason to discriminate, this is it? We discriminate against paedophiles in our schools too. Yet I was against ID cards - I didn't think public safety was more important that civil liberties - and if you bar the BNP one day, then who will it be next? Slippery, slippery slope.

Eve identified, correctly, that there are more subtle ways of discriminating than merely passing on your politics. In the classroom, you could easily privilege your white pupils, ignore or make unwanted everyone else, and at that malleable age such ideas would stick. Congratulations on breeding a generation of bullies. As a good liberal parent, I don't want my children exposed to an influence like that - and so the cycle starts again, of children being fundamentally moulded not by right and wrong, but by their parents ideas of it.

Tricky, tricky, tricky. Tell me what you think.

This story concerns the bus driver who drove me home today. He was a real sweetie - most turn into robots, but he was evidently new because he had a laugh at something said over the intercom, and stopped to help a fellow bus-driver round a difficult corner. It was while we were stopped that the old man sitting next to me started mumbling. At first I didn't think it was directed at me - he was clearly too old to be on public transport on his own. But it was, and when I worked through the mumble he said:

"Ruddy foreigners" [the driver was black] "Why do we want foreigners driving our buses?"

I've never thought racism was a big problem before being in London - yeah, so shoot me - because it is something I have never encountered first hand. So I was a little shocked, but more peeved off at him making me a part of his bad attitude. It's hard not to feel that, by not disagreeing with someone, you are tacitly agreeing.

"Where you from?" he muttered conspiratorially.
"Here," I replied.
"Me too..." and he trailed off into dribbling again.

I got as far as turning back to him, to point out that the bus driver lives here too, before deciding to stay silent. It's all about choosing your battles, and I knew this was a pointless one. He was too old to change his ways, and probably too crazy as well. That's not what I regret.

All last term I lived in a liberal bubble - all my friends were gay, and black, and Jewish, and if they weren't, well they were working on it. It was a bit of a shock to come home and realise that actually, outside the student populace, the world is filled with judgemental bigots. Like discovering a forgotten sandwich that has turned into green fluff, somewhere you least expected it. Even though I knew the man was old, mad, and had no idea what he was talking about, it still really depressed me because his is a view shared by young sane people who should know better.

It reminded me a little of a a monestary we visited in Santorini. I picked up a leaflet in which the author explained why monks were not meant to help those in need, and why seclusion from the outside world was the best way of helping it. He drew a comparison to the radio operator in an army. Everyone else fights, which appears to be helpful - but if things get dire the radio operator can use his radio to summon air support. Now of course, if you're not a Christian - or indeed, not Greek Orthodox - this must strike you as useful as calling in your imaginary elephant friends to trample the enemy.

I'm still not convinced of the ethics - it suggests God is up there counting prayers, and when enough monks sing at the same time he deigns to intervene. A bit like Noel Edmond on Comic Relief night, sitting on his cloud with a big white beard and a big holy thermometer. Surely it would be better if the monks were out there doing good works instead of indirectly influencing things with the power of their minds. Though it does suggest that secretly, all monks are Timelords - refusing to interfere, but shaping the big curves of history.

That mad dude on the bus has really been the final straw. All summer, I've been looking forward to retreating back to my circle of pagan, Guardian reading, vegitarian, recycling, pro-everything reactionaries and shutting out the world. Guernsey is a nice place to have come from. But now I think of it, that's exactly what the monks have done. Instead of engaging with the world and actively helping, they are hiding away among their peers and not taking first-hand stock of its problems. It's making me wonder whether I've been wrong. Though it goes against everything I admire, instead of missing an atmosphere where everyone is happy and liberal, I should have been hammering people with my wit, knowledge and superior attitude until they were happy and liberal too.

I think I've discovered something beautiful, but daunting, about the world. You shouldn't try to find a better place - instead, you should be striving to make the place you are in a better place.


And that's it for me - tomorrow, I'm off. You might not hear from me for a while, as there is no internet at the new house yet. Two more ideas for house names: Castle Anthrax, and Traken. The latter is the chief planet in Doctor Who of a Union "held together by everyone being terribly nice to one another". It seems apt.

So. The rest is silence.

