tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440837531970757402024-03-08T00:11:34.425-08:00Gráinne MaguireGráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-68627499140298353212012-03-13T10:49:00.001-07:002012-03-13T10:50:15.328-07:00Catholic Church and Modern LifeIt must be weird being a catholic priest; you spend your entire life making it incredibly obvious to people that as far as adult sexual relationships go, you don’t really want to be involved. You wear the outfit, you take a vow of celibacy, you very publically choose not to take a wife yet again and again, the public end up banging on your door demanding advice on what they should do in the bedroom. They stand baffled; like a vegan asked for a steak recipe or a Pussy Cat Doll asked about female solidarity wondering how much clearer do they need to make it?<br /><br /><br />It’s an odd demand to make of an institution that is notoriously sceptical about women in the first place. Yes, we do make up more than fifty percent of the population but as religions go, they just don’t seem quite sold on us ladies yet. Women have only recently; biblically speaking, evolved from Adam’s rib and we are very much seen as the Johnny Come Latelys of the human species. If people judge the dearth of female comedians on our inherent inability to be funny, why shouldn’t the same damning logic be used to decide our ability to possess morals, spirituality or a sentient brain? If we do possess these attributes why have we so glaringly failed to make it to the front bench of the major world religions? It’s just not happening ladies, is it?<br /><br /><br />Maybe that’s why women are so desperate for advice from the men in frocks. Birth control, fertility treatments, family planning, all areas of life priests will never in a million years, not if they are reincarnated a thousand times, which as a catholic would be a bittersweet experience, have to deal with. Yet like dithering first dates unable to decide on a main course, we soulfully look up from our fertility menu and ask the men in black what they think.<br /><br /><br />I don’t know how they come up with their theories on how a teenage girl should cope with an unexpected pregnancy. Maybe they go out to meet young women and ask their advice, maybe they approach it method style and spend an evening in watching “The Only Way is Essex” whilst texting or maybe they just make it up as they go along. They join the priest hood hoping to avoid women and end up having to sort our yappy crazy lives out anyway, like the spiritual gay best friends that they are. Now ain’t that a kick in the head?<br /><br /><br />Which brings us to the latest news; David Cameron has announced plans to promote gay couples from the first division gloom of civil partnership to the full premier league glory of marriage. Like most people I thought “Yes, you may be the democratically elected head of government Cameron, discussing an entirely civil matter but what does the Catholic Church think? That famously infallible institution, governed by unelected men in red hats, multi coloured smoke elections and a two thousand year old magic book, what’s their take on events?”<br /><br />How nervous the Catholics must have been about issuing its response? Huddled in a room, smoking cigarettes and nervously looking out of blinds, “The people need us, but in all seriousness how can we help; an institution famous for sexually abusing children and then covering it up whenever we’re allowed into a country? Can we really tell anybody what they should do in their private life?”<br /><br /><br />“And don’t forget the Magdalene laundries! Locking women up for the rest of their live just for getting pregnant, in hindsight we were just kind of taking the piss there weren’t we?”<br />“And then there’s the fact that the ban on priest marrying has little to do with theology and is probably more about keeping money within the church, forcing us to live unnatural lives of loneliness and isolation”<br /><br /> “Good point! How can we make it obvious that we haven’t a clue what we are talking about? How can we say something so ridiculous and nonsensical, that our answer, in a way, satirizes their interest in our opinion in the first place? I know! Why don’t we compare same sex marriage to slavery? Then claim that marriage; a ceremony most people associate with overpriced stationary, angry aunts demanding invites and Britney Spears drunk in Las Vegas would be ruined if gays were allowed? Everybody knows gays are amazing at weddings; have you seen “Four Weddings”? They win every week!” <br /><br />“Perfect. Then maybe the public will finally get the message and we can go back to saying mass, listening to Susan Boyle records and secretly marrying our housekeepers as God intended. And no one will ever ask our opinion on anything ever again”<br />And that is what happened.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-28809330229008617652012-02-08T08:49:00.000-08:002012-02-08T08:50:06.435-08:00Why Ed Milliband is screwed.This week Daniel Radcliffe has announced he’s ditched the Lib Dems and put his lot in with Labour. It’s some much needed good news for a party in a very dark place. At the moment Labour are a bit like a lonely, abandoned family that’s been through a very bitter divorce. After a long, turbulent, some whisper abusive marriage, Tony and Gordon finally split. The removal van arrived, the boxes were packed, the kids, puffy faced and swollen eyed were told that although they still loved them very much Daddy Gordon needed some “quiet time” and Mummy Tony had a lot of money to make. <br /><br />Unfortunately for those left behind, when Mummy and Daddy absconded, they took not just all their belongings, heirlooms and valuables but their policies and ideas too. The party is now left in an empty house, with no furniture, cupboards bare and constant threats of the electricity being cut off. It didn’t help that, instead of the golden, older brother, in a surprise reading of the will everything was left to the nervous, well intentioned, younger sibling who now is struggling to keep it all together. <br /><br />No one hears from Tony anymore. While his children gnaw on stale bread, there are only occasional postcards from dodgy sunspots that reek of sun tan oil and tales of late night karaoke sessions with Silvio Berlosconi. He travels the world in borrowed jets, reeking of strong cologne, like a dead eyed Flying Dutchman. Everybody keeps meaning to check in on poor Gordon. Like an elderly relative they plan to call around for a cup of tea, maybe take him for a spin down to the shops, if only to make sure milk bottles aren’t gathering around his door, but they never quite get round to it.<br /><br />It’s not just the heroes of the nineties they miss, it’s the dreams and certainties they took with them. After years in opposition Labour were so desperate to get elected, to be considered credible enough for government that they abandoned pretty much everything the party traditionally stood for. Labour is to the unions, what the Tories are to big business, but while at least the Conservatives have the swagger to be honest about the interests they represent, ever since the D-Ream days there is a distinct nervous shiftiness about who their home base is. Like a first generation immigrant family, mortified by their ethnic family at home, they started refusing to speak the language and avoided bringing their new friends around.<br /><br />The “New Labour” idea was borrowed from the policies Bill Clinton used to win the US Presidency. You mix left wing policies; public spending, certain liberal social policies such a supporting gay marriage and mix it with tough right wing policies that will out conservative your opposition. So New Labour combined investing billions in the NHS and building schools with increasingly right wing policies on immigration, crime and social freedom. <br />Then it all began to unravel. Tony fell in with a bad crowd, got drunk on the dream of liberal intervention and woke up to discover he had invaded Iraq. Then after years of bullying Tony, Gordon finally took over and discovered that like a circuit comedian after too many years playing the clubs, he just didn’t have an Edinburgh hour show in him after all. He finally had power he coveted for so long but no long term plan for the party or vision to go with it.<br /><br />Then the big bust happened. After years on no proper regulation, people discovered to their shock that left to their own devices bankers will exaggerate and lie about how much their shares are worth if they can make millions from doing so. The entire banking sector collapsed like a house of marked cards. With the country days away from ATMs running out of cash, Gordon rallied European heads of states and saved the Europeans banks from collapse. But it was too late; Gordon was considered an incompetent mess. He was out and after years of internal Dynasty style plotting, self obsession and back stabbing, they had no next generation to take over, no new ideas, no clue what to do next. <br /><br />While Labour’s attention was distracted electing a new leader, the Coalition began rewriting recent history. The country is broke because Labour overspent, not the billions we needed to safe the banks. We definitely don’t need more financial regulation what we need to do is cut back the state. It needs to be replaced by the private sector, by the big businesses that coincidently donate millions to our party. Yes, in opposition we didn’t complain, notice or even mention Labour’s “over spending” in fact we promised to match it, but that’s not the point. This whole mess is like a family that spent too much. Yes, I know it involves complicated things like government bonds, quantative easing, the vagaries of international money lending and interest rates but that is too confusing and no on really understands how that works, least of all the experts themselves. Let’s compare the most complex international meltdown in modern times with a maxed out credit card because it’s an image that suits our message and the public can get their heads around. Meanwhile, Labour, stuck with a new leader they didn’t really like looked on dumbstruck.<br /><br />Now what should Ed do? The voters are now convinced they’re in this mess because of the overspending, should he go along with the new narrative to try to get people to trust him again or tell the truth that no one believes. He has a right wing parliamentary labour party longing for the swaggering confidence of the old days when they were in power. Why can’t you be like Tony they cry, they liked us then, appeal to the middle class swing vote, just stand slightly right of the Tories and that will be enough. He also has depressed voters desperate for an opposition, crying out for someone to sensibly oppose the cuts, but with a guilty feeling that maybe they’ve got what they deserve. <br /><br />Add to that the whispering voices in his own party, that the true leader, the older brother, hasn’t gone away, he is just waiting to regroup. He who shall not be named, is gathering force, writing articles for “The New Statesman” and is coming back. Its good news that Harry Potter has joined the party, if Ed Milliband is to be the boy that lived, he’ll need all the help he can get.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-36513800986161992222012-01-26T06:30:00.000-08:002012-01-26T06:31:58.513-08:00PIP Implants- the future of the NHS?Women who get boob jobs are a demographic it is hard to sympathise with. They are the vacuous, orange airheads the media encourages us to mock; why should they deserve our concern? When reports about faulty breast implants rupturing and leaking first made the news there was a feeling that since they’d already put themselves through one unnecessary operation, why should we feel bad they had to go through at least one more? Why should the taxpayer be concerned about a mess up in a private industry? It serves them right, the vain silly fools. <br /><br />If you’re a woman and you don’t feel good enough, if you don’t like how you look; it is your responsibility do something about it. Luckily if you’re not sure where your body stands on the spectrum, just check any magazine cover, newspaper, television programme or Hollywood movie. If you are vain enough to take the entire western media at its word, believe the message it screams in the face of anyone glancing in its direction; that a better body will make you happier, then help is at hand. After all, the only people less deserving of our respect than vain women who get plastic surgery are fat women who let themselves go.<br /><br /><br />The cosmetic surgery industry makes £900 million in the UK every year and 90% of its customers are women. Last year 25,000 women had breast implants confident in the belief that they were empowering their lives and boosting their confidence. That is three times as many as ten years ago. And why not? You go girls!<br /><br /><br />We’ve been trained not to take breast implants very seriously. They’re advertised on the tube, you can get two for one offers, there are even ‘Yummy Mummy Deals’. Even if it is illegal to advertise prescription medicine, like say a strong cough medicine, a two hour operation which requires a general anaesthetic, serious painkillers to cope with pain and a lifetime of follow up surgery every ten years, is fine. Unlike medicine, implants do not have to go through rigorous testing. All they need are a CE mark of quality, the same rigorous testing applied to yoyos.<br /><br /><br />Do we honestly believe that the risks involved are explained? Who can the women rely on to give them the best advice? The private health care company which exist to make a profit and view the women as customers rather than patients? Will they get the truth from the media that trivialises the procedure and make millions advertising them? Or the government that washes it hands? Unlike most bodies there is very little regulation in this private healthcare success story. In the US there are 6 authorised skin fillers, in the UK there are 140. There is no registered qualification for a cosmetic surgeon. Many surgeons work in the private industry because they have not risen in the NHS and are attracted to a field with remarkably lower standards. They aren’t on the General Medical Council's specialist register, which means they are not good enough to perform surgeries independently in the NHS but are accepted there. If they so wanted, a vet with no other qualifications could set up their own Botox beauty clinic, injecting poison into people’s faces.<br /><br /><br />It is guessed that between forty to fifty thousand women in the UK have had pip implants breast implants, it’s hard to get a definite figure, because very few companies kept track. What is sure is the reason why they used PIPs implants: price. Medical grade silicone costs 35 euros a litre, the industrial silicone used in PIPs, also used in furniture, cost €5. <br /><br /><br />When reports of PIPs implants rupturing made the news and worried women tried to contact their surgeons, some discovered the companies no longer existed, others that they the companies had no record of what they had injected into them . The three biggest companies announced they will only remove the implants when they had actually ruptured, forcing the women to walk around with the knowledge cancer causing carcinogens might be slowing leaking into their body unless they are willing to pay another two thousand pound to have them removed. <br /><br /><br />Women who choose to have breast implants might well experience some regrets. They might feel a bit silly or unhappy with the job, but should they have to worry that the implants they paid surgeons to put in their body might rupture and kill them? – Or is that just part of the deal?<br /><br />In 2000, after a similar problem with PIPS, 2,000 women successfully sued the company. They have still not received their money and the company were able to begin business again. The Health Minister stated that private health companies refusing to remove and replace the implants are "not stepping up to their responsibilities". Strong words, but then that is all the Health Minister of the United Kingdom can use; words. It is a private company so the Government has very little authority to intervene. With the Coalition recently promising that private health companies in the NHS will provide choice, transparency and competition, it’s beginning to feel like it’s the entire country the government is treating as silly fools.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-52848186358335311572011-10-17T13:59:00.000-07:002011-10-17T14:01:44.567-07:00Rihanna put some clothes onRihanna; the gorgeous R and B star with a voice like a fog horn on the pull, is in trouble for gifting an audience member with a lap dance as part of her life London show. This comes after her X Factor performance only just squeaked by Press Complains Commission and a Northern Irish farmer chased her off his land for wandering around his acres half dressed and presumably scaring the cattle. <br /><br /><br />I know, as a feminist I should be defending her right to dress like a trafficked street walker, but, I just don’t buy it. Why does empowerment for young women so often involve being half naked in public? I can’t image her male equals having to wander about in a thong to keep themselves relevant. Kanye West, P Diddy, Jay Z present themselves as media moguls, head of corporations while their female equivalent seem to have to act like the sort of women they’d hire for a dodgy staff party. <br /><br />When evidence of the horrific domestic violence she experienced at the hands of Chris Brown emerged, within months her record company responded with a sexier look and a record “S&M” that played up the frisson of sex and violence. The last pop singer who had her personal demons exploited for public success was Britney Spears, and we all saw how happily that ended. In the words of Destiny’s Child, a band that would never have been caught dead rambling round any field in the nud- “Child, put some clothes on”Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-61357543688639435672011-07-24T10:56:00.000-07:002011-07-24T10:57:28.726-07:00R.I.P. Amy WhinehouseSometimes when life is not going well, when you know at the pit of your stomach that things just aren’t going to sort themselves out, that everything is not going to be ok, the only thing that gets you through it all is music.<br /><br />The best music, like all art, comes from honesty and while there are plenty of songs about heartbreak, loss and disappointment, very few have the bravery and rawness of Amy Winehouse. In “Back to Black” she wrote about her mind unravelling, she sang in the midst of her life collapsing with the urgency and bewilderment of someone who doesn’t know if they’re going to make it out the other end. Through the patronising drivel of most pop, all the empty clichés and bland rhymes that never solved or made anyone feel anything; her records had the spine tingling honesty of the real thing.<br /><br />Her early death now means that she’ll be lazily labelled as doomed and weak, the opposite of everything her swaggering vocals celebrated. Amy the Cat was alive; she was messed up but was hanging on as best she could. In a world of overproduced, airbrushed perfection, she was as truthful and ugly as the tattoos on her scraggly body, as messy and earnest as her raggedy beehive. She knew that she was destroying herself but couldn’t seem to stop and refused to hide or apologise for it. The stomping sexy brass of “Rehab” announced a woman that dared you to patronise or feel sorry for her. Yes, her life was a mess but she took full responsibility for it and would rather tear herself apart than play the victim. She didn’t blame anyone, especially any man or relationship. What was the point when she was, in all likelihood, as messed up and culpable as anyone?<br /><br />Unlike most albums about romantic loss, there was very little about the actual person she was mourning. It was about her; her confusion with what she has doing to her life, her desperate struggle to gain back control and make sense of it all. With a knowing sneer, she let you into her world of rejection, despair, crying on the kitchen floor and in doing so gave dignity and the exhilarating relief of recognition to anyone who experienced anything similar. Worried you were cracking up? Tell her about it. Felt unwanted? Who didn’t? Worried you were mentally incapable of happiness for any length of time? Pass the voddy, she knew all about it. She was the unexpectedly sympathetic voice in the pub toilets, who saw you in all your raw eyed swollen face mess and nodded in understanding. Who was she to pass judgment on whatever mess you were in? All she expected was the same in return.<br /><br />I really wanted her to make it, to prove the jaded journalists without a whisper of her talent wrong. I wanted more records, for her to sing more songs about other things in life, to have the time to grow up and define herself as more than the messed up girl. Most of us go through that self destructive phase, where we confuse masochism with love and pain with being alive, but there are so many other songs to sing, happier ones; more interesting ones. The aching sadness of it all is that Amy will never get the chance to know that.<br /><br />Was all the pain she experienced worth the albums she turned it into? Would it have been better if she hadn’t felt so deeply, had been able to move on that bit quicker from whatever demons she couldn’t quite shake off, whatever emptiness she couldn’t fill? Was her talent a result of her troubles or a casualty of them? Isn’t it patronising and insulting to suggest that she needed the damage to make such amazing music; that all you need is a broken heart and a drug problem to produce era defining music?<br /> <br />Before the madness of fame, in her early interviews she came across as someone who just truly loved music. She described hearing soul records for the first time with the innocence and excitement most of us describe out first love. Her tragedy was that anything was ever allowed to come between it. Hopefully now, instead of the drugs, the messy relationships, the bloody ballet slippers dragged through grubby Camden Town, Amy will in death finally be known again for her soaring talent. Nobody who sang with such passion; wrote lyrics as wise and simple as “Love is a Losing Game” could ever be accused of having had a wasted life. Her devastated family can now finally have their beloved daughter back, reclaiming her from the tabloids caricatures and insanity of addiction. As for the public, those of us who never knew her, I doubt she'd want us to feel sorry for her. How could we? She left behind such music, such beauty and for a heartbreakingly short amount of time, she was after all, Amy fucking Winehouse.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-78045429264332588012011-07-08T01:06:00.000-07:002011-07-08T01:11:11.885-07:00Defending BridesmaidsAs feminist, I managed to enjoy “Bridemaids” still feeling I could look Emily Pankhurst in the eye afterwards. It was refreshing to see women on screen I could recognize. Instead of the usual shrill relationship fixated twiglets, these hot messes mismanaged their finances, fell out with their friends, got drunk and slept in bath tubs. These were ladies I could work with.<br /><br />Do all films about female friends have to be po- faced documents of female struggle? Do they have to end with the message that ultimately we all die alone? Hasn’t Samuel Beckett already beaten her to that premise? Why begrudge Annie, our heroine a nice boyfriend at the end? Rather than being desperate to get wed, she has to overcome her cynicism and grow up before she can get together with the nice Irish cop. Rather than being her goal, he and the rewarding relationship he represents is the prize she earns at the end. <br /><br />As for Kate Moss, I don’t think anybody considers getting married the supermodels greatest achievement. I think most were pleasantly surprised at how relaxed and incandescently happy she looked in her wedding pictures. The self made millionaire has married a man that obviously adores her, in a killer dress, surrounded by her family at a dream wedding, she probably paid for. Remember, this is that same woman who got her heart broken by Pete Doherty- give the girl a break. In the same week her ex stumbled out of yet another prison sentence for drugs, couldn’t anybody, of any gender, wronged in love not feel a shiver of vicarious glee at her happiness?Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-40734156053258380152011-05-31T07:10:00.000-07:002011-05-31T07:11:40.250-07:00The Queen's VisitWhen Obama visited Ireland last week and spoke movingly about the impact the Irish immigrant community had made in America, he knew how to get the crowd onside. Irish people get emotional about their diaspora in a way the British don’t. Historically, whenever the British moved abroad they were either inspired by the spirit of opportunity and adventure or off to expand the Empire. When The Irish left their homeland it was usually because something depressing was happening.<br /><br /><br /> Even now, Irish people still feel a twinge of guilt and responsibility for those forced to make their home aboard. That’s nothing compared to the guilt felt by the people who actually emigrated. If Ireland could somehow channel this guilt into a form of fuel, George Bush would have invaded us years ago.<br /><br />I had an auntie and uncle that moved to America during the last big recession in the 80s. The heartbreak of their leaving was matched only by the awkwardness and stress of their visits home. Every two years or so, they’d return with suitcases full of strange sweets, accents warped like old records and speech studded with strange Americanisms like “soda” that we’d all sneer at behind their back. For the length of the visit they tried to slip back into the family roles they abandoned years ago, with siblings they didn’t really know anymore, before returning exhausted back to their real life. <br /><br />My family never asked questions about their new home; it was as if for those two weeks everyone wanted to forget they were ever away. America was the other woman they wouldn’t speak of. The day they flew back was always the worst. Like a wake the family reunited to say goodbye, bottles of whiskey were gruffly given, neighbours called and hands were shaken. We were ordered to kiss our departing uncle and aunt goodbye, a strange intimacy we treated with giddy embarrassment. Nanny always cried and there was always confusion over she whether going to the airport would be too much for her. Years later, when it was my turn to move abroad, out of choice rather than necessity and only as far away as London, she sobbed as keenly as if I were off to deepest darkest Alaska. Don’t forget me she’d whisper as I hugged her goodbye and guilt sagged like a wet leaden raincoat. <br /><br />It’s not helped by the fact most of the Londoners I met had gaps in their knowledge of Ireland whole conversations could fall into. I didn’t want to be the clichéd Irish person trotting out Famine statistics and sobbing to Christy Moore, so I didn’t know whether to explain that “southern Ireland” wasn’t a country that Britain isn’t “the mainland” and the Irish language isn’t just pronouncing film as “filum”. Britain seemed clueless about Ireland; it was like discovering your best friend has no idea how old you were and the countries seemed separated by much more than the Irish Sea.<br /><br /> Even now, every trip home, I dread the car journey with my dad back from the airport, where I always get paranoid I’m getting an English accent. As I talk I can feel the strange London vowels in my mouth and my voice sounds awkward and clumsy like listening to a message I left on an answering machine. Now I’m the one bringing home sweets for my nephews and flinching when I accidently say “cupboard” instead of “press”.<br /><br />Even something as innocuous as watching the Royal Wedding in Trafalgar Square brought a rush of guilt no other European Royal event would bring. Had my head been turned by London with its fancy Palladium architecture and transport system. The Queen wasn’t just the head of a crazy family; she was the head of the British State. What was I doing waving her flag? <br /><br />So watching the Queens visit to Ireland I wasn’t expecting much. I certainly wasn’t expecting, all the way in Archway London, to feel a lump in my throat and a flush of relief, when she bowed her head before the memorial to the men who had died for Irish independence. The Queen of England, the head of the British army wasn’t just publically acknowledging my past, my history, my version of events she was honouring everything that mattered to my family, my Dad, my Nanny. Britain and Ireland were finally on the same page: London and home feel slightly nearer and I felt slightly less far away.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-92094759024178433122011-05-13T09:33:00.000-07:002011-05-13T09:35:12.365-07:00Oi! You SLAG!In London next month women will be march to reclaim the word “slut”. I’m shocked by this; I thought we lost that word to the gays years ago. I assumed that like a battered wife determined on a new start, it had moved to Brighton, got a makeover and was now happily describing the shenanigans of gay sexual culture with a jauntiness straight women never quite managed.<br /><br />But apparently not, a Canadian cop was censured for suggesting women could prevent sexual attacks if they stopped dressing like one. Who knew rapists were so picky? I‘ve never heard of a woman on the brink of being assaulted before her assailant realised skinny jeans were doing nothing for her. <br /><br />Sluts like the poor have always been with us. Ever since there was property to be passed down the family line, patriarchal society needed to ensure that their male heirs were all Wills and not Harrys. Whenever women have enjoyed any level of sexual freedom, and only the rich of course, it was usually followed by a period of balancing repression. The relative independence of 18th century women was in hindsight blamed as a progressive imbalance that led to the French revolution and resulted in an even stricter Victorian attitude. Ideas such as the medical theory that STDs were spread by the female orgasm made female sexual innocence more important than ever. Since the idea of female sexual independence is barely fifty years old, it’s not surprising a cultural myth as potent as the wanton woman has survived into the modern age.<br /><br />I’ve only ever heard the word used by a male friend once, a vinegary wash of anger, frustration and spitefulness spreading across his face like lights going up at the end of a night club. It always reveals much more about the man than the woman he’s describing. They are usually describing a woman they’re sure is having lots of sex just not with them. Or if they have slept with them, this proves in their wonderland of self hatred, that they’re soiled nasty goods. <br /><br />For women, the word “slut” has nothing to do with clothes. Yes we don’t, in general, really appreciate it when other women dress excessively provocatively but that’s more to do with the sober reality that, no matter how sharp your banter is, a flash of flesh will distract the most thoughtful of men. It’s irritating at worst; easy, obvious and equivalent to undercutting in business or crossing a picket line, but it’s not a hate crime.<br /> <br />Slut is a word not really used against women who sleep around a lot either. Most women feel a mixture of concern and rueful recognition for any sister going through that period of her life. Just as the scary witches were often lonely herbalists, the tear stained reality of the woman who will gladly have sex with strangers is usually less glamorous than men’s magazines suggest. They are, by and large, vulnerable, insecure and clumsily working through dormant issues with sole aid of their genitals and vodka. The rule of thumb being, if you don’t really like, respect, or even know the majority of the people you’re sleeping with, then maybe you’re not as happy as you think are. It’s a sentiment equally true for men too.<br /><br /><br />Women only bring out the S bomb to describe someone who has messed around with someone they care about. The women that steal boyfriends, cheat on their mates or sleep with someone to get an opportunity they didn’t deserve. These women never lose control, self respect and never ever sleep around.<br /> <br /><br />So if, in reality, these larky sex mad “sluts” of the popular imagination don’t really exist how on earth did that Canadian cop feel confident that he could not only recognise one but practically knew where she shopped?<br /> <br />It’s because she is everywhere. You only have to log onto the internet, turn on a music channel or walk into a news agents to see this mystical slag, this chimera of fear and loathing, She Who Must be Laid, staring downing at you, watching your every move, like a humourless sexually available Big Brother. She has no personality, no sense of humour and no clothes on. Her sexiness taken rather than shared, her own pleasure irrelevant, completely defined by her yearning, panting, unquenchable desire for casual sex, especially with the fifteen year old boys the magazines advertisers are targeting. The bitter irony that most women are at their flirtiest, filthiest and most experimental with men they trust, like and respect tragically lost on them for the next twenty years at least.<br /><br />Call me crazy, call me naïve but wouldn’t it be lovely if the term “slut” gradually fell out of use? If it could quietly slip unnoticed out of modern parlance and join “spinster” “crone” and “witch” as an outdated silly cartoon from the past. Maybe then, if we are very lucky, and fight really hard, many years from now, women would feel free to dress up as one every year for Hallowe’en. I know, I can’t imagine it either…Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-2354071399618746572011-05-06T06:44:00.000-07:002011-05-06T06:45:40.749-07:00I'm sorry if this is horribly sentimental but we all know how I feel about the subjectWith the death of the last surviving WWI soldier, memory of the first military conflict of modern times fades from the horror of personal experience to the safe sepia of historical fact. For those who fought in it, it was an experience so harrowing that, out of respect for those that died and to protect those spared the experience, they simply refused to speak about it. Now as that generation leaves us, their silence finally becomes complete, a permanent memorial their lost friends. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Although it seems a long time ago, to have experienced the Great War, you only need to have been born about one hundred and ten years ago, which is barely three generations ago. It's only the soldiers todays great grandparents. They’re the same people that bobbed their hair, drove the first cars and wore the clothes still hanging in forgotten wardrobes. They went to cinemas, cheered the present Queen, they were around for The Beatles, it’s not ancient history; their scent still lingers in the air. And yet, psychologically, their generation’s world view had more in common with the ancient past than our own. <br /><br /><br />Politics was then still the preserve of the aristocracy, women didn’t have the vote and Europe was a family firm run by Queen Victoria’s grand children. In the early days of recruitment before the horrors of the trenches became widely reported the war was sold as an invigorating noble crusade and death at worst an awfully big adventure. If they were to die, it would be as Wendy had insisted in J.M. Barrie’s popular play of the time – as brave Englishmen. Training still involved bayonets and horseback riding. Men were recruited from villages that barely had electricity and fought in battles against automatic weaponry, armoured tanks, gas attacks and mortar attacks. Instead of heroically riding into battle most soldiers waited for nerve shredding weeks in trenches slowly losing their mind. The condition of “shell shock” was coined for the first times and sufferers treated with suspicion bordering on out right aggression. The most common symptoms were either severe stuttering or selective mutism, the English language unable to catch up with what they had experienced.<br /><br />In the Crimean war, the last major military conflict before The Great War, the most controversial battle of the conflict at Balaclava resulted in the death of 110 men. 19,240 died on the first day of the Somme on the British side alone. There were only sixty years between those two events, less than between now and the dropping of the nuclear bombs in Japan. It’s comparable to our children finding it quant and old fashioned that we find the idea of millions killed in single second strange hard to understand.<br /><br />At home there was a hysterical craze for mysticism, bereaved families flocked to mediums, scientists attempted to use the newly mastered electricity to try to proof the existence of the soul, serious newspapers reported angels on the battle fields and the latest in photographic equipment captured fairies at the bottom of gardens. Communities that had lost their sons to the industrial weaponry of the 20th century were trying to use dying ancient myths to reclaim them. <br /><br /><br />Literature imploded; either into the escapism of Tolkien’s “Lord of The Rings” fantasises where homesick confused hobbits battled against faceless industrial death or fragmented into the emptiness of Elliot’s “Wasteland” and Joyce’s streams of consciousness. The safety of Victorian plots abandoned, that A would follow B, the reassurance that everything could be resolved no longer seemed possible. It wasn’t just the demise of literary happy endings; it was the death in the belief of proper endings at all.<br /><br /><br />The soldiers fighting today have one hundred years worth of vocabulary to make sense of their experiences. Phrases like Pre emptive strikes, collateral damage and Post traumatic stress help to numb the horror, normalise the bloodshed and legitimise the casualties. They have the language but they don’t have the narrative anymore. The reassurance that there is point to it, that order will be restored ,that it will all eventually be worth it. Humans haven’t evolved beyond needing and yearning for those stories but they’re now as ancient and archaic as Edwardian uniforms. With the passing of the last First World War veteran we’ve lost the last person who remembered a world that looked like that. <br /><br />Now with the old battalions finally reunited, the regiments at last complete, I wonder what the lost boys of the trenches will make of the final aged Tommy returned. If they ask him how the rest of the century worked out, what their war solved and what we learnt from and did with their sacrifice; I hope he’ s able to keep his silence.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-33106117449887494502011-04-17T04:08:00.000-07:002011-04-17T04:09:01.282-07:00What I learnt at schoolThe only thought that got me through school assemblies as our head mistress droned about the importance of representing St. Michaels Loreto Convent Navan in a respectable lady like manner was the certainty, curled like an angry fist in my teenage dirt bag heart, that as soon as school was finally out, I would escape this stuffy white bread sandwich town, move to the big city and hang out exclusively with gays, freaks and drag queens.<br /><br /><br />This week I was a bridesmaid at a Pirate themed civil partnership where my dates were a gay comic and a lesbian cabaret singer. I felt about this the way, I assume, some people feel about finally owning their first house.<br /><br /><br />I didn’t have the best start at Secondary school. First years were assigned final year “buddies” whose job it was help new girls settle into the new school. In my first week I managed to lose my school bag; along with all my books for the year, twice. The second time it happened I was so worried about telling my Mam, I ran away on my bike and tried to persuade my granny to let me move in with her instead. When I sheepishly returned to school I found out my “buddy” had asked to be swapped to a less high maintenance student.<br /><br />The other girls in my class didn’t seem to have a problem keeping hold of basic belongings. They were popular, had rugby boyfriends, played hockey and could see the teachers point. They smelled of Body Shop vanilla musk, had sensible career plans and lives as organised as their red pen and ruler lined exercise books. I hated them almost as much as I wanted to be them. I actually took pleasure in annoying and irritating them. I pretended to be hungover in class, bragged about how messed up my real friends outside school were and had eating disorders that lasted until lunchtime or until I forgot, like a creepy teenage Geri Halliwell. <br /><br /><br /> On the day before our Junior Cert exams, and our last before the class was split up into new groups for our final years, a well intentioned teacher decided to pass pages around with each student’s name at the top and asked everyone to write their favourite memories of that person anonymously underneath. I was the only one to have a page of pretty much unanimous negative sarcastic comments. In front of everyone I coolly read them, smirked, crumbled up the page and sashayed out giving everyone what I hoped was my best “Later losers, you’ve just made me feel even more like Madonna” expression. I then went home and memorised every single line.<br /><br /><br />Surprisingly, fame didn’t beckon, my drama teacher hadn’t contacted Steven Spielberg about me, as in my secret heart I genuinely thought he would. I didn’t get to take year off to work in Hollywood and become friends with Danny Devito, so come September I was back in my maroon school uniform. But to my unexpected delight, something magical called streaming had twinkled its magic wand over the summer holidays, skimmed the smug girls away and poured me into as fresh new class.<br /><br />I was still with the clever ones, but just not the ones that necessarily did their home work every day.<br />These were a different group entirely. One’s that understood the importance of throwing school bags out a second floor window, that you should interrupt the geography teacher every time she described any large landmass, be it iceberg, volcano or ox bow lake to earnestly ask if it was as big as the ship Titanic. That instead of doing carols it was just funnier in our final year to do a nativity play so I could finally play Mary. Yes we were all seventeen, yes it quickly descended into “Carry on Bethlehem” and yes we got into massive trouble, but no one ever questioned our choice. That rather than maturely seeing her side, the only way of responding to your homophobic religion teacher as she lectured a roomful of teenage girls on the inherent evilness of abortions was by making a frog noise throughout her class, even if it meant having to write out “ I will not say ribbit in class” one hundred times. That we were probably never ever going to use a quote from “To Kill a Mockingbird” in our adult life.<br /><br />I’m friends with some of those perfect, popular, punch myself in the face out of boredom girls on Facebook now, but they don’t annoy me anymore; I find them fascinating. I press my nose up against their lives, and skip through the pictures; the sensible nights out, the houses bought, husbands wed and it’s like speeding in a train through a place that looks OK but you know you never have to worry about living there anymore.<br /><br />Like the astronauts that flew to the moon thinking that they were making important scientific breakthroughs when what turned out to be most important were those images of playing golf and skipping on the lunar surface I don’t really remember anything that I learnt academically at school. French verbs, periodic tables or features of coastal erosion haven’t really come up in my life since. It’s the other stuff that’s important and beautiful. In an adult world of deadening days, bored tired people going through the motions and life trying to get you old, what is really useful to know? That jokes matter; they last longer than facts, erupt in your memory like a firework, singing egos and soldering true friendships.There's more honesty, integrity and compassion in one shared office in joke that a lifetime of following the rules. They won’t get you mortgages but they will get you through the day and invites to Pirate weddings.<br /><br />As we swung back on our chairs, ignoring the teacher and drawing moustaches on each other’s faces, I thought I would finally get grown but maybe there wasn't much else left for me to learn, except possibly algebra.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-37578820490118562432011-03-29T10:14:00.001-07:002011-03-29T11:14:07.257-07:00“Darrin Stephens; Bewitched Nights”.With “Mad Men” off air till 2012, broadcasters have announced they may fill the gap left by the smash hit sixties series by showing the little seen “Bewitched” spin off series “Darrin Stephens; Bewitched Nights”.<br /><br />While the popular 1960s sitcom focussed on the adventures of a beautiful young witch living in an upstate New York suburb with her handsome young Madison Avenue advertising executive husband, the spin off series had a darker tone.<br /><br />Instead of magical high jinks, it focused on Darrin’s life at a Manhattan advertising firm. He is presented as a conflicted troubled man, torn between life at a cut throat Madison Avenue ad agency and his idyllic existance in the suburbs married to a witch. Viewers were however surprised and turned off by chain smoking Darrin’s affairs with secretaries, use of prostitutes and battles with booze.<br /><br />Attempts to retain some of the parent shows lighter whimsical feel were unsuccessful. Episodes included a hilarious trip to a New York strip club where Darrin, unaware his mother in law has accidently turned him into a unicorn, fails to impress clients, the controversial mermaid forced abortion story arch and the clients dinner almost ruined by Darrin’s secret brother from his past life reappearing.<br /><br />Audiences also rejected the new focus put on wife Samantha’s soulless existence in suburban America, her inability to reconcile inner demons with the barrenness of the American dream; all while being a witch. Memorably, her famous twitch was used to suggest substance abuse. The couple’s daughter Tabitha also became a more rebellious character, memorably rebelling against her mother’s coldness by masturbating on a couch during a during a goblin sleepover. There were also complaints that Darrin’s long suffering best friend Larry’s descent into heroin addiction in Greenwich village was sensationalistic. The series was axed after one season, with actor Dick York resigning in protestGráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-18918548903780791722011-03-29T08:04:00.000-07:002011-03-29T08:05:16.969-07:00Movie Pitch: Morrissey and Me.hey guys! I don't really know a lot about the film industry but I have an amazing pitch for a romantic comedy. Is there anybody who can get it seen by the relevant people?! Grrrr!! LOL!!<br /><br /><br /><br />Movie Pitch: Morrissey and Me.<br /><br /><br /><br />Gráinne (Gráinne Maguire/Ann Hathaway?), a cocksure young comic decides that in order to write her musical “Girlfriend in Coma” A retelling of the African American feminist movement using songs of The Smiths she must go to extraordinary efforts to insure that notoriously recalcitrant musician grants permission to use his back catalogue. Determined to see her dream come true, she disguises herself as a young gay man and faints in front of his abandoned reclusive manor. <br /><br /><br /><br />Next scene we see her awakening in a gargantuan living room to find Morrissey (Morrissey/Gordon Brown/Colin Firth?), awkwardly soothing her brow with a damp towel. She claims to have no memory of anything at all apart from being a gay man and a vegetarian. Morrissey, who lives alone with only a loyal retinue of browbeaten servants, agrees to look after his new guest until his (her!) health returns and the two begin a tentative friendship.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />MONTAGE: (music-Someone Like You- Van Morrison/Leona Lewis cover?) Gráinne discovers his library- sees different side to him? Eating at long formal table; changing to informal snacks in kitchen; changing to food fights? Gráinne stands up to him/ argues back? Gráinne shows Morrissey how to feed birds? The two play fighting? Wide shot of the two sitting by open fire. Close up of Morrissey looking tentatively happy/ Gráinne looking guilty.<br /><br /><br /><br />Eventually, haven fallen in love in a paternal way with his house guest, he arranges a surprise slumber party where he plans to officially sign over his fortune, including back catalogue to his young ward. Unfortunately as he excitedly prepares the guestroom with popcorn and a Clueless DVD, his accidentally knocks open her diary and discovers Gráinne’s secret plot in numbered bullet points. He also comes across earlier diary entries where she’s written that she actually thinks Oscar Wilde is over rated. Heartbroken, angry and distraught, in an emotional scene outside in the rain Morrissey reveals he knows her secret. Gráinne tries to explain that her earlier mendacity has blossomed into real friendship but, with a tear stained face; the former Smiths front man banishes her from his life. Shot of Gráinne falling in mud. (Coldplay/ Keane music?)<br /><br /><br /><br />Gráinne stumbles through abandoned streets. More Rain/ Possible wind machine? There she bumps into Sebastian (Owen Wilson/Jack Whitehall?) her identical twin brother whom she always thought was dead.<br /><br /><br /><br />INTR: cafe: Gráinne is amazed to discover that Sebastian has also been working on his own Smiths based musical “You’re the One for Me Fatty” A retelling Margaret Thatcher’s dealing with IRA hunger strikers also using the songs of the Smiths. He had disguised himself as an amnesiac young woman and had been staying at Johnny Marr’s (Ian Hart/Hugh Grant?) house. He had also been rumbled, but thanks to an unlogged out gmail account rather than diary. Both shake their heads, ruefully wishing that their mother was alive to see her twins finally reunited. Shot of waitress clearing table- hint that she is actually ghost of their mother?<br /><br /><br /><br />INTR: West End Theatre. Following the advice of an eccentric old lady, who had both a degree in performers law and also, sadly, terminal cancer, the twins have discovered a loophole allowing them to perform their Smiths musical re-titled “Everyday is like a Sunday” about a young man’s struggle with long term memory loss. At the end of the final number as the smoke clears and the canons slowly roll off stage, we reveal Morrissey and Johnny sitting at opposite ends of the packed auditorium. They both spontaneously give a standing ovation, in doing so become aware of each other’s presence for the first time. A hush falls over the packed theatre and after a heart breaking pause, they embrace weeping. Gráinne and Sebastian (matching outfits?) look at each other, roll eyes and laugh (Lily Allen track?)<br /><br /><br /><br />Final scene: Morrissey; Johnny, Gráinne and Sebastian all in Morrissey’s living room. His house is no longer cold and menacing; his loyal butler (Antony Hopkins/Miranda Hart?) looks on approvingly as they all happily watch a DVD of Clueless. Johnny suggests that they go out somewhere afterwards; Morrissey says he’d love to but he hasn’t got a stitch to wear. <BEAT> Johnny, Gráinne and Sebastian start to laugh and throw popcorn at the former Smiths front man, who frowns <beat> and then begins to laugh himself. Cut to bird flying out of window into the night sky (symbolic?)<br /><br /><br /><br />END<br /><br /><br /><br />Possible Sequel Opportunities: The gang discover a baby abandoned on their door step? Morrissey opens a Private detective Agency?Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-21177479860408867162011-03-28T02:36:00.000-07:002011-03-28T02:37:26.063-07:00wooh! It's behind you.....Do you think ghosts find Hallowe’en patronising? Do they roll their eyes and complain that actually there’s a lot more to their culture than that, it’s just patronising. <br /><br />They must also get very fed up with how their community is portrayed in the media. They’re either predatory, aggressive ghouls moving into a home and dragging down the property value or bland, sexless Uncle Toms, Casper the sell out ghost, happy to be the living person’s token dead best friend. Whatever their personality or ability, always steroptypically defined by their lack of mortality. How they must yearn for the day that a TV series or mainstream movie is brave enough to cast a ghost in lead role or indeed any part where being dead isn’t their entire storyline and personality point; where they just happen to be not living but also have other stuff going on in their lives as well.<br /><br /><br />Ghosts don’t do themselves any favours though. Whenever you bump into them they prattle on and on about the same things, repeating the same actions, retracing the same steps. “I was a Victorian ladies maid, oohhh!” Yes, but you’ve been dead for over one hundred and fifty years, what have you been doing in the mean time? Why are you defining yourself by the ten or so years that you happened to be alive when by now that must be a diminishing fraction of your time on this planet? They are the ultimate child stars who have never moved on from their first burst of fame, touring the highways and byways of Britain with their one and only hit. They should say, yes, I was married to Henry the VIII for a few years but to be honest, that was a long time ago, now I’d much rather be known for my oil painting.<br /><br /><br /> In their defence, it must be disappointing to discover that once dead, the only human beings interested in contacting you are drunk students, clingy relatives and Living TV. Imagine; you’re the ghost of a Norman soldier, think of all action, the excitement, the sex you could have had in your day and now the only one showing any interest in you is Yvette Fielding, and you’re supposed to be grateful for the attention? That has got to hurt.<br /><br /><br /> I feel I can comment on this because I once nearly accidentally had sex with a ghost. I was furious. I have always made it very clear that the only dead person I would consider doing the deed with is a WWI soldier and only if I bore a striking resemblance to his long dead sweetheart, whose tragically unconsummated relationship helped him through his final weeks in the trenches and only if having sex with me helped him finally pass over to that great no man’s land in the sky and only if he looked like Jonny Lee Miller in “Regeneration”. Yet there I was, having a nap and minding my own business and there was the universe was setting me up on some sort of cosmic blind date with a spectral chancer. Luckily I woke up before things got out of control otherwise I could have literally had a phantom pregnancy on my hands. How could I have explained that to my parents? I could just see my mother rolling her eyes and sighing “Oh Gráinne, you have to be different don’t you?” I mean having a ghost baby would make me stand out from all the other young mums but what about schools?<br /><br /> My friends weren’t sympathetic either, when I groggily told them on the phone about nearly getting bumped in the night, there was just a nervous laugh, followed by a long pause and a swift change in the conversation. Later three of them independently emailed me links to Guardian Soul Mates; no pun, I hope intended.<br /><br /> <br />I’m non-plussed my the supernatural, even as a child ghosts, banshees, the devil himself were as familiar to me as second cousins my parents got Christmas cards from every year. Satan and his constant attempts to steal my soul were just another problem to be faced and I developed the habit of saying out loud , whenever I saw something I really liked “I wouldn’t give my soul for it” just in case I accidently, subconsciously, made a barter I would later regret. It was like a form on insurance policy should I unwittingly promise my entire afterlife in hell in exchange for a chemistry set. I could just see myself, in my sweaty subterranean cell, stuck for all eternity with Hitler, the shark from Jaws and all the English soldiers my granny told me about, explaining that I was doing time for getting carried away before Christmas in Toys R Us. <br /><br /><br />At Secondary school, out of sheer boredom, my friends and I did the Ouija board at lunchtime for an entire week and I became convinced that I was communicating with the ghosts of three dead former students who had all died mysteriously in a locked storage room at the back of the lunch hall. The story unravelled itself in my mind’s eye, three girls killed one after the other after dabbling in the occult, a haunted room covered in crucifixes by the nuns in a vain attempt to exorcise the evil history that dripped from its walls, trapped souls only I could release.<br />It took our religion teacher arranging a special class to formerly deny that any students had ever died from falling downstairs, been run over by a driverless car or been found dead staring into a mirror, for my visions to end. The doomed cupboard of death was later found to contain old geography books. <br /><br /><br />Ghosts are everywhere after all, even if it’s just our hopes and expectations that though long dead, still stumble about with us, tapping us on our shoulder when we least expect it and rattling our graves. The ancient mistakes that send shivers down our spine, the bad choices that chatter our teeth and the lingering habits that lead up down the same dead ends like will o the wisps. <br />The missed opportunites that return in the dark of the night with a spectral grin and the new person or fresh opportunity that grotesquely decays to reveal the same old stupidities we thought we’d staked years ago.<br /><br /><br />With that in mind, I’d like to create my own scary ghost tour. It would involve drama students popping out from behind cobbled archways dressed as your teenage dreams, your weird depressed aunt popping up and whispering “You always reminded me of myself at your age” and at the end you meet your eight your old self who, blinking in horror, touches your face and whispers “Who are you sad old lady?” Then when you turn to your boyfriend for reassurance, he pulls off his face and he’s revealed to be every man you’ve ever gone out with ever. And it’s all done in Victorian outfits; terrifying.<br /> <br /><br />I know how I’m going to die anyway. I’m going to either accidentally strangle myself with a curtain cord, electrocute myself with a toaster or mistake a French window for a sliding door and fall out a sixtieth floor window. My last thought will most definitly be – I cannot believe I just did that. I will meet my maker in one of those accidents electrical goods instructions warn you sarcastically about and people with too much time post on Darwin Award websites. My death will be so ridiculous and bizarre that my family will be too embarrassed to go into specific details at the funeral; my friends will have to avoid eye contact in case they laugh and strangers will assume I must have died in an erotic self asphyxiation act that went wrong. I shall die as I lived; absolutely bloody ridiculous.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-23362513862271761162011-03-25T07:05:00.001-07:002011-03-25T07:05:44.395-07:00My Top Ten life tipsWhen it comes to important scary emails; go by the Schrödinger’s cat rule. Remember, until you actually open it, it still contains both good and bad news; the script treatment is both accepted and rejected, the man is both interested and gently letting me down, the test results are both positive in a figurative and a literal way. Try to put off opening all icky emails for as long as possible. Wait until it either becomes irrelevant or until one of your friends agrees to read it while you hide, with your fingers in your ears, crouched in another room. Then get them to shout out the gist of it under your locked door. I imagine this is how Schrödinger ended his famous experiment, but then in his defence he did probably have an angry radioactive cat to worry about.<br /> <br /><br />When starting a new job, always be in the process of breaking up with someone. This works for both men and women. It immediately endears you to the people you’re working with and will give you plenty to talk about during those awkward first few weeks. Remember to keep it light and breezy, so no tedious trauma just the inevitable end of something that was never really going anywhere anyway. Do throw in a few anecdotes about how rubbish they were to speed up bonding but remember; judge the room, you don’t want to come across as bitter or shrill. Something about a forgotten birthday should be enough to get everybody on side; you’re aiming for feisty and brave, not doomed and broken. If you are actually going out with someone, make sure you change the name of your imaginary ex partner in case they bump into your real one at a later works do and everyone is mad at you for getting back with them.<br /><br /><br />If you want to seen busy at your job always look worried about something, squint into the middle distance and sigh a lot. Every now and then rub your eyes, complain how badly run the place is and ruefully laugh how you’re amazed it hasn’t closed down years ago. Then return to facebook. Try to carry a lot of files around with you at all times. <br /><br /><br />If you find yourself in a situation that you know is going to be awkward always bring an attention grabbing prop. It should provide a distraction from whatever is happening and deflate some of the tension. A small child is good, an attention grabbing hat adequate or even, if you know it’s really going to be a right old cringer, a bandaged limb that may be broken. Once, when I knew I was going to bump into someone for the first time after drunkenly making a misjudged move on them, I decided to wear a Christmas wreath on my head for *the laugh*. There was nothing whimsical about my headgear; I knew exactly what I was doing. While everyone thought I was being my usual eccentric self , I was actually being icily cunning. I knew when I bumped into my erstwhile beau; all attention and conversation would be inevitably drawn to the table arrangement precariously balanced on my head and not the events from the night before. Unfortunately, he didn’t call around to the pub that night so I was left with a crown of fir branches on my head, but to be honest, by then, I was really working the look.<br /><br /><br />When flying home for the first time after moving to London for your triumphant- look at me living my life in the city, proving your parents wrong by how successful and independent you are - make sure you have the details of the airline and airport you are flying from correct. Do not arrive half an hour late, at the wrong airport and try to board the wrong airline. Gatwick and Stanstead are not as you may think “more or less the same” they are, in fact, very far apart. If this does happen, make sure you have enough money in your account to pay for a replacement flight. If this is not possible, make sure you have enough credit on your phone or change in your pocket to ring your dad for his credit card details. If again, this is not possible, try to be nice to the woman behind the desk when she lets you use their phone and apologetic when you have to enlighten your parents of the evening’s events. When you do finally arrive in your home airport long past midnight, after your flight has been delayed for two hours and your Dad is waiting in arrivals, try to drop the defensive I live in London girl swagger and give him a hug. He will have experienced his own share of disappointments that night too.<br /><br /><br />If you are already half way to the tube before you realise you have a massive stain down the front of top; instead of going home to change, just act surprised when anyone points it out to you, as if it has only happened moments before. Practice looking down and appearing surprised. This should convince everyone you are just a messy eater; ergo: probably good in bed, instead of being a lazy slob; ergo: probably not.<br /><br /><br />If something happens that you’re desperate to talk about but are scared of word spreading, find your most self obsessed friend and spill the beans to them. You will get all the release of getting it off your chest with the peace of mind of knowing they will probably never even remember the conversation. It’s the human equivalent of talking to the river. Be careful not to include their name in your story as that might trigger certain synapses in their brain to start working. Bookend it all with questions about them as insurance.<br /><br /><br />If people are talking about a book or film you know nothing about but you are keen to join the conversation pretend that you have seen it and say that it reminds you a lot of another book/ film that you have read. Then start talking about that instead.For example: “Yeah “My Own Private Idaho”, I loved that film. Spellbinding; just so…atmospheric. Keanu Reeves was almost as good as he was in “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” They’re making a third film!! Alex Winter returns, now who do you think they should do about the part of Rufus? Recast or would that be sacrilege? Long Live the Wild Stallions!"<br /><br /><br />When somebody introduces you to a baby for the first time always assume they’re a girl. If they’re a boy, it will be taken as a compliment. The same applies to meeting people with North American accents; always guess Canadian first. Even if you are wrong, they will assume you are obliquely suggesting they had had the benefit of a good health care system.<br /><br /><br />Whatever happens always ,always remember that if you throw enough shit at a wall, eventually, eventually you will get a hand that smells of shit and a stench that will follow you around for the rest of your life, tainting everything you do, touch and taste with a constant reminder of the time you triedGráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-22483989983680030302011-03-24T07:25:00.001-07:002011-03-24T07:25:55.562-07:00These things actually happen to me. Part 2So today, I dragged myself out of my lovely warm bed to be at the gym for 7.15 for my first induction. I managed to be there for 7.30 which considering I had been up till midnight the night before watching “The Only Way is Essex” was a real achievement. I don’t like gyms, the instructors irritate me; I mean to say… jumping up and down for a living? What gasping chasms of low self esteem does that reveal? To want to do professionally what toddlers do on their lunch break? What sort of work stories you would have- “Oh, I did a really interesting exercise today…oh you should have been there, my knees bent and everything”. <br /><br /><br />Why are they so smug about being so fit, shouldn’t they be embarrassed about having obviously so little else to do with their time? I don’t wander into libraries, lean over someone reading a book I’ve already finished and smugly ask if they need help understanding the author’s subtext. I understand that getting excited about the finer points of Douglas Adams is probably something better kept to myself, yet in a gym we’re supposed to crumble in respectful awe at somebody who has probably spent a similar amount of time moving contracting and retracting stomach muscles. Why all the aggression; the stomach crunches, the blitzing of buts, the feeling the burn? We’re just doing a bit of exercise not trying to over throw Gadaffi.<br /><br /><br /> I just can’t help thinking that dedicating their lives to such a monotonous and time draining pursuit is poor exchange for just being slightly firmer. Yes, you could spend an hour every day at the gym to fit into your clothes better or you could just wear something slightly baggier. No one notices or cares. But I wasn’t thinking about that yesterday when I joined up. Drugged by intoxicating aroma of chlorine and dazzled by the protein bars on sale in reception, I was too distracted thinking about the glamorous, organised, taut grown up I was suddenly going to become. <br /><br />Anyway, to save time, I came up with the cunning plan of sleeping in my oldest tracksuit bottoms and taking a change of clothes for work. It was only later when I went to get changed. I realised that my sleep fuddled brain had managed to pack tights, change of shoes and even some body moisturiser; which just shows how ambitious about my new life my semi conscious brain was being, but no actual work clothes. I am now at my desk hoping no one notices I am basically wearing my pyjama bottoms. The elastic in the waist has gone and I’ve had to secure it with some staples and a paper clip. On my lunch break they kept slipping down and I looked like a really really really low rent prostitute. So I have seen what my new grown up self looks like and to be honest, she looks exactly like the mad homeless person I always suspected she would be.