Loud progressive rock: as a mood soother, there's nothing like it. I feel slightly guilty for playing Warriors at the Edge of Time at this volume at ten in the morning - but not wholly. I've a funny feeling that it may not really be 10 in the morning, and that it hasn't really been ten in the morning since, well, it really was ten. If that makes sense. Calypso worked out that I am effectively giving myself jetlag.

It's a better way of dealing things than my natural reaction which is to, y'know, go out and hurt people. If this is reminding you of Walter Kovacks watching that building go up in smoke, while deciding life is cruel and meaningless, I suppose it's not far wrong. Sometimes you do just come across things which make you think "well, that's it then..."

When it comes to real life tragedy, I think a lot of people find me flippant and insensitive - especially the big ones which society demands you show obsequious sorrow for. And it's true I refuse to play ball, and won't watch the news or read the papers. Perhaps its at the root of why I sympathise with the Comedian, because some times things get so dark that really, all you can do is laugh. Or in any case, dodge the impact and meaning of the things. I refuse to interact with them, I can't. The world is so full of misery that you need but peer through the floodgates to start drowning. I mean, seriously - war, poverty, unemployment, homelessness, disease, domestic abuse, deforestation, gay persecution, animal persicution, religious persecution, race hate, extinction, natural disasters, accidents, fires, floods, murder, theft, rape, capital punishment, save the whales, find the missing persons, broken homes, failed marriages, kidnap, blackmail, drug crime, human trafficking...

Have I forgotten any? Yes, there's a lot of things wrong with the world, and I hate it when my mind goes down that route because there's so damn much of it, more than any one person can deal with or even comprehend. And I'm reminded of the Doctor innocently jetting off from Gallifrey, deciding he was going to fix everything wrong with the universe, and that over 900 years later he's still trying and nothing has changed.

Couple that with a lack of meaningful solutions, and my misery is complete. What do you do? How do you cope with it, except for shutting it out and pretending it isn't there? Thank you fates, that I come from an affluent family who can send me to have an education, who are loving, and who live in a country where I have as many options as I do dreams. While I'm sitting at home in my ivory tower - do I donate my time, my money, does it actually help if I go dig a well for a village somewhere, or is it more helpful to sit behind a desk and contribute that way? What about joining the Samaritans, helping people cope with tragedy instead of fighting the tragedy itself? Do you pick just one issue, and chase it to its lair, or help them all? It's why I love blood donation as a cause - it's a very real, very tangible expression of aid which cannot be subverted or debated. It is as simple as a man dying one moment, and not the next. That can never be wrong.

These feelings of inadequacy are doubtless linked to the superheroic status of my current "heroes" - I've always had someone, and on moving on felt I have learnt something from the experience, unsuprisingly at present its the Doctor and Rorschach. It's never occured to me before what an interesting pair of values to respect at the same time. One sees the world as fundamentally wicked, the other believes in the inherent good of the universe, even in the Daleks. One sees his role as an exacter of justice, while the other would rather forgive. And probably most obviously, one of them is a pacifist - and the other one is Rorschach. In other words, I am finding sympathies with both viewpoints, despite the fact they could not be more different. The only thing they have in common is the refusal to give up.

And this is why I am flippant. If you can't help, then ignoring it is the closest thing to it going away. Because new age religions and fantasy novels do have it right about the balance between good and evil. On most days of the week, when real life doesn't distract me, I am in awe of how much wonder there is in the world - and I mean everything. Even Daleks. Beauty is everywhere, in everyone - take anyone you know and imagine their smile - in nature, and in stupid things like the colour of the Metropolitan line, or dilapidation in the ugliest building. To feel anything at all, be it anger, be it frustration, it's something - and of the mundane miseries of life, few of them count for anything at all. Even babies crying on the Tube, even missing ten minutes of your show because the football has overrun, those stupid human things, are wonderful. They have to be. To put it back in Watchmen terms:

"But the world is so full of people, so crowded with these miracles that they become commonplace and we forget... I forget. We gaze continually at the world and it grows dull in our perceptions. Yet seen from the another's vantage point. As if new, it may still take our breath away. Come... dry your eyes. For you are life, rarer than a quark and unpredictable beyond the dreams of Heisenberg; the clay in which the forces that shape all things leave their fingerprints most clearly."