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-19469758587209557922011-03-08T15:43:00.000-08:002011-03-08T15:44:19.596-08:00Me and my office best friendPhotocopiers are the most melodramatic of modern office equipment; permanently collapsed in a corner, coughing and spluttering, it’s innards clutching onto a piece of chewed up paper like a delicately scrunched lace handkerchief.<br /> I know this because I am very good at fixing them. My calm methodical approach to gently easing the jams from the over excited drums, and with gentle authority turning the puzzled machine on and off again, has, over the years, earned me the name the photocopier whisperer.<br /><br />I don’t judge it; I understand that with a creative genius like that, neuroticism, hypochondria, even downright diva behaviour is inevitable. The photocopier was once the star, you see, that dropped into office life in the sixties, like displaced piece of futuristic debris fallen from the future and changed everything. With one downward release on pressure on a button, a flash of light and muffled thud, oceans of typing pools with tight sweatered secretaries in old fashioned glasses disappeared in puff of cigarette smoke.<br /><br />Even in your own life time, remember how excited we used to be about the photocopier, the thrill of learning to copy double sided, the shiver of printing a booklet for the first time, the giddy rush of discovering the stapler worked? The heady smell of fresh ink in the primary school secretary’s office as, the clock ticking closer to home time, you proudly collected hot water bottle warm lice letters and rushed to proudly hand them over to your panicking teacher. <br /><br /><br />Now, the photocopier, large, squat and taken for granted malingers in the office corner, like a bitter first wife replaced in our affections by the new printer with its slim line scanner. We don’t even get drunk and sit on it at Christmas anymore. What else can it do but cough, whine and complain about paper jams? Yes, it has adapted, we can send scans to them now, most print in colour, some are even connected to the internet but we both know the excitement is over. Compared with the sophisticated swishes and zooms of computer graphics, its simple promise to enlarge or contract by a certain percent embarrasses us both. Its futile attempt to morph into its own replacement unravelling into an undignified and desperate gesture, sullying all the old good memories.<br /><br /> Every year the paper files get smaller, the letters fewer and the guilty recycling bin more prominent, like a sickly bastard child reluctantly included in the family photo. The promises of paperless office, the emails bitchily suggesting it doesn’t need to be printed, each a slow drawing down of blinds. We’ve moved on. It’s seen off the fax machine, but this feels different. That’s why I’m patient with it, turn it off when it’s too warm and try not to slam the doors to roughly when, it blinks desperately about another phantom unknown blockage in drawer two that I know isn’t there. It wants to know that I’m still there, that I still care and that I’ll be there when it gets switched on again. And like Atticus Finch. I always will be.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-66782921940111009712010-11-15T10:29:00.000-08:002010-11-15T10:31:51.425-08:00Gráinne gets a new job.When you’ve never experienced it, falling in love seems like quite an intimidating thing. When I was younger I just couldn’t imagine this big complicated feeling, a passion that inspires poets, changes history, starts wars and ends films could ever personally involve me. That said; I’d never really wanted to go out with anyone. The thought of truly getting to know someone had all the attraction of inviting a stranger around for a social root about in my bathroom dustbin. Hey there stranger; person I find sexually attractive, how about popping around and getting to know me in all my wobbly, secondhand, cry when I’m drunk tediousness? And while you’re at it, would you like to see me first thing in the morning too? I don’t even like spending time in my own company, not sober at least, why would I expect anyone else to? No thanks. I’d been born with a port wine stain on my personality, a fermenting, boil of neediness and inadequacy that if brushed with any sort of affection would pop and repulse anyone unlucky enough to be around it.<br /><br /><br /> I was however blessed with low standards and high expectations; I thought the solution was to just go out with someone I didn’t really like for as long as it took for them to accidently stumble over the real me. Then when my game was up, we could shake hands, shrug shoulders and maybe go out for breakfast. The trick was to not to really like anybody then you could never ever be hurt. My only other option was to fall in love with someone who then, immediately, tragically died, never to learn how truly messy my bedroom could get. Then I would have all the glamour of a tragic love affair, a tale I could talk about for ages and a perfect excuse never to have to go out with anyone ever again. But that was the ideal and who could bank on that?<br /><br />What is unexpected about falling in love is that when it happens, how easy it is. Such a pivotal thing that you secretly yearn for, that people spend their lives aching for and when it happens it’s as easy as falling asleep. Love, this ancient celebrity that cameod in Shakespeare, did the dirt on Vincent Van Gogh, wooed Elizabeth Taylor, is now nuzzling up to you and laughing at your jokes. In the wise words on Cheryl Cole- It’s bonkers, pet!<br /><br /><br />Two months in and the novelty of working in an Irish bar was wearing off. Already some of the girls from the bar were migrating to teaching. Kelly, an orange faced prematurely middle aged girl in her mid twenties had been the first to jump ship. She had an unnerving habit of sighing before, during and after everything she said, as if too emphasis just how weary of this mortal coil she truly was. Every piece of news, flummery, whisp of gossip was met with furrow browed resignation, as though at the age of 26, literally nothing surprised her anymore. Maybe she was misunderstood, maybe she really had had an exciting life, maybe she was just being slowly poisoned by St. Tropez. Her personality met at that special place on the attitude chart where frumpiness and competitiveness towards all other females met.<br /><br />Yes, teaching had easy hours and weekends off, but I was no Kelly. I wanted to stay at the Bar with Laura and Ife. Laura was a fumbling girl from Nottingham that had ended up in Madrid en route from her year in Australia. Laura seemed to do most things accidentally and it was her shambliness and honesty that made her so adored by everybody. She had a rueful way of apologising for being rubbish that made you want to buy her a fur coat and a tiara. Whatever you were doing, she assured you, was brilliant, any plans she’d go along with, every fact you told was remarkable, every story fascinating. She was home made flesh, a calm Queen of Hearts to my slightly deranged Princess Margaret. You didn’t just want her as you best friend, you hoped that she considered you hers.<br /><br /><br /> Ife was one of the most confident people I’d ever met. An assistant manager at the bar, back in London she worked as a high powered TV producer and gave off the swagger of impregnable competency. A rock. An island. That was until you got to know her and realised that she displayed her independence with the same pride and vulnerability of a twelve year old showing off their new tree hut. There were also endearing gaps in her general knowledge, like when watching an interview with Shaking Stevens she asked confused, hadn’t he converted to Islam. Or when she matter of factly explained that the reason she’d chosen a trip to Caesars Palace over the Grand Canyon on her last holiday was because, she’d already seen the Grand Canyon on television. Or the period in her life when her close friends were genuinely worried she thought she was going out with Pharrell Williams. Then she stopped being my intimidating new boss and became the friend who I could trust with my life.<br /><br /><br />Week nights were spent at the bar getting drunk on appropriated wine, Saturday nights at R&B clubs where we were sexually molested on the dance floor to a baseline and every Monday whoever wasn’t working would join Gerard for the weekly pub quiz. There, not only did I improve my general knowledge, I learnt about myself. Like the time a new member of our team had the gall, the rudeness to answer more questions than me and in frustration I hid his chair when he was in the toilet forcing him to join another table. Looking at the glares from my teammates I discovered that I did have a competitive side outside All You Can Eat Buffets after all.<br /><br /><br />Sometimes we were joined for drinks by the other barmen. Shane was a slightly gawky, graduate who had come to Madrid to study guitar. He was sweet and funny but with an earnestness that became quickly irritating. While I tried to forget I was living in Spain, he stopped just short of wearing a sombrero to work. When I had to ring my landlady to let her know that I was moving out, and regally announced that I needed to borrow someone’s Spanish, he smugly refused. I think he thought he was making a tough to be kind comment on my inability to assimilate into the local culture. Instead it just convinced me he was a smug twat who probably fancied me and was getting a sadomasochistic thrill from making my life difficult for sexual kicks. Who knows, the truth was probably somewhere in the middle. I could only take him in small doses, or diluted with lots of alcohol.<br /><br /><br />Paul was an architecture student. Unlike us, happy to stay and get quietly pissed, as soon as his shift was over he was off; to meet friends, discover some underground bar he’d read about, or head off to another city for the weekend. He never said much but when he did it was always either sarcastic or taking the piss. We instantly bonded when it became apparent we held Shane, with all his sunny optimism, in equal contempt. He went one better, he didn’t really like anyone who worked in the bar. Apart from me, me he liked. Awkward ribs blossomed into private jokes and soon we could riff for hours on the same subject, as easily and gracefully as ice skaters, whipping past everyone else, giddy with our own speed, spinning with the glee of private laughter. Soon it just became normal for us to sit next to each other, natural to be considered a pair, second nature to seek each other out. He had this killer habit of remembering everything I said, of assuming only I knew what he was talking about, of directing his wisecracks in my direction. He seemed to notice, remember and comment on everything I did and said, in way that made me feel like the most interesting person alive. Things were changing, the thought of seeing him made feel exhilarated and like I wanted to vomit and suddenly I was brushing my hair before work. Days without seeing him felt wasted and were spend chatting to him in my head, collecting stuff to tell him about when I did.<br /><br />During my first day at my new job at the school Laura texted me to say Paul had been talking about me all morning, and I calmly realised, why one day in ,I already missed him so much.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-55702815731729059912010-11-08T09:49:00.000-08:002010-11-08T09:50:33.455-08:00Working in an Irish Bars for beginnersThere are many advantages to working in an Irish bar in a foreign country. You never have to learn their language, you never really have to meet any locals and most importantly, you can still, just about, meet enough new people to convince yourself you’re still having an experience you couldn’t have had at home. It is the microwave meal of foreign travel.<br /><br /><br /> Nobody plans to work in an Irish bar; it’s a waiting room where you pause for life to present its next chapter. People who live abroad are a strange lot anyway. If you’re at home working in a bar, or as a TEFL teacher; people ask questions, wonder what you’re doing next, but if you’re doing the exact same thing, living more or less the same lifestyle in a foreign country, people assume you’re a winner. There are three types of people that you notice working abroad, those there for legitimate career reasons, those pausing for breath, between travels, after uni, a sorbet between youth and responsibility and lost souls, who turn being a foreigner abroad into their entire identity. At home they were just John, but here they are John the Irish Man. They attend Irish nights, listen to trad music, attend Embassy functions, suddenly only James Joyce understands them. Their nationality suddenly makes sense of their life, defines them, excuses all their actions, answers all their questions with the unexpected gratefulness of a diagnosed food intolerance.<br /><br /><br /> The bar I worked in was run by Mathew; a fat pink faced, German school boy of an Irish homosexual. His family owned the entire chain of Irish pubs and Mathew, the runt of the litter, was in charge of ours. We were all terrified of him. He was known to swan into the bar, empty the till, sack a member of staff and disappear for days. He also notoriously, it was whispered, only dated middle aged men that looked like Captain Birds Eye. I ended up living in his flat for two weeks, mid between bolting from Marina’s and moving to another boho dive with a balcony in Lavapies. It was amazing; park views and satellite TV, but I only got to stay there for two weeks before his landlord evicted him. He was that sort of person. Terrified of him, his kindness to this stranger sleeping on his couch made me flinch. In-between hating himself and everyone else, he was as sweet and soft as the fondant fancies he so closely physically resembled.<br /><br /><br />The real power was Meabh. A tiny, pale wisp of a girl; she may have looked like a frail Victorian ghost but had a disaprooving stare that would terrify any spectral visitor. She had worked at the pub for years and at twenty three had the attitude, wisdom and weariness of someone years older. Initially her toughness, learnt at too young age, frustrated both our attempts at friendships, but over time her kindness and thoughtfulness emerged from her flinty exterior.<br /><br /> Simon was in charge of the late shifts. He was a gorgeous, tanned, shaved head gay man from Manchester, with dry sense of humour and turn of phrase that made you lose your breath. He lived with Gerard in a luxurious flat overlooking Madrid’s transvestite red light district with their pet Chihuahuas. They weren’t a couple but loved and hated each other with all the intensity of one. Gerard spent his weekends drinking and having complicated relationships with South Americans he met in S&M clubs and his weeks as a trade union lawyer fighting for teachers rights in Colombia. After Sunday lunch at their flat, we’d drink gin and tonics, watch the trannies outside and then settle down in front of the only programme on TV in English “Murder She Wrote”. Did you know that nearly every episode ends with Jessica Fletcher pulling a quizzical face? I never really picked up spanish but I did learn that.<br /> <br /><br />The most anticipated customers were the Irish and English lads working in the city. Since none of us spoke Spanish, the those were the only really eligible men, however, they not quite valuing conversation skills as highly as we did, had not only Spanish girls to choose from but every freckly woman’s mortal enemy – the South Americans. The attributes I’d previously considered deal breakers; good sense of humour, being up for the craic, shared knowledge of Neighbours , melted in the hot groomed, sexiness of those girls.<br /><br /><br /> Most of the lads worked for a dodgy local telesales operation that a notorious, but never seen, Irishman ran. Recruited from behind the Irish bars, they were lured with coke, promises of easy money and trips to strip clubs to a business they vaguely described as an investment scheme. The bright eyed boys quickly transformed to loud arrogant customers, visiting their previous place of employment with swaggering wads of cash, the visits diminishing along with their friendliness, until it was vaguely mentioned they’d mysteriously gone back to Ireland, never to be heard of again. <br /> <br /><br />At least we had Lee. A TEFL teacher from Manchester; he was a romantic figure, which even a predilection for pissing in public couldn’t diminish. A spry pixie of a middle-aged man, he had a stunning Spanish girl he cheated on absentmindedly and a twinkle in his eye. When he got drunk, tales from his previous life would seep out. Sad stories of unclaimed children that looked like him, tangled family trees, grim storylines he’d miraculously been able to escape from. Sometimes we were joined by Trevor, a middle-aged man going through a nasty divorce, with an adored daughter who was quite obviously fleecing her lonely Dad. They’d stay late and we’d drink martinis, laugh our legs off and I’d walk home in the night time heat. Was I happy or do I just remember that I was in hindsight? I can’t remember, lets just assume I was, a memory lasting so much longer than the actual moment. Let’s leave me strolling safely home from work, through the stuffy Madrid night, unaware that soon Paul would walk into my life and everything was about to go kaboom! Goodnight Gráinne, save home, enjoy your yoghurt and biscuits in the morning.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-2556150783080604702010-10-18T04:34:00.000-07:002010-10-18T04:35:26.864-07:00Gráinne's Madrid Adventures beginSo there I was in Madrid; the second European country in as many years, that I had moved to more or less by accident.<br /> <br /><br />I spoke no Spanish, had done a TEFL course in the equivalent of The Danny Dywer School of Higher Learning and apart from a frayed sheet of paper with some scribbled email addresses, I was on my own.<br /><br /> <br />I was to move in with Marina, a spindly Spanish girl I had become friends with on the Comedia Dell’Arte course. I thought she was amazing; she drank her coffee black, smoked roll ups and promised to teach me how to eat healthily, flirt with men and walk like a whughhhman. Most importantly, she thought I was adorable and I’d already cast her as the wise Spanish sister who would bestow valuable life lessons. <br /><br /><br />I had never met anybody like her before; her wiry fidgety street smarts, made my middleclass friends back home seem plump with suburban safe choices. Her eyes had the dark flintiness of someone who had to look after themselves from an early age. I was in equal amounts in awe and slightly terrified of her, but reassured with the knowledge I was in her gang. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and was looking for someone to share the rent; it all seemed perfect.<br /><br /><br />Her flat was a tiny badly made wardrobe of a place, with a kitchen that looked out onto the inner courtyard; washing the dishes became a romantic Juliet balcony experience, a tiny living room with a fold out bed and Marina’s bedroom, where I would sleep. In the kitchen was a rickety old gas heater, don’t get me wrong, I love crotchedy old things, it’s just not what I look for in gas heating appliances; every time I looked at it I heard Michael Burke’s voice narrating my movements in my head. Not that we ever used it, it was August and the heat was a dry, heavy, overwhelming presence. The entire city felt like a communal sauna.<br /><br /><br />Marina never seemed to eat and came and left the flat at the strangest hours. All the shopping trips and pavement lunches together I imagined never materialised, in fact I hardly saw her outside the flat at all. Straight away there was always seemed some bill I had to pay, things were always running out just after I used them; printer cartridges, olive oil cans, gas cylinders, purchases that I needed to share. <br /><br /><br />Marina’s decorating was interesting too. Along with the porn, filed neatly along wit her dvds on top of the cd player, there were least three framed black and white pictures of a naked Marina with only a pearl necklace or cigarette artfully hung around the flat. So this is what sophisticated bohemian life was like I told myself; I was terrified.<br /><br /><br />The entire flat opened out onto a balcony overlooking the street below. We lived in Lavapies, Madrid’s most colourful/dangerous neighbourhood. I console myself that it’s now a soulless overpriced area with media types and over privileged trust fund brats, whereas when I lived there it was a crime scene with a Metro stop.<br /><br /><br /> Along with the heat there was the continuous wall of sound; from the first beeps of frustrated cars in the morning to the last squeals of children running around worryingly late at night, interrupted by the constant shrieking drone of scooters. It was a battered notice board of student cafes, Moroccan bars and shops selling cheap electrical goods.<br /><br /><br />Everyday I went to the Supermarcado and had the same breakfast of a yoghurt drink and almond biscuits, prawns and lemon juice by the kilo for lunch and lost about a stone in a month. Every stroll about the area was accompanied by a Greek chorus of men, shouting “Eh Guapaa”. This was not something I took personally; this was a gift to everywoman leaving their house. It became like a verbal mosquito bite, sometimes accompanied by a hiss, inspiring an involuntary hunching of ones shoulders, and scurrying further head down. Say what you like about Irish men, but one cannot accuse them of being over demonstrative about their appreciation for the fairer sex. Two days into my time in Madrid, I began to look back nostalgically on their tongue tied inability to even make contact let alone emit noises. It didn’t make me feel sexy or attractive, I felt like bringing a loud klaxon hailer with me every time I left the house.<br /><br /><br /> <br /> <br />Despite this I was beginning to feel a strange combination of spine tingling terror and bullish excitement. <br />Not understanding the language made every journey outside my flat overwhelming. I felt like I jumping into a foreign sea, any moment I would be swept away in a tide of strange smells and vowel sounds. But beneath that was also an exhilarating rush, I would learn Spanish, become fluent, study physical theatre in a funky underground school, hang out at the cool bars, the illicit thrill of real change was seductively putting it’s arm around my waist. In a rush I signed up for a month of Spanish classes, bought my books, insisted Marina only spoke to me in Spanish. Not only that I devised a timetable for my year in Madrid, everyday I would spend an hour writing, an hour drawing (some landmarks to begin with then move on to sketching the people I saw in cafes at night) an hours physical exercise (running to begin with then possible yoga) an hours Spanish study and then an hours drama class. And get a job. And make friends, and get a boyfriend. I had a lot of work to do. <br /><br /><br />I began to meet up with my other Spanish friends and try to follow their conversation, but it was different to when we were in Italy. There, the common language was English, so that was spoken in our group. Here in their home country, I felt a bit betrayed by their return to their home tongue. They wanted to stay out late, drink more, go dancing but it was just so hot, even at night. The clubs were sweaty and loud, a zoo of confusion. After about an hour or two I’d feign tiredness and return to the coolness of my bed, the blessed tones of Radio 4 online, like a lighthouse beacon, reminding me of my own world.<br /><br /><br />My first Spanish class consisted of me and six other Asian girls in a hot classroom in the city centre. My mind wandered as she slowly went through some grammar rule, while the girls tapped away on a little translator handset that looked like a calculator. I tried to concentrate, I think I did, but I’ve never been very good at languages. In general if I’m not really good at something immediately, I quickly, very speedily loose interest. That’s the thing with learning a foreign language, it’s not really good for show offs. Think of the foreigners who spend years and years studying English- do we congratulate them on their excellent use of irregular verbs, their grasp of idiomatic phrases, or do we just take it for granted that they can speak it? Well every culture is like that. The idea of spending months, years, learning a language just so I could be an average Spanish speaker made my mind baulk. How long would it take before I could make jokes, word plays, puns for crying out loud? What was the point? Does the world need one more average Spanish speaker? I then genuinely began to worry that if I did indeed master a second language that other parts of my brain would begin to suffer. What if my new Spanish vocabulary started pushing out my English words? Boring block words for table or meat, muscling out the wimpier, whispier words at the very end of my vocabulary spectrum. My vocabulary was something I jealousy prided myself with paranoid regularity. If I was worried I was getting early dementia or had finally given myself an alcohol induced brain injury I would test myself to see if I could remember my most obscure words. He spoke loquaciously to the timid girl, with obvious lascivious intent…That was who I was, the thought of losing that made my head spin.<br /><br /><br />And why was I learning it in the first place? Everybody else in the class seemed to have a clear reason: Jobs in Madrid, partners in Spain. My only reason for being there was that it wasn’t Navan and that felt like shaky reasons for concentrating on all that grammar. Learning a language felt like a big sign of commitment, one I wasn’t ready for, If I learnt it properly they might make me stay here - sorry Latin countries don’t get too comfortable, this one’s moving through… I was the jittery boyfriend of foreign tongues.<br /><br /> <br />Marina was throwing herself back into single like with admirable gusto. Walking gingerly past her fold out bed to get to my bedroom, I nearly took part in accidental threesomes on several occasions. She walked around the flat naked, once taking her inhibition to applause inspiring lengths by sitting spread eagled naked, waxing her castanet on the living room couch. Nights in we’d chat in halting Spanish about our love lives. Who was I fucking she’d ask, who did I want to? I blinked back at her confused; I’d been in Madrid three weeks, how on earth would I have time to get to know, let alone like someone, let alone go on the requisite amount of drunken sessions before that lucky fumble occurred? She sneeringly questioned if I had any experience with men at all? My Spanish was terrible but happily, judgment is a universal tongue. We were both mentally putting each other categories and neither were coming out well. <br /><br />I ate wrong at well. One night, in protest at her diet of chickpeas and onions I provocatively came home with a bag of chips. My greasy unhealthy deep fried carbs, in her skinny Spanish uninhibited sex with stranger’s apartment. She sat down beside me on the couch and began to delicately help herself to some. Shy nibbles quickly speeded into greedy snatches as unselfconsciously, her hand clawing from plate to mouth, ignoring me the entire time, she finished the entire lot in silence. I couldn’t put my finger on why at the time, but something about it turned my stomach.<br /><br /> <br />I was getting lazier with my Spanish classes. There was homework I could not understand so I decided to wait up to ask Marina to help me with it/ do it for me. She finally arrived in late, with strange men, brandishing a bottle of whiskey she proudly declared she’d found on the street. Sensing me uncomfortable, her eyes glinted back darkly, silently challenging me to say something. I searched for my sassy Spanish big sister but she wasn’t there. I saw myself through her eyes; a pudgy spotty middleclass Irish girl in her pyjamas clutching a grammar book, she was subletting her flat to. I took her in and wondered if she wasn’t Spanish, if she was Irish, would I want to be friends with her, would ever have even known each other? Her friends made a joke in Spanish and I felt the room to their laughter.<br /><br /> <br /> I finally went along to a performance at the theatre school I was planning to join. I hated it. It was like something you’d see on a world culture section on an international news station late at night. I yearned to have someone to turn around to, someone I knew, someone I could take the piss out of it but there was no one, I was on my own. I felt a jolt of homesickness. Like a dog with an electronic lease, I felt a jolt. I had gone as far as I could. I could change and assimilate no further. I stopped going to the Spanish classes and the next week I had got a job in an Irish bar. Walking into the cool, dark bar, after the eye stinging heat and brightness of the Spanish street,I could have wept with gratitude.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-39664464231988307802010-10-12T04:56:00.000-07:002010-10-12T04:57:01.366-07:00Has X Factor hit a bum note?I never understood the attraction of autumn. Yes there are the gusty, golden leafed walks home, the lure of guilt free cosy nights in after the pressure of sweaty, inner thigh chafing summer nights and snugly winter wardrobe, but the season always reminded me of sea side fairgrounds closing down, sensible school shoes and homework. That was before X Factor. Then I got it.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I love X Factor, and that’s why I’m worried the dream is over.<br /><br /> <br /><br />When I say I love it, I don’t just mean in a snide, ironic way either. I adored getting caught up in the drama and campness of it all. It was the ultimate Saturday night TV show, the type you’d watch when you were little after your bath drying your hair. Being able to ooh and ahh at Dannii and Cheryl’s clothes, get indignant about song choices, take sides in the scripted fights between the judges; it was wholesome innocent fun. During its run you could strike up a conversation with anybody about it, and have the kind of chats people had in the olden days, when people knew their neighbours, about the woman in the Post Office, but instead about Dannii Minogue, which if anything shows progress. With twitter you could instantly share your experience with friends, strangers, celebrities all watching the exact same performance, listening to the same flat note, puzzled by the same bizarre outfit Danii and Cheryl’s fashion one-upmanship has produced. Apart from celebrity deaths and maybe World War II, I can’t think of any other even that has united people in such a way.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br /> The only people you can’t talk to X Factor about are the tedious point-missers who whine that Simon Cowell is destroying the music industry. Do people honestly think somebody is going to wander into Golden Discs determined to buy Bob Dylan and leaved confused carrying a single by Alexandra Burke? There’s always been bubblegum throw away pop, there have always been manufactured bands, they’ve now just turned the process into a viciously addictive TV show. The songwriters and producers that were going to be writing the records anyway just have a new person to hang their songs on every year that’s all. Yes it is sad to hear a chorus of contestants in their early twenties solemnly declare that this is the last chance. It’s heartbreaking in as much as it’s probably true. Of course, you can have a career as a professional singer at any age, but pop stardom is truly the shortest summer. I watched last year’s live final in a gay bar in Hackney, as the winner was called out we all, strangers, held hands and prayed that little Joe would get through. Did we foresee his mediocre, follow up single? No, but don’t tell me we didn’t care.<br /><br /> <br /><br />That’s why I was disappointed by last Saturday’s flat noted return. It should have been great, since the range of songs the acts can perform seems to have finally widened. Due to licensing reasons, a wish to appeal to the broadest possible demographic and brazen cheapness, the songs previously on the show were confined to the kind of tracks usually heard on compilation albums given out in Sunday supplements. The songs “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”, “Unchained Melody” and “Smile” have appeared so many times, that they are ruined forever.<br /><br /> <br /><br />It wasn’t just the news that last week’s figures were down, that made me think the shows salad days were over. It was the introduction of twists and more acts that scared me. Messing with a show’s formats is like a once beautiful actress beginning the first tweaks with plastic surgery. You know in a few years they’ll be an unrecognisable insult to their former beauty. I got flashbacks of the once brilliant Big Brother, which gradually started convoluting their format and introducing a cast of thousands and ended with show more mangled than Meg Ryan’s face.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Secondly, after Jedward’s surprise success, this year all the judges seem to want to have their own crazy contestant. This is a bad thing. The whole point of the duos success was the audience’s unorganised decision to collectively subvert the show. Every time the po-faced judges self importantly declared they were trying to discover new talent, the viewers reminded them that is was just a silly TV show, and voted them in for another week. Simon’s decision to “embrace the craziness” and support Diva Fiver, is as deflating as a politician using your favourite song at their party conference.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />The show’s also been accused of racism for putting through two white girls who fluffed their final audition ahead of two black girls who sailed through theirs. I actually think they might have a point. I think in our culture, white people are, in general, are less impressed or surprised by black people who can sing really well. Growing up in Ireland in the eighties, I knew no non whites at all, the only black people I saw were on the tele, and it was only when I got older and moved to London I realised that I subconsciously assumed all black people were brilliant singers. I know that’s ridiculous but on TV, especially American TV, whenever any black person sings they always, always have amazing gospel voices. Part of Amy Whinehouse ,Joss Stones and Duffy’s success is that they’re white girls who sound like black soul singers, but if they were black girls with similar voices, they’d probably just be backing singers.