I love that scene because that's how I believe, how I think we should all believe. Laurie expresses it better in the final chapter, but I can't find the quote and it's spoilerific anyway (and that's why it's such a good book, because it can express everything, and I've quoted it at least four times this article). Maybe this wonder rests in my lack of interest in science, yet there is still joy to be found in the smallest things. On Saturday mornings, I come into the kitchen and smile precicely because of the appalling mess of food, discarded plates and cans - lots of cans - the Light Side has left behind them from last night. I remain amazed by the fact pitta bread swells up when it is microwaved. Or Cicero, defending the existance of the gods:

"Through daily repetition, however, and constant ocular experience the mind becomes used to the sight; it feels no wonder, and does not look for the reasons of things which it always sees, just as though it were the novelty rather than the importance of things which ought to urge us to inquire into their causes."


It seems to me that the world is so dark and so wonderful in such equal measure that it's all a case of perspective. Some days I am one, some I am the other, and the healthiest among us can cultivate both. Acknowledge the darkness so far as it is helpful, but believe in the good, aspire to it and make your own little bit of the world a little bit better.

So I leave you with "Trains to Brazil", one of the happiest songs in the world. It's hard to be unhappy listening to the Guillemots, and they are in musical form everything I've been trying to say. It's about 9/11 and 7/7 and the death of Jean de Menezes and the message, roughly speaking, is how brilliant life is. Like many a Guillemots song, it ends in a cacophony of sound, for the pure joy of making noise.

I defy you not to dance.



Incidentally, one of my film studies teachers is guilty of adultery. Ach, maybe the word "guilty" came off a little heavy handed - no, I'm not planning to go and remove his fingers one at a time. Except if I fail my year. In any case, he mentioned it in an essay about representation or something. I don't have anything hugely against adultery, it just struck me as a weird thing to confess to in a public forum, even if it is to illustrate a point. Am I missing something here? Has it somehow become OK to date married men in my absence?

I regenerated last week.


Perhaps an inappropriate term, but it stems from a conversation on the Gallifrey forums, where the bizzare question was asked - "Which regeneration are you on?"


Timelords have 12 regenerations, leading to 13 lives. One gets the impression a proper upstanding Gallifreyan spends his time in contemplation, then when the time comes, meditates for a bit and surrenders one life to start another. The Doctor never gets the chance to do this as he tends to die violently and out of the blue. It also explains why his personality flails about so much between actors. You couldn't establish stable government or friendships if you knew your President could, at any point, regenerate into a loony. Yet the character of Borusa is seen four times in the show, every time played by someone new, but always holding a high government position. This suggests that controlled, premeditated regenerations, aided by fellow Timelords in a relaxed enviroment, are far more stable, and result in similar incarnations. Whereas the Doctor's new form is determined by chaotic factors such as location, nearby companions and recent history, and there's evidence that the nastier and complicated the regeneration, the nuttier the next incarnation (in particular, a slightly batty 4, totally unstable 6 and perpetually amnesiac 8 being the direct results of the show's three nastiest deaths)


It's not death so much as rejuvination, and you get a strong suggestion that regenerations are really reactions. Pacifistic 5 turns into hardline 6. Dark, willing to compromise 7 turns into candyfloss and kittens 8. And so on. 9, who was willing to blow up any number of planets to defeat the Daleks, turns into 10 within moments of coming to terms with that decision and then deciding not to commit the same crime a second time.



Hence the question - which regeneration are you on? A few months back I thought, "eeek - the first", because even though I'd been overdue one for a while, I was clinging on Master-like to my first form for all it was worth. But time was finally up this week, so off I went and here I am, all fresh and spangly. And not a moment too soon.

So yes, it's another case of me mixing my realities up - but it's one I choose to believe, literally as well as figuratively, and it feels great.