<br /><br /> <br /><br />(You could never really accuse Cheryl of racism, her husband was mixed race and that was definitely not a marriage of convenience to raise profiles and cover up rumours of homosexuality. Also, yes, she may have been convicted for a racist attack on a toilet attendant but that was ages ago. How could she judge anybody on the colour of their skin, after last week, when she was quite clearly orange?)<br /><br />Endemic racism aside-Why don’t we feel the X Factor this year? The show’s previous trademark theme; the unfortunate wretch with a stunning voice and a tear stained back story, achieving success after a carefully plotted journey has famously been ditched this season. Those themes; the deserving working class achieving success through hard work and determination all had a very New Labour tinge to them. Anybody could make it, if they had the talent.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> Now instead of being a likeable underdog Cher, comes across as an auto tuned ASBO .The judges drool over the other most notorious contestant Katie about her uniqueness as if copying Lady Gagaga is any more unique or original than copying Britney Spears. Despite this her shrill, smug entitlement has alienated her form the public. There just doesn’t seem to be much innocence left.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />Topping the ratings is the series following the show “Downton Abbey” written by Gosford Park writer and old school Conservative Julian Fellows. The script, about a manor house before the First World War, still controlled by rigid class structures, noble obliges, and the each knowing their place is New Conservative philosophy in fancy dress. The privileged Lord of the Estate is a sympathetic, well intentioned man, willing to sacrifice his on daughter’s inheritance to ensure the survival of not only his manor but the way of life he feels responsible for. He’s David Cameron in breeches. As the government, decimates the welfare state, cuts child welfare for the top earners and raises university fees, maybe we just aren’t believing in the X Factor fairy story anymore? The X factor fairground might finally be closing down.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-56485308734317224382010-09-30T08:08:00.000-07:002010-09-30T08:09:06.487-07:00For Blake, the man that changed my life forever...Most people boast about being a good judge of character, a minority admit to being bad, I on the other hand have absolutely no judgment at all. It is my one social blind spot; a part of my personality I genuinely wish I could outsource. I know you're supposed to use wisdom, experience,morals, and then decide if you like some one or not. With me if someone is nice to me- I like them, that’s it,I've nothing more technical to go on. I could meet a mass murderer, a genocidal maniac, James Corden and if they’re nice to me; I’m screwed.<br /><br /><br />Sometimes, worried that my blanket acceptance of everyone has downgraded my opinion to worthless, I’ll decide completely arbitrarily to dislike someone. Almost instantaneously, that person will be nice to me; I’ll feel horrible and be back to square one. Lately I’ve considered just given up having opinions altogether.<br /><br /> <br /><br />When I was younger, added to this personality blindness,was the pressure of having to make absolutely everybody I met like me. The thought of choosing not to get on with someone, of deciding for myself instead of reacting to some one else’s behavior was alien and weird. My plan was to be friends with absolutely everyone, and hope for the best.<br /><br /> <br /><br />These were the life skills I was taking with me on my new life abroad.My homesickness in Italy had been as unexpected as it was pathetic. The first few days were a puffy eyed flurry of abruptly left rooms, locked toilet doors and sobbing, hiccupped nightly phone calls home that even my parents were beginning to find embarrassing. I’d become everything I’d sneered at; the girl who always had to go home from slumber parties early because she missed her Mam, the plastic Paddy who’d already found the nearest Irish pub.<br /><br /> <br /><br />For a person who had been running away from the age of four it was not what I was expecting. In my town I’d never felt like I’d fitted in, truly belonged; I always felt odd. When school friends described me affectionately as “mad” it was like nails on a blackboard- I wasn’t trying to be eccentric, I just wanted to be normal. So why was I missing so keenly a life I couldn’t wait to leave? The minute I landed in Italy, my old life suddenly seemed a haven of contentment, security and belonging. I didn’t know then how much easier it is to leave behind something you had than it is to finally give up on something that was never really there. Why else are bad relationships so much harder to let go of then the good ones? Everything felt horrible, floaty and transitory. I felt that at any minute a gust of wind would run through me and blow me away.<br /><br /><br />Convinced everything had been a massive mistake, I decided to just ride it out till I could go home, move back with my parents and forget it had ever happened.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Confident that it was a temporary holiday before teacher training I finally began to relax. Slowly I began to see some upsides to living in a medieval town in Italy for eleven weeks. Apart from my actual classes, there was the massive 19th century apartment, I was sharing with the other girls, a stone balcony that overlooked a square with a church and fountain. There was the fruit and veg market, that if I got up in time I could go to in the morning before class. I now knew that Italians wore black to weddings, that their supermarkets had aisles devoted just to pasta and that you can actually drink water out of the town fountains. These were all secrets, keyholes into a life I should never have known about. The beautiful medieval town felt like the set of Romeo and Juilet, that I was free to explore. I was also slowly making friends with the people in my class; French Canadians, an actress from New York and Finnish girls so beautiful, they made you think racial superiority had a point. I sat in the kitchen with them in the morning, sleepily waiting for the coffee to boil, with the sound of church bells ringing in the distance. For the first time in my life I wasn’t someone’s friend, or someone’s daughter, I was me. All the things I’d worried about back home, though present, felt far away like the sea.<br /><br /> <br /><br />It was then that a person walked into my life, a late arrival on the course, a lanky Australian ambling into the class and straight into my life. Blake, Blake, I will never forget you. Finally I knew I was having my first trembling grown up independent opinion about someone. I knew in an instant, that although you were fine with me , I absolutely hated you.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />Was it during our very first conversation when I patiently listened to your theory that 9/11 was a cover up, that I felt the first shiver of something starting? Was it when I hesitatingly disagreed and the sunlight hit the side of your face as you sadly shook your head and said you were just passing out seeds of knowledge? Maybe it was the tone in your voice when explained you were inspired to become a street performer because you liked connecting with people on the street and messing with their heads? Or when you described your road to Damascus experienced happened at an Alanis Mourissette concert? Or the cute way you started speaking in weird pigeon English when you were around Spanish people? I don’t know when exactly it happened but I knew for the first time in my life, without friends to check, sisters to confer, I was experiencing my first definite opinion about someone-He was a bloody idiot.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I felt like the child in the Emperors New clothes.Obviously I’d disliked people before but I’d never voiced it- what if I was wrong? But here in Italy- on my own-what did I have to loose? So I didn’t try to be friends with him, but I didn’t avoid him either and if he did anything to annoy me, I’d tell him; the sky didn’t collapse, the earth didn’t open and people didn’t hate me for being so horrible.<br /><br /> <br /><br />They actually began to agree. These cool, bohemian people from as far away as French Canada listened to my opinion.Slowly but surely my belief that he was an absolute moron, changed from a theory into an empirical fact. Class by class, as he pissed others off and people got to know him better, my protestations were proved to be true, by week two; no one was talking to him, by week three he had left under a cloud. I had a won. I hadn’t bullied him out, I just hadn’t been “nice” and it was ok.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />The night the course finally ended I was crying again. This time I didn’t want to leave; pledging to always stay in touch, to be friends forever. Part of me loved the drama of it all, the same thrill I secretly get from freakishly bad weather,<br /><br />funerals and unexpected celebrity deaths the feeling that normal service has been temporarily interrupted.I actually started challenging myself to see how many of my new friends I could make cry. I dropped in words bombs like acceptance, belonging,true friendship, and they’d start sobbing. I’d wail too and the line between sentimental dramatics and heartfelt truths got blurred.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I decided that if I had friends that cared about me, maybe I could put off giving up, caving in and going home for a little while longer. Most of them lived in Spain so I decided that I’d just move there next. No, I didn’t speak Spanish, but knew, at least,I could now spot a prick in at least one language.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-4028405062372255032010-09-27T07:56:00.001-07:002010-09-27T07:56:37.299-07:00A Dangerous MindFor some teaching is a vocation, for others a reluctant fallback, for more, like me, an absolute mistake. Fresh from university, after four years of sleeping in, living off Angel Delight and watching “Sunset Beach” I fancied the idea of being a grown up for a while. Regular money, soup for lunch, step aerobics two times a week and drinks on Friday, I would be normal, completely normal. I would wear fake tan, shop at French Connection and buy a proper handbag; after twenty two years of being the weird one, I would no longer be the freak, I would be the smug dull one, stand back, stand back: nothing to see here...<br /><br /> <br /><br />I knew straight away that I was going to be an awesome teacher, I was the English one after all and they were always the best. I’d inspire, change lives and just when all the students had fallen in love with me, go off to better things. Yes, I had no “qualifications” but I had seen “Dead Poets Society” loads of times.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I was also completely in charge of the entire English curriculum. Completely unmonitored, I just picked anything I’d studied at school and still had the notes for. I later found out that at least one play I had made the class study wasn’t actually on the syllabus. I was also at that time slightly obsessed with WW1 so any opportunity I got to shoehorn a bit of Wilfred Owen in was not missed. We studied the poetry, the novels, every now and then the students wandered in to find a WW1 fact of the day on the blackboard and as a treat at the end of term, we watched “Blackadder Goes Fourth, final episode. It was when a student genuinely asked me, if in comparison, Word War II was “not that much of a big deal” that I began to worry if I had gone too far.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> I quickly learned that when setting essays for teenagers it is imperative that you make the titles as bland and boring as possible. Any opportunity a teenager gets to write about parents that don’t understand, depression, self harm; they will. If in doubt, all stories will end with someone killing themselves. After having to carefully correct the spelling and grammar of a student’s true account of her traumatic teenage pregnancy, my essay titles quickly changed from the ambitious “What people don’t know about me” to “The summer holiday where everything went really well”.<br /><br /> <br /><br />I really tried. I organised theatre visits, lit incense sticks, burnt candles, played classical music. I did everything, save lesson plans and organise a coherent course structure that a teacher could but instead of looking up to grateful faces, impressed by the winsome hippy that was fighting the man on their behalf, all my charges wanted to talk about was Max Power magazines, Eninem or The Fast and the Furious. A student once tore up a page from their book and ate it in front of me. It was almost as if they didn’t get how cool I was. I let them cheat in exams for god’s sake?!”<br /><br /> <br /><br />Pretty soon my classes were beginning to get a bit Lord of the Fly-ey. Little did I know that those months screaming at people to be quiet, trying desperately to be listened to, liked, respected even were the best training for stand up I could wish for, but much like those brave boys at the Somme I was fighting a futile battle. By the second term I was beginning to wonder if I would be allowed a drinks cabinet in my classroom. Then I started fancying my sixth year students.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Oh Declan, mumbling, shy Declan. I didn’t mark your girlfriend’s homework down out of unacknowledged jealousy but I’m sorry for thinking about it. I’m sorry for the time I confiscated your mobile and was so tempted to root through the messages I had to give it back to you. Did I let you get away with not doing your homework? Yes. Did I imagine meeting you again years later when our five year age gap wouldn’t matter, and if anything me being your former teacher would be a great conversation starter- maybe. Living in the same small town as your students is hard for the most balanced of people, for me- I was a ticking Take a Break Time bomb.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Which was more skin crawlingly embarrassing? The Saturday night I lurched into Declan pissed at the town’s only nightclub and spent the entire night hugging and telling him how great he was? Or his Englsih class I had to teach the Monday afternoon class afterwards, still hungover, where the kind hearted wink he gave me signaled that not only was I not going to be the but of every jokes for the rest of the year, I wasn’t going to be the lead story in any tabloid papers either.I was twenty two but I suddenly felt like a predatory, sleazy old woman. In a weekend I’d gone from being Robin Williams to Sherrie Hewson.<br /><br /> <br /><br />By the end of the final term, my year of not living dangerously was coming to an end.<br /><br /> “One year back at university and with your qualification you’d have a job for life”, my parents urged, “Think of the summer holidays?<br /><br /> I stared into the mirror, at the half a stone I’d put on, the sensible haircut I’d acquired, my orange face glowing back on me and I felt true panic. Teachers, good ones, were supposed to put all their energy into their students, inspire them to fulfill their ambitions, to live their dreams. But I jealously guarded all that for myself-what about my potential, my dreams? How could I have a fall back career when I hadn’t even tried, let alone failed yet?<br /><br /><br />It became obvious I wasn’t up to it, the afternoon I had to leave an exam I was supervising because I got “a fit of the giggles”. Gasping outside the hall, I told the deputy head, I had to leave as I couldn’t stop laughing. I was really saying, I don’t want to be a grown up yet, I still want to be one of the kids, please don’t ask me back next year. There’s a divide you step over walking into that staff room. A sensible world where homework has a point, discipline a reason and teachers just want to help. It’s a small step for man, but a leap too far for Gráinne Maguire.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-65837569155495104212010-09-24T11:16:00.001-07:002010-09-24T11:16:44.478-07:00Gráinne's Mental InHouse Inventry- Day 4 (ish)I quickly decided the only way to get through the two month Comedia Dell’Arte course I had accidentally enrolled in was to Audrey Hepburn it. Much like my heroine in “Sabrina” I would spend my time in Italy improving myself. I’d survive on fruit and nibbled croissants, drink two litres of water every day and spend my weekends visiting art galleries and jazz bars at night. I would return to my home town, a chicer, thinner and more glamorous version of myself. People would say “Gráinne, you’ve changed- you’re so different” and I’d say “Oh I’m sorry, could you repeat that? My brain thinks in Italian now”.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />The classes themselves were my first challenge; Audrey had it easy. All she had to do was delicately make soufflés in Parisian cookery classes; I had to perform medieval comedy. Have you ever tried to make people laugh doing stuff you don’t find remotely amusing at all? Only the cast of “My Family” know my pain. The funniest thing you can do in Commedia is pretend you have found a flea in your hair and then pretend to eat that flea. The Mediterranean students buckled with mirth, the Canadians and Americans smiled slightly sycophantically and I like a nervous gangster with Joe Pescie shooting bullets at my feet, just kept going.