So what's changed? It's more a process of codifying. Vague ideas about religion have just come together into genuine spirituality. All my concepts of gender, race, age, family, relationships have coaleced into (at last!) a strong sense of individual identity. All my ideals and years of liberal leanings have exploded into a genuine attempt to live a truly ethical life. And all this within the last few days, which is why it feels like a shot in the gut then a burst of life, instead of a sensible slow progression. I don't really intend to talk about this in detail, as almost every facet of Unmutual II would offend some different sensibilities, and I like you all to much to risk offending or upsetting any of you. One curious byproduct of all this is that suddenly, and I have no idea why, I feel totally at home in the Maughan and can navagate it perfectly and without difficulty. Perhaps that, too, is the equivalent of the Doctor sitting up and suddenly being able to play the recorder?

But the newest revelation is that I really have no choice but to become an at-home vegitarian.

I admit, this is partly Calypso's fault, who is as we speak attempting it with far more success than me. You can tell her off for being an appalling influence later. With her attempting it for a week, and actually sincerely succeeding for a whole nine days, it suddenly occurred to me that for all my ethical fretting this was an angle I'd never considered.

It's ironic, really, because until last month Friend 1 was a vegitarian, and had been for some five years. After years of attempting to persuade me, she gave up citing bad health and a loss of conviction. She's right. And I still hold by the key arguments against vegitarianism which I've been pestering her with for those five years: I believe it is unhealthy, denying yourself a burger will never defeat the industry and that the human race has evolved to eat meat.

But like Friend 1 recently found fault with her reasoning, so I have with mine. To be a healthy vegitarian, you have to make your cooking far more creative - what better excuse to do something other than rely on pasta? Eating meat is the lazy option. By forcing myself to find alternate protein, perhaps I'll become healthier overall?

I've never believed the industry can be defeated, whether by my refusing to drive and only using public transport, using recyclable milk bags or boycotting Nestle and Proctor & Gamble. In reality, all that will happen is I'll miss out on Kit Kats and Pringles. The companies won't fold and be ethical - I actually think ethical big business is an impossibility. But that doesn't stop me doing my bit for carbon pollution and animal testing. With my acnowledgement that these actions are useless, yet still worth doing, it's hypocritical to continue eating meat on the basis that we'll never be more than a minority. Not a single less cow will die. Like not shopping at Primark, this is more a move for my personal peace of mind. Unless I was on the point of starvation, I would find it very difficult to actually kill an animal for food. On this basis, I do not believe I have the right to let someone else do the dirty work, nor to disassociate a bunny in a field with the pie on my plate. In all this, I admit, there is probably some longterm Doctor Who related reasoning.

And finally, that humanity has evolved to eat meat. Humanity has also evolved to wear clothes, to regulate sex through marriage, to help those less fortunate than us and to not stone to death anyone who covets his neighbour's donkey. My father's argument falls down here - his claim that we are at the top of the food chain, and it's how nature works. Wrong. As an advanced species, we have a responsibility. We don't shit behind trees any more - we've removed almost every natural, animal instinct we ever had. All primal logic decrees that if someone sins against you, you bash his brains out with an ox jawbone, yet we try to rehabilitate and forgive. Animals abandon deformed, lame and old members of their community. We try and help them, celebrate our differences, invent wheelchairs. Animal society is regulated by the survival of the strongest, with the alpha lion electing himself head of the pack. We have developed democracy, so that (in theory at least) the lion most suited to the job, in the opinion of the pack, is given control. In other words, we have distanced ourselves so far from primal existance that our animal nature is no longer an adequate excuse. Is it not the duty of a self-professed "advanced species", one that can invent the limerick, the spice rack and the bassoon, to better ourselves?

My father and I discussed all this yesterday, and he pointed out that if not for its usefulness to humanity, the cow would have long since gone the way of the wild boar and English wolf. Like cats and dogs, the cow has found a way to almost become a parasite on humanity, making itself useful in order to survive. But maybe it's time to get rid of it? The enviromental impact of the cow is crippling - bigger than airplanes. And now I'm going to pinch Calypso's link: http://www.flex.com/~jai/articles/101.html


Its not the biggest sacrifice in the world - I was never a massive eater of meat to begin with. It's the little things I'll miss, hot dogs, sausage rolls, hoisin duck wraps and in particular, sweets. Those sticky things made of e-numbers, sugar and animal fat - how I'm going to miss them! I always thought the Percy Pigs were foul, though, for containing real pig...



Panic attack over. Maybe I won't give up marshmallows - they may have to be the exception.

The biggest problem with ethics is how it steamrollers out of control. I've already had it pointed out to me that the milk industry facilitates the death of hundreds of bull calves in a year, and there's not the slightest way I could ever give up milk. Should I now reject leather as well? What about eggs? The instant you start boycotting one or two clothing chains, you realise that they're all as crooked as one another. Looking around my surroundings, I wonder exactly how much exploitation has gone on in the artificially-lit room around me - from my leather shoes and watchstrap and cheaply produced clothes, to my plastic packaged lunch. I wonder if you could ever define it in terms of blood?

So I'm laying down rules. Above, I stated I am an "at home" vegitarian, which is a cunning way of cheating. I exculde occasions when others are cooking for me unless it is easy to do so - partly because I don't want to irritate or inconvenience my meat-eating friends, mostly because my dad has an intolerance to gluten so mum already has to cook wheat-free dinners. Demanding that she somehow finds a meal free from both wheat and meat is very unfair indeed. Even though this is in part an attempt to broaden my culinary horizons, I'm still a very fussy eater, and the vegitarian options at restaurants are still appalling. So while I will attempt to avoid them, I don't want to rule out meat dishes in restaurants entirely. Nor do I want to be obsessive about it - it's not like accidentally eating a bit of fish...



...it's not like accidentally eating a bit of fish is going to cause me a violent allergic reaction, nor totally invalidate my own brand of lazy veggie. So I won't need to pester waiters to ensure my chips have been fried in naturally occuring plant fats.

So if that's proved anything, it means I'm going to be a pretty appalling vegitarian. But it's a start, and I have no good reason not to. To be honest, I don't want to wholly remove meat from my diet because coeliac disease is hereditry, and if I get myself to the same point as Friend 1 - where the very idea of meat is disgusting - then discover I have to go wheat free, I'll be down to soup and noodles for the rest of my existance.

Living an ethical life is impossible. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

Today my mobile phone woke me up. I set it charging - electrical consumption - while I had a shower under a mix of cheap chemicals, and got dressed into clothes which, while not Primark or high brand, were not hand woven hemp either.

Yes, being ethically irresponsible is part of life - it's a sad truth that if you were to cut out all unethical consumption, life would be impossible. And that's before you take in the financial implications - shelling out for fair trade everything is quite pricy. I've been having one of those Locke days - "what the hell am I supposed to do?!" - because it doesn't matter how hard I try, I still feel dirty.

And even when I feel I am being good - what's the point? I don't know anyone else who is consciously cutting down on their internet/computer usage; I'm the only person in the kitchen to pay £1.50 extra for chemical-free washing up liquid, I refuse to learn to drive so I will never get a car - but what's the point in my denying all these little, irritating things to myself when I know there are millions out there who leave all their computers on overnight and own private jets? In other words, my sacrifices are instantly cancelled out by other's excesses, making the whole thing pointless. I could switch off my computer now and save electricity - but out my window are a thousand businesses who've left their whole skyscrapers lit up overnight.

I've been applying my personal motto to it, it's the only way I can focus my efforts. You didn't know I had a motto? But it's Latin and all - "decus intelligentia" - and it came to me halfway through Rob Roy. It means "Duty with Intelligence", or, "do what you must - as far as it is sensible". In the context of Rob Roy it means "once someone has stolen your cattle, burnt your house, raped your wife and shot your dog, you are no longer required to challenge him to honourable single combat. You go down, sink to his level and kick his teeth in." In a Doctor Who sense, it's Warriors of the Deep episode 4 "cling to your pacifistic beliefs as long as you can, but there's a point at which mercy no longer extends to genocidal Silurians, and it's this point at which you can gas them in good conscience. Also, Doctor, this point actually occurred 45 minutes earlier..."

And so on - any film which ends with the entire cast being killed for no good "honour and peace" related reason which doesn't actually produce any practical effect. You're just dead - as Guildenstern puts it, "dying is not romantic, and death is not a game which will soon be over...Death is not anything... death is not... It's the absence of presence, nothing more ... the endless time of never coming back ... a gap you can't see, and when the wind blows through it, it makes no sound...". Last Samuri is another - they die for their beliefs, and they do it nobly, but the net effect is they end up dead - which is what the villainous Americans wanted in the first place.