<br /><br /> <br /><br />By week two even flea eating was beginning to get old. I finally found myself onstage on my own and I had depleted all the insects, in every part of my body. It was crunch time, I had to just stop messing about, stop slagging off Italian comedy and actually use this opportunity to stretch a new muscle, learn a new skill, take a chance and force myself to find my own unique voice.<br /><br /> <br /><br />“Drink! Girls!Feck! Arse!”<br /><br /> <br /><br />Now I was a joke thief. I was actually ripping off Father Ted. The fruit of my heroes’ years of hard work, the worst comedy crime, the shame, the poker hot shame... But I didn’t see looks of disgust and vanishing respect in the eyes of my expectant audience, I saw laughter and love and acceptance…because they had never seen Father Ted had they? They were all bloody foreigners; they thought I was making this fantastic grotesque old man character up myself. That simmering shame hit boiling point and evaporated into great gusts of giddy exhilaration…<br /><br /> <br /><br />“Girls! Lovely girls! Hairy Japanese Basterds”<br /><br /> <br /><br />More laughter, more love, more respect. I didn’t feel bad, I felt like an evil genius. Take that skinny, bendy, Spanish girls with olive skin, I was hilarious. By the end of the week my catch phrases were the stuff of legends. In sketches they bounced off the walls and ricocheted around the room; I’d have a cunning plan, I couldn’t beeeleive it! It suited me sir!<br /><br />The time I improvised leaning against a bar and falling through the opened counter- I was nearly carried out on their shoulders! I felt like a comedy version of George McFly, but I was not just cheating and nicking other peoples jokes for fleeting popularity, I was making an important cultural point. Nowadays humour is just funnier than medieval folk theatre. Northern Europeans are wittier than their southern friends. Every time I made an American laugh, thinking that they were enjoying Renaissance comedy in it’s purest form and really they were clapping at something I’d completely nicked from “Absolutely Fabulous” I felt the thrill of victory.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />But I had underestimated Italian theatre, I’d come to its homeland, taken the piss and I knew it was only a matter of time before the gods of Harlequin and Il Captiono made their anger felt. So when on the morning of our first acrobatics class our teacher breezily announced that the starting position was a handstand, I thought my karma had arrived. Ignoring my classmates misguided words on encouragement, I explained that the reason I couldn’t do it wasn’t about confidence, it was simply a combination of my body’s complete lack of aerodynamicy and the laws of physics and his old pal gravity. Couldn’t I just start with hedgehog rolls?<br /><br /> <br /><br />“Don’t be silly, you’ll be fine”, my classmates encouraged me. “Are we bothered? Does our faces look bothered?”<br /><br />“I will fall on my face and injure myself” I explained<br /><br /> <br /><br />But who cares, they reasoned, it’s was just us in the class, a local class for local people.We'll have no trouble here...<br /><br /> <br /><br />So as I leaned against the wall, upside down, my legs supported by two encouraging Spanish girls, my sweaty t-shirt falling over my red perspiring trembling face, exposing my wobbling belly to a cheering class. I really thought OK Medieval Theatre you’ve had your fun, we’re even now. I was wrong. Acrobatics was for only half the course, for the rest we were studying tango. It would be torture and it had nothing to do with fancy footwork.<br /><br /> <br /><br /> <br /><br />Now, I’ve always considered myself very lucky to be blessed with low standards and high expectations;in practical terms that means I will pretty much fancy any man, heterosexual or otherwise, that I spend any amount of time with. So by mid course I had massive crushes on every single guy in my class. The tango classes meant not only did my twenty two year old self have to get breath in your face intimate with every male on the course but I had to do all the grinding, all the staring in their eyes sexiness with deadly seriousness and Not. Laugh. Once. It was like a sexual confidence form of “Operation”, a Chinese water torture; my personal Room 101. Every class I’d almost combust with nervous, panicked hysterical embarrassment. My inability to keep a straight face was at first few endearing in a Baby from Dirty Dancing kind of way, but it quickly soured to annoying, curdled to irratating and set into just plain weird. The Mediterranean girls could not understand why I found it all so impossible, “Just be sexy” they reassured me, which was like asking a blind person if they ever tried just really squinting their eyes.<br /><br /> <br /><br />The final straw was when our teacher decided to sepreate the sexes and as the music played the women were to lock eyes with a man of their choosing, walk sexily across the room and claim their partner with a seductive dance. As my Latin sisters shimmied past me, I finally cracked and fled to the toilets. Hunched over the wash basin I repeated to myself” Relax, you’re Irish, we have good personalities, we don’t need to be sexy” until I could breath again. I never went back.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Being Audrey was proving harder than it looks. At weekends I’d pop on my fifties skirt, tie my shirt coquettishly at my waist and in my ballet flats wander around the old town centre. I’d sip the coffee in the square, I’d read novels late night in the cafes and I’d wander round ruins carrying bunches of flowers. But I didn’t feel winsome, carefree and young, I felt bored, empty and lonely. I wanted to go back to my home town changed but hadn’t I come all this way to escape from the place- why was I rushing to go back? But unless I returned how could I know I was changing, improving, getting better? If there was no one there to watch my transformation and tell you it was happening, how could you know it was real? What was the point? As I sipped my coffee I realised, that if I saw myself from the outside in, I’d be so envious and assume my life was perfect, like Audrey Hepburn’s in fact. The thought made my head spin and I felt like I was floating out into space.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-22421058175599385942010-09-22T07:12:00.001-07:002010-09-22T07:12:48.745-07:00Gráinne's Mental InHouse Inventry- Day 3Randomly moving to a new country on the spur of the moment always seemed to me an incredibly glamorous idea. One of my favourite films ever is “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. I became obsessed with it one school summer holiday and watched it every single day for a month. Audrey Hepburn’s Holly Golightly flits about New York, sleeping with men in a manner that makes promiscuity seem the most elegant and endearing of lifestyle choices. Again the main point of her being an exploited, lonely call girl completely escaped my attention, to me she was like “Benji-The World’s Littlest Hobo”, only with better cocktail dresses.<br /><br />The free spirited girl is my absolute favourite movie cliché; wafting in with a sexy fringed goofy smile, drinking too much, gingerly eating with her fingers and then,just when the male lead has dumped his boring nine to five girlfriend, buggering off again.<br /><br />My first attempt at being elegantly waifish wasn’t an entire success. I’d taken it into my head to teach in Korea but failed the interview when I thought it’s be hilarious to say my main qualification for the job was having seen MASH loads of times. I’d just finished university and was still convinced I was an undiscovered acting genius. That was the main reason I went to that university in the first place; to join their drama society. I made a fantastic first impression too, swaggering in like young Orson Welles, casually dropping on the auditors desk an outline for my one woman production of “Withnail and I”; Rushmore had nothing on me. My Waterloo was that week’s drama society fresher’s party when, in a fit of nerves, insecurity and cheap vodka, I got heroically pissed, made a move on the auditor and fell asleep behind a piano. <br /><br />It was so confusing. In films when the carefree girl gets drunk, if anything she gets more adorable, but to the flinty fresher’s of Dramsoc I was now socially dead. In my slobbering needy first week mess, they’d seen their own worst fears externalised and projected. If I was the uncool, eager to please, gauche newbie it couldn’t, by deduction, be them. If I had only known to swagger in the next day with a rueful smile and a devil may care wink it would all have been forgotton, but I had the nimble social skills of an articulated truck. Humiliated, I spent the next three years avoiding the place, having panic attacks just walking by their offices, a strange case of being too dramatic to do any actual drama. So on graduation I signed myself up for a theatre evening class determined to make up for lost time. <br /><br />But in a surprise twist, instead of feeling the warm glow of a creative homecoming, I found the drama classes tedious and boring. There was all this talk of text analysis, voice training and movement. Movement? Who frigging cares, I move everyday, consider it done- when do I get to pretend to be a drug addict? When the other students talked eager eyed about working with new playwrights, improvising or Commedia De’ll Arte I could barely keep my eyes open. Commedia Dell’Arte, if you’re not aware and why should you, is a hilarious form of medieval Italian theatre. Except it’s not, it’s Benny Hill in period costume, Shakespeare with just the comedy, full of men overacting, women pretending to be shephards and the audience pretending to find the whole thing hilarious. I hated it and anybody who knows me,and knows that pretending to be a medieval shepherd girl is pretty much my idea of the best thing ever; will appreciate what a damning indictment that is.<br /><br /><br />Then it dawned on me, maybe I didn’t want to immerse myself in parts, become different people, disappear into a role; maybe I just really wanted to show off. I didn’t want to play some frustrated teenager in a housing estate, I wanted to play a Queen that discovers a terrible secret and then dies for her country. I was already so good at the dying; my Barbie’s always had disfiguring illnesses and tragically passed away mourned by all, joined by a struggling to cope Ken in a suicide pact days later. Turns out there was more to acting than that. Boringness, Brecht and Bloody Breathing exercises….<br /><br />So after an entire class discussing what a poem might be about. (God. Give. Me. Strength.) I happened upon a notice advertising a comedy acting course in Italy. Now that, I thought, is something I am interested in, prat falls, hitting people with sticks, maybe learning how to do that Charlie Chaplin hop skippy heel clicky thing! I didn’t need to know anymore, I was doing it, I was finally off to see the world, my Huckleberry friend and there was such a lot of world to see…<br /><br />Two months, one handed in job notice and a one way flight to Italy later, I found myself in a dusty drill hall in central Italy. Fava, our teacher was explaining what we’d be studying over the next three months. In Italian. That’s sweet, I thought, maybe I could learn a bit of that while I’m here, mentally logging off till the English bit came, Oh, he’s talking in Spanish now. Maybe I could learn a bit of that too.... Finally the English bit came.<br /><br />“And also-Welcome, our British friends”<br /><br />Was that it? He’s been speaking in Italian for a bloody hour? Then a quick inventory of the crowded class revealed that amongst the Italians, Spanish and French Canadians, there was only three other English native speakers, glistening like a rubies in the rough, and I was pretty sure I had already fallen out with most of them already. Faltering, I turned to the Italian girl beside me and whispered how excited I was to be studying comedy acting. She looked confused, I explained again slower with added mimes.<br /><br />“You know- comic acting...we’re studying falling about… like in the black and white comedies...Charlie Chaplin?” <br /><br />“Comic acting yes, I suppose…but in Italian we call it Commedia Dell’Arte. Didn’t you read the course booklet?”<br /><br />Holy shit. I had time for a quick internal Moe from The Simpsons hands to face Waah, and it was time to start the breathing exercises.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44083753197075740.post-88727769543481249792010-09-21T07:52:00.000-07:002010-09-21T07:53:06.686-07:00Gráinne's Mental InHouse Inventry- Day 2The major lesson I’m learning this month is that when the manure hits the air con you can go one of two ways: Feel sorry for yourself and go bad luck is my avatar, stop washing your hair depressed or camp. Very Camp. This month I chose the later. I was not down and out. I was wronged and fabulous. Less Little Mo, more Scarlett freaking O’ Hara.<br /><br />Post Edinburgh Festival the plan was to take September off. I was back to Ireland for the month to gently convalesce, like Robert Downey Jr at the end of “Chaplin” but instead of staring dreamily over a lake in Geneva, wrapped in a tartan blanket with my nineteen year old child bride, I’d be watching re runs of America’s Next Top model and eating toast. That was the plan.<br /><br />Then I checked my bank balance and it politely suggested otherwise. It didn’t give me my balance as much as start laughing at me. Actual chortles. Like “Beadles About” guest starring Stephen Hawking. Personally I miss the days when your ATM just told you how many pounds you had in your financial pigeon hole. Will somebody please explain to me slowly, once and for all, the difference between your “cleared balance”, your “available balance”, and your “I hate to break it to you but that’s your balance” balance? I’d prefer if they just said “Listen we’ve rattled your piggy bank and it doesn’t sound good”. I also find their offer of advice slips patronizing. Banks offering to give me advice? That’s like Kate Moss offering parenting tips. Thanks Banks but why don’t you figure out how to stop bankrupting the country first, yeh? Then get back to me. And even then, only offer me useful advice like; stop buying a Starbucks every morning; it does not make your life more glamorous, or apply for that PGCE or go back to your natural hair colour for god’s sake.<br /><br />Anyway, it became swiftly obvious that I couldn’t just slink home for a spell of reconnecting with my Celtic Soul; I needed to start temping. Stat. I couldn’t even fall back on my old reliable medical trials; selling your body but not in a sexy way. Prostitution for people who are rubbish in bed. Like a spa but with more unnecessary surgical procedures. Yeah, they’d be tough but I was up for it, Scarlett O Hara had to fight off Yankee Carpet baggers, I could handle a week of feeling permanently carsick. I’ve done two already, one for sleeping pills which convinced my mother I was going to turn into Elvis Presley and another for a muscle relaxant. Pah, I thought, my muscles are relaxed already. It was horrible. I had to stay in the unit for a week and swiftly turned into the ward’s Jack Nicholson figure; complaining, causing trouble, playing mind games with the nurses; it started with hiding unwanted food in my dressing gown pockets and ended just before I brought in the prostitutes. (On a positive note, I now know I could definetly handle prison)<br />But there were no trials and I had rented my room out to a stranger on Gumtree till October- Whither now Scarlett?<br /><br /><br />My genius plan was just to quietly move back into my flat, sleep on the couch and hope none of my flatmates would notice or mind. How hard could it be? Yes, I’d have no key and would only be able to leave the flat when I knew they were in and yes they were never ever in, but how much did I leave the flat anyway? I had eggs in the fridge and bread. Water in the taps. My job didn’t start for another week. I could bunker in…<br /><br />By day one I was feeling just a bit weird. By day two I was so spooked and paranoid I hid in the bathroom when my flatmates came home. By day three I had gone Grey Gardens, Howard Hughes, what day is it bat crazy. Yes, I was still Judy Garland fabulous but I was heading into the couldn’t pay her bills, threatening to throw herself out the hotel window, do you want to be known as the place where Dorothy died part of her TV movie and I had a whole month to go.<br />It was around this time I had a phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to do a gig that evening. “No can do”, I monotonely explained, egg yolk flaking around my mouth, lying on my back on my living room floor in my dressing gown “I don’t leave the house anymore. Besides it’s five o’ clock and I’ve just found an old bottle of Absinthe, so my weekend’s full now”. There was a long silence and then my American friend quietly suggested I stay with her for a bit.Gráinne Maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18232575190641834543noreply@blogger.com0