As you can see, this motto is a direct reaction against trash heroic movies, but it applies to real life too. Defend your religion - but don't start wars about it. Go and help people in trouble - unless the odds are overwhelmingly against you. Protest your cause - but don't cry if it doesn't help. Recognise the point at which your actions no longer make sense, and give it up, but until that point fight like hell.

So, to ethical shopping. You know all big companies screw someone, somewhere down the line; you simply have to assume good faith, until explicitly told otherwise. There are always alternatives. I boycott Nestle - no Nesquiks, but you can replace it with equivalent cereals like Coco Rocks. I strongly boycott Proctor and Gamble because they still do animal testing, and this hurts folks, because I have to cut out Head and Shoulders, Tampax and Pringles. There are other shampoos, though, and as much as I hate to say it, there are also other brands of crisps. And at the same time, I ask myself what the point is, because not even my animal-loving ex-vegetarian friends can be persuaded to give Pringles up. People will never live ethically when it directly conflicts with their own self interest.

Before you ask, they test their chemical products on animals, not the crisps, but buying the crisps is still supporting them instead of forcing them out of business and to rethink their methods.

This requires some willful ignorance - I haven't looked too hard at the methods of the companies I still support, mostly because I know that to be big and successful you have to be dirty somewhere. But if ever I discovered there was something untoward, then I would ditch them too. Few things make me angrier than bitches who still shop at Primark - Primark bags make me want to push people in front of trains. Because it's not even a case of "I won't ask questions" - they know, they all know. If you sat them down and asked them to shoot a puppy as part of their Primark subscription, they wouldn't do it; but they can do it because out of sight is out of mind.

There is a point where being ethical is just hard to live. But there are other clothes shops. How many of them are any better? Probably not by much. But knowing and doing it anyway is wrong on a basic level. It also reminds me of an argument I had with my mum about the Christmas at Olympia fair.

Mum - "I really want to go to that next year".
Me - "you'd like it, but we can't because the company which organises it also organises Britain's largest arms fair in Central London, and invites countries with appalling rights records to purchase "defensive" torture equipment"

I can't remember her precise response, but I know that that didn't convince her. I find myself asking, what isn't convincing about "going to this event genuinely allows this company to involve themselves in murder and destruction, and make profit off the suffering of others". Yet Clarion won't stop organising arms fairs, all that will happen is my mum will be denied the fun of an admittedly great event.

Nothing will change. Yet if we don't, who will? It's like I always say about protests - 99% of which are a waste of time. The point of a protest is to stand up and show your feelings, to say you were there because you know it's right to be so - not because you genuinely expect the villains to buckle under pressure. It won't make any difference in a global sense; I just don't want to have any part in the destruction of the enviroment or opression on those less fortunate.

And that's it. Ethical living cannot be done. Even when it can be, the number of people too ignorant and/or lazy will far outweigh any contribution you can make to the side of good. Nor is it worth you living in a cardboard box with clothes made out of banana skins. It's like reality. You can't escape from it - it's everywhere, and part of who you are. The world is built on it. But you can make yourself as small a part of it as possible, and that's what I'm asking this week.

Don't get to the point where it's stupid. Just do what you can. Buy the greenest, fairest, cleanest products available. Not because it makes the world a better place, not because it has any impact at all. But because it makes you a better person.

In this post: my most recent awesome dream; discussion of "new age thinking" and defence of religion in our society; going to Sceptics in the Pub

Dreams are just marvellous, aren't they?

This one was probably sparked off by reading From Hell - Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper novel, which was (so I'm told) turned into a complete hack job of a film, albeit one starring Johnny Depp - just before I went to bed.

It was about school - probably, Ladies College - though in the dream it was the Victorian era (thank you Mr Moore) and the place again resembled grandma's house. The whole thing took place in sickly, muted tones. In any case, in this dream I was two women - one in white, which was quite clearly me (proof of this later), and one in severe black who wasn't me. The woman in black had, as a student, accidentally got pregnant - and to spare herself the shame, had got a maid to hurry the child away and hide him in the Matrix.*

*lesson for uninitiated: the Matrix is made up of the memory of dead Timelords, kinda like the greatest data bank in the universe. But you can actually enter the Matrix, at which point things get very surreal - it's a dream country, governed by no logic but the strongest imagination in there. It didn't occur to me when I picked the comic up, but there's a Valeyard book called "Matrix" in which he becomes Jack the Ripper - oh the joys of the subconscious mind!

This, naturally, doesn't do the child much good - or rather, he grows up pretty interesting. Put a baby in a place where everything you imagine comes true, and the consequences will likely be intense. What I really wanted was to see Alex grow up - could he extend this ability to the real world? What actually happened was the dream jumped forward to the woman in black's death, when she was calling for her son before a room of people who had no idea.

At the same time, I was the woman in white - I had come back to visit the school 30 years after being there. I was having the double experience of seeing it as it had been and seeing it as it was now. Psychoanalysts might want to identify this with the serious sense of distaste I have for what my replacements are doing to my poor old school. There was something terrifying about the place, though - I've come to appreciate the house on which the dream based itself, but as a child it did scare me so perhaps the idea is stuck. I knew that I was going to see something unpleasant in the piano room, I'd known from childhood. And indeed, when I was there I saw myself, aged 11-or-so, come bounding in through the door - also wearing a white Victorian dress. And looking just like me, looking at me with a peculiar expression.

I seem to recall the term "blinovich limitation effect" being used, which somehow dilutes the "Peter Gabriel would write a song about this" effect. Anyway, that's the core of it. I had a wonderfully thereputic dream last night, but I don't think I'm going to talk about it.




Last night, we went to an arty party, Sceptics in the Pub - a friendly but rowdy group who meet up in pub basements, basically to debunk stuff. Students are meant to go to gatherings of bourgeoisie intelligentsia, right? In any case, it felt very much like those groups you hear about pre-Revolution, of well-to-do gents who meet up to talk about stuff.

They're not exactly my lot - at one point, they described themselves as organised scepticism - while I believe as long as you are happy, and as long as what you are doing does not harm either yourself or others, you should be able to do whatever you like, whereas this lot seem to be more focused towards wiping out mumbo jumbo of all descriptions.

I'm quite in touch with my spiritual side, actually - while a great deal of it is utter crap, nevertheless I do believe that thinking positively makes you positive, attribute it to "positive energies" or no. I'm a great fan of visualisation exercises - I don't believe for a second that merely by visualising things, they will come to pass. But by putting yourself in a spiritual state - that is to say, finding an area you feel safe, blocking out distractions, and focusing on your problem - your subconscious mind is bound to start thinking creatively. Or "psychically cleaning" an area - it might be bull, but if you're walking around thinking "this area is psychically clean" it's bound to have a positive effect on your thinking.

It's one of the reasons I'm a great fan of the Tarot. Whenever I have a serious problem, I genuinely consult the cards. I put myself into what believers would call a ritual state - that is to say, cosy clothes and a hot chocolate. The very process of focusing on my question and dealing out the cards gets my juices going. I think about the pictures and the meanings - the fuzzy nature of fortune telling means you can interpret the same card very widely. No, I do not believe the God of Mumbo Jumbo has answered my question. But it encourages me to calm down and think creatively. The Tarot card says my key problem in solving this is actually a lack of progression or risk. Well, is it? And if it isn't, maybe mulling it over will lead me to some other angle I haven't considered. Would I let someone else read my cards? Only for fun - because I believe the interpreting process to be genuinely helpful, not that they themselves contain mystical power from on high.

I also believe that places hold power - Ellis Island Immigration Centre, one of the nastiest places I've ever visited, had something just horrible emanating from the very walls. Even though I recognise the illogicality of it, I do believe that places have memories as much as people. I've started to wonder whether there's some deeper reason why my house and the Maughan Library unsettle me. And on the flipside, there are some places you go - particularly natural places or religious buildings - and they too seem to have power. One place which comes to mind is a waterfall in New Zealand - we went on a long walk on a muggy day, had to climb across a swing bridge, and venture up through rocks and mossy trees. The whole place was just magic - it's what religious scholars call a numinus (Latin: divine power), and it's basically a word which means "having a religious experience".

I might even investigate a new age religion properly, if I had the time, the staying power, and could work out which of my atheist friends and my Christian friends would be more alarmed. It's a question Iacomus asked me on the evening - would I rather people were living in a fantasy and happy or realistic and enlightened? I went for the former, naturally, and was probably the only person in the pub who would have.


In any case, I kept my mouth shut, and it was fantastic. A rowdy room of non-believers and intellectuals, and a single speaker from Boston speaking on "Women's Intuition and other Fairytales" - about think-yourself-happy scams, "the mommy instinct" and the damaging effect Oprah Winfrey has on the female psyche. Great fun stuff - from the notion that mothers "just know" what is best for their children, to retreading that whole indigo children thing. Which I always thought was crapola - all parents think their children are the most wonderful things in the world, and your little Timmy being a starchild from Witch Mountain is just one cut above Shona getting her Julian the lead role in the school play.

As noted before, there was an angle from which I disapproved - I like having these things in the world, so I can test them and come to a conclusion, and I don't think it's fair for a large group which hasn't tested it to mock, no matter how hilariously daft it all is. And I do in part believe some of it - think positively that you will get a porche, you might not actually get one; but at least you will be thinking positively. The chief argument I had with it was the idea that people would "put their creative energies" towards a goal and sit down and wait, instead of actually working for it. I doubt anyone would give up on their dream and wait for it to be presented to them - and the knowledge that they are going to achieve it through psychic means is an incredible boost of confidence. I know people who have been ill, and healed through the power of prayer. A sceptic's response would be "that's total B.S.", but I think that's unfair - even if you don't believe that God had a helping hand, the fact the patient believed in the prayers must be very powerful on a psychological level, even if you rule out a spiritual one. This isn't about whether there is/isn't a God - it's about whether religion and spirituality have a place in our world, a question to which I would say "emphatic yes". When used incorrectly, this sort of thing can start wars and cause pain - but that's the way of the world. Food is a necessity till it goes off, when it is fatal; electricity makes our lives possible, but still causes deaths; the concept of "freedom" has been responsible for all sorts of atrocities, yet we wouldn't live without it.

Thus so spirituality. The sceptic says, "when they pray for that patient and he dies anyway, they'll say it's part of God's plan - they've got an answer for everything!". To which I say, how much of a comfort is it to accept that a God, who you trust, has taken your friend for good reason - than to be told it was some unlucky gene, some freak occurance, or cruel accident. One may be right and the other wrong - but there's no denying that one is going to help you cope far more than the other. Religion and new-age-crap have a very powerful place in our society.

Yet the speech was still fun, well argued and informative, and the audience quick with banter and contributions. It should probably say something about Calypso that she asked a question.

And the afterparty was fun too - we hobnobbed, and met some people Iacomus told me were famous, not that I recognised any of them. Famous columnists and the like. One in particular you could tell was famous - the charisma smacked you from across the room. When the group of us got talking - well, Iacomus and Calypso were doing the talking really, I wasn't feeling very witty and charming yesterday evening - you could instantly tell why he was a celebrity and we weren't. Did he remind me of Dorian Gray? Or was it Paul McGann? The very fact I was comparing him to hot people who he didn't even vaguely resemble in the cold light of day means I probably had a crushette. Which was swiftly rectified when he offered to buy us a round, and when I said I was OK, he commented with the distinct implication I was way too young for alcohol.

Which was something of a bucket of cold water. I didn't correct him.

Who else? A member of the green party who had a great cat badge. A comedian who Iacomus was also very excited about, and who I also didn't recognise. A non-suicidal guy (running joke, don't ask) Spirita made friends with, whose friend is intending to open a prog bar, and is told he looks a bit like Peter Davison ("You don't" I replied on reflex, and then shut up for the next ten minutes hoping it hadn't sounded too cruel and dismissive). Iszi Lawrence, comidienne and podcaster, who also has the coolest hair in the universe.

Also, David Tennant's little brother. Probably. Well, he looked uncannily similar.

I will certainly go again next month.

Finally, parents, if you've heard about the "squat in Peckham" incident, I want to reiterate that I definitely wasn't there, it had nothing to